Travel Blog
What We Loved This Week: Las Vegas, Maui and the Street Art of Sao Paulo
by World Hum | 08.29.08 | 2:37 PM ET
World Hum contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Valerie Conners
Maui. I’ve never had much of a penchant for island vacations, and whenever the possibility of visiting Hawaii came my way, I turned it down, asking why I would spend exorbitant amounts of time and money to fly there from the east coast when I could get my tropical fix in the Bahamas or Virgin Islands if needed. Oh, I was so incredibly wrong.
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Yahoo! BuzzR.I.P. ‘Staycation’
by Jim Benning | 08.29.08 | 1:25 PM ET
Not even in peace. Just take a rest. Yes, we all had a lot of fun with this clever new word this summer. We—travel writers, bloggers, even TV networks—lamented the high price of gas and the slow economy and declared it the perfect summer to stay home and explore our own backyards. We’ll take a staycation, we said, so pleased with the expression that self-satisfied grins followed its every use. Somewhere along the way, we lost our marbles.
‘The Internet is About the Best Thing to Happen to Geography Nerds Since the Sextant’
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.08 | 12:39 PM ET
Joshua Keating has a bit of a different perspective on the slow retreat of traditional maps than John Flinn.
New Travel Book: ‘I Wouldn’t Start From Here’
by Eva Holland | 08.29.08 | 12:11 PM ET
Full title: “I Wouldn’t Start From Here: The 21st Century and Where It All Went Wrong”
Author: Andrew Mueller
Released: August 1, 2008
Territory covered: London, New York, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Taiwan, Georgia and more.
Barack Obama and ‘The American Wanderer’
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.08 | 12:04 PM ET
Michael Powell offers an intriguing examination of the American tradition of “wanderlust ambition.” A familiar subject, but I like Powell’s angle: He gets into the story through Barack Obama’s personal story, and talks about whether or not “Americans desire a lodestar rather than a wanderer in their leaders.”
Related on World Hum:
* The 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidate Travel Scorecard
Lamenting the Decline of the Map
by Eva Holland | 08.29.08 | 10:10 AM ET
In his latest column, San Francisco Chronicle travel editor John Flinn mourns the slow retreat of traditional maps in favor of GPS units and online search engines. Maps, after all, are so much more than a means of finding your way around, Flinn writes: “An intoxicating blend of science and art, they’re a landscape painting, a history book, a political treatise and a wanderlust factory. They can seize your imagination and give it wings in a way that no set of digital driving instructions ever could.” (Via Triporati)
First Step to a Great Airplane View: Get a Window Seat
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.08 | 5:51 PM ET
Seriously. That’s the first piece of advice in an otherwise useful Travel + Leisure story by Jeff Wise. Also of note: the presentation of this story in print vs. online.
Dead Sea Scrolls Go Digital
by Eva Holland | 08.28.08 | 5:43 PM ET
A team of expert preservationists is hard at work in Jerusalem this week, aiming to make the Dead Sea Scrolls—all 15,000 fragments of them—available online as digital images. “The project began as a conservation necessity,” one interviewee told the New York Times. “We wanted to monitor the deterioration of the scrolls and realized we needed to take precise photographs to watch the process ... We realized then that we could make the entire set of pictures available online to everyone, meaning that anyone will be able to see the scrolls in the kind of detail that no one has until now.”
The Ethics of Nicholas Kristof’s Travels
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.08 | 5:17 PM ET
The New York Times columnist has famously purchased the freedom of Cambodian slave-prostitutes and taken college students with him on trips to Africa. He’s even said that travel should play a central role in American education. His heart is surely in the right place. But is he ethical?
The Art of Noticing: ‘People Don’t Notice That Noticing is Important!’
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.08 | 4:57 PM ET
Intriguing conversation between Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg about “the importance of being aware and the advantages of tapping into your ‘super-noticing power.’” The emphasis is on design, but the exchange covers much for travelers and travel writers to think about. (via Kottke)
New Orleans Keeps An Anxious Eye on Hurricane Gustav
by Eva Holland | 08.28.08 | 1:40 PM ET
Although the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina falls tomorrow, residents of New Orleans have another major storm on their minds. Hurricane Gustav, currently hovering around Cuba, is expected to pick up speed over the Gulf and could arrive in southern Louisiana and Mississippi by late Sunday or early Monday.
Ever Had Your Computer Freeze While Booking Tickets Online?
by Jim Benning | 08.28.08 | 1:30 PM ET
This guy did and called Expedia to see whether his airline ticket purchase went through. It did not, he was assured. So he booked the flights again, only to see on his credit card bill later that he was charged for both purchases. Fortunately, Christopher Elliott came to his rescue, but among other things, it’s a good reminder to review those credit card bills carefully.
‘Golfcations’? Enough Already!
by Eva Holland | 08.28.08 | 12:48 PM ET
Sure, I’ve done my bit to contribute to this summer’s -cation craze. But even I think that this time, Forbes Traveler has gone too far. Golfcation? Really?
The Next ‘Into the Wild’? With a Touch of ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’?
by Jim Benning | 08.28.08 | 11:07 AM ET
I’ve no idea whether there’s a book or film in the works based on this recent front page story in the Los Angeles Times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. It’s the story of Joe Sanderson, a Midwesterner and idealist who set off on a life of travel and adventure back in the mid-1960s and died in 1982 while fighting for leftist guerillas in El Salvador. Sanderson kept a diary that “lay neglected and unread for decades” and has been held by a guerilla vet from the war. The Times’ Héctor Tobar was apparently the first outsider to get his hands on it.
North and South Poles: What’s the Difference?
by Jim Benning | 08.28.08 | 10:38 AM ET
The differences are vast, of course. I just came across North vs. South Poles: 10 Wild Differences, an interesting and quick read.
