Travel Blog
World Hum’s Most Read: Feb. 14-20
by World Hum | 02.20.09 | 5:58 PM ET
Photo by Sophia Dembling Our five most popular slideshows from the past week:
1) Dipping Into the Ex-Boyfriend Archives
2) My Travels, My Feet (pictured)
3) Inside Slum Tourism
4) Hawaii: Holoholo Wale
5) Return to Nepal
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Yahoo! BuzzWhat We Loved This Week: Walker Evans, Obama Fever and Blame Ringo
by World Hum | 02.20.09 | 5:16 PM ET
Pam Mandel
This is a super short radio documentary, but wow, I could almost smell the smoke. Rabbit Hunters—an audio snapshot in blazing sugar cane fields—is by Michael Ozug and it’s on Sound Portraits.
Sophia Dembling
I just knew Walker Evans and I had something in common. Postcards! I can’t wait to get back to New York to see Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—especially the “bank of postcards that offer plunging views down the middle of scores of American Main Streets, an almost scary tribute to the country’s can-do spirit, can-doing again and again.” For now, I’ll make do with the slideshow.
2008 Travel Movie Awards
by Eva Holland | 02.20.09 | 4:27 PM ET
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist The Oscars are looming, and in keeping with the season I’m thrilled to announce my second annual Travel Movie Awards. As I noted last year, these picks rate high on the arbitrary scale and are not intended to be comprehensive: this is just a collection of movies (and movie moments) from the past year that got me thinking about travel, and about places new and familiar.
Most Adorable/Unusual Tale of Indie Love in New York
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
There is never any shortage of romantic comedies set in the Big Apple, but most directors opt to focus on the entanglements of young professionals (bewildered new-to-the-city female journalists, more often than not), and to set the action in or near Central Park. “Nick and Norah,” in contrast, follows a pair of suburban, straight-edge teenagers through the live music venues of lower Manhattan—and captures my heart in the process.
Slate’s Dana Stevens said it better than I can: “Some people really were made for each other ... and New York does look beautiful by night. You got a problem with that?”
A Presbyterian at the Peabody: Cocktails Across America
by Jenna Schnuer | 02.20.09 | 3:14 PM ET
Cocktails are nice. So nice. David Farley’s marathon drinking session in India got me thinking: what U.S. cocktail-drinking experience would I like to relive? Some may laugh but, after a crapola week, I’m craving the simplicity and sweet ease of drinking a Presbyterian while watching the Peabody Hotel ducks march their way into the lobby fountain. Sounds pleasant right about now, eh?
Yours?
Gov. to Hawaii: Tear Down This Clothesline
by Pam Mandel | 02.20.09 | 12:26 PM ET
From the Pacific Business News:
A similar bill, jokingly referred to as the “right to dry bill” passed the Legislature in 2008 but was vetoed by Gov. Linda Lingle.
House Bill 1273, introduced by several environmentally conscientious House representatives, includes language that says a residential board may implement “reasonable restrictions with regard to the placement of the clothesline so long as the restrictions do not prohibit clotheslines altogether.”
Ah, the politics of a tourism-driven economy. I’m going to stick my neck out and guess that the reason the gov vetoed the bill was hefty lobbying about aesthetics from resort developers and tourism boosters. “All that underwear is going to wreck our view!”
Confession: I’ve shot photos in any number of European towns of laundry drying on the line. The Italians seem to do a nice job making laundry aesthetic. I’d be hard pressed not to be giddy at the sight of a line full of Aloha shirts flapping in the Hawaiian breeze.
And the Eco-Vacation Oscar Goes to ...
by Joanna Kakissis | 02.20.09 | 11:33 AM ET
Host Hugh Jackman and the losers! As part of a sweet “Everybody Wins at the Oscars!” deal, tour operator Lindblad Expeditions will host Jackman, all the non-winning acting nominees and best director nominees on a 10-day trip to the Galapagos, National Geographic Adventure reports.
I’m dying of jealousy, and not because I want to hang with Brangelina and the rest of the glitterati—but with the ancient tortoises and Galapagos penguins! Hope, too, that this announcement doesn’t mean a crush of paparazzi and crazed fans trampling on these fragile enchanted islands.
How about if Lindblad just sends me and my little footprints instead?
Missing Mardi Gras
by Jenna Schnuer | 02.20.09 | 10:23 AM ET
There’s a gaping evil awful hole in my collection of travel experiences: not only have I never been to Mardi Gras, I’ve never even been to New Orleans. (OK, while I’m admitting to things, I’ve never seen “The Godfather” either but I guess that’s an issue for another website.)
While I won’t be able to correct the situation by this year’s Mardi Gras, I plan to right the wrong come 2010. In the meantime, I’ll continue to obsess from afar. With a piece of King Cake and a ridiculously tall plastic cup filled with some sort of soul-drenching beverage by my side, I’m going to read and watch as much as I can about both Mardi Gras and New Orleans. After the jump, some of the goodies in my from-afar primer.
RVing on the Cheap
by Eva Holland | 02.20.09 | 9:51 AM ET
Over at Gadling, Anna Brones Alison Brick has dug up a way to go RVing for just $24 a day. The catch? You have to be headed either to or from Mesa, Arizona, where Cruise America’s headquarters are located. Check out the “Rolling into Arizona” and “Rolling out of Arizona” sections on the company’s Hot Deals page to see where the discounted vehicles are currently available; you’ll need to apply three days in advance, and all rentals are first-come, first-served.
Morning Links: 50 Great Travel Tweeters, Shark Attacks and More
by Michael Yessis | 02.20.09 | 8:33 AM ET
- Seaside vacations are down, and, therefore, so are shark attacks.
- Transitions Abroad reveals how to, well, transition abroad after getting laid off or fired from a job.
- Ryanair plans to allow mobile phone use on all its flights.
- Much of John Wray’s latest novel Lowboy takes place in the New York Subway system. In fact, Wray wrote the novel on the subway.
- Here are 71 photos of “interesting and bizarre peoples” on subways. (via Coudal)
- TSA tests full-body scanners in Tulsa.
- Among the 16 things Esquire says Canada is good at: Music that always stops just short of making you want to kill yourself.
- Larry Portzline lists 10 ways to tap into Bookstore Tourism.
- The Telegraph lists 50 great travel tweeters, including one “from the editors of the best global travel blog.” Thanks, Telegraph! Thanks and congrats, too, to World Hum’s lead tweeter, Valerie Conners!
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The Doughnut Curse
by David Farley | 02.19.09 | 5:29 PM ET
Everyone’s talking about how hamburgers have become the default economic depression meal for Americans. It’s possible we’re eating more burgers these days, but the resurgence in hamburger eating hit the American taste bud a few years before the DOW started going south.
Let me make the case for the doughnut as the Official Food of the 2009 Economic Crisis. Like dumplings and Regis Philbin, there’s a version of the doughnut in just about every culture around the world. But there’s something particularly American about those hunks of sometimes-fruit-filled fried dough. It could be the venue in which we consume doughnuts, the nostalgic, ‘50s-era quality of doughnut shops, which has quietly disappeared from our strip malls. Or maybe it’s because doughnuts have been consumed on this continent for thousands of years—archeologists recently unearthed a prehistoric doughnut.
An Oil Rig Resort and Spa in the Gulf of Mexico?
by Joanna Kakissis | 02.19.09 | 4:29 PM ET
Morris Architects won the grand prize at the 2008 Radical Innovation in Hospitality awards by using an abandoned oil rig to design a luxury resort with more than 300 suites, a fancy restaurant and ballroom, a casino and “stargazer lounge,” and a rooftop infinity pool.
Could be a great idea, though oil companies are still hoping to explore the next petroleum frontier in the deep sea of the Gulf (and through five miles of rock, salt and packed sand). But if the United States ends up embracing Thomas Friedman’s energy technology revolution (as I hope!) and the oil-rig resorts catch on, I hope they don’t end up dumping their waste into waters already plagued by “red tide” algae blooms. Eco-resorts only, please. (via Treehugger and Jetson Green.)
Nebraska! Whodathunkit?
by Sophia Dembling | 02.19.09 | 3:36 PM ET
I don’t know what became of my Nebraska sweatshirt. It vanished many years ago and I still mourn the loss.
I bought the bright red (go Huskers!), short-sleeved sweatshirt in a thrift shop and wore it for years after my first (and so far only) visit to Nebraska in the late 1970s.
Taking Black History Month to ... India?
by Julia Ross | 02.19.09 | 2:24 PM ET
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is apparently making good use of cultural diplomacy early in her term. Before she departed on her current Asia tour, Clinton sent a delegation of U.S. congressional representatives, civil rights leaders and musicians, including Herbie Hancock and Chaka Khan, to India to commemorate U.S. Black History Month. The group includes Martin Luther King III, who is retracing a trip his parents, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, took 50 years ago to study Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence.
Meanwhile, Hancock, Khan and jazz students from New Orleans will perform at concerts in Mumbai and New Delhi, then jam with students at the Ravi Shankar Institute of the Performing Arts. I’m pleased to see the group continue a long tradition of U.S. jazz ambassadorship abroad.
Saving the Hotel Industry—With Models!
by Alexander Basek | 02.19.09 | 1:13 PM ET
It’s not all Singapore Slings over at Raffles HQ. Nope, they’re also quite proud to have made the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. That’s Raffles Canouan Island behind Bar Refaeli. (OK, it took me a little while to get my eyes off the foreground. Apologies). The hotel is also offering a package simulating the experience the models had, complete with a tour of the property where the shoots took place. Without the models on hand, it doesn’t have quite the same luster, but it’s still an interesting concept.
But is “Bar Refaeli writhed here” reason enough to visit a hotel? Unless you’re a creepy, creepy person, it is not. As nice as Canouan is—that is to say, nice enough to host a of bevy models—Raffles’ get says more about the Swimsuit Issue than anything else. It’s very hard for hotels, especially high-end hotels, to break through these days when the news is mostly bad and super deluxe amenities all start to sound the same. Having a supermodel or two in your back pocket can’t hurt, especially when Americans still stop and pay attention to SI’s annual fleshfest even as the rest of the magazine industry plummets. The lesson here? Make the Swimsuit Issue twice yearly, to save the hotel industry.
R.I.P. Sigurdur Helgason
by Rob Verger | 02.19.09 | 12:41 PM ET
Sigurdur Helgason, who died Feb. 8 at the age of 87, is credited with growing the airline that became known as the “hippie airline.”
“Mr. Helgason built up the United States market, carrying tens of thousands of budget travelers to Europe on what is known today as Icelandair,” his obituary reports.
The article quotes his daughter, Edda, as saying, “He opened up the opportunity for people in America to appreciate the value of Europe, and Europe of America, and there was Iceland, perfectly located, in between.”
