Travel Blog
Deanne Stillman’s ‘Mustang’
by Jim Benning | 06.03.08 | 6:07 PM ET
A quick congratulations to Deanne Stillman, whose new book, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, hits bookstores Monday. Last summer, we published an excerpt from the book, The Horse Spirits of Big Sky Country. “Mustang” has already earned critical praise from the likes of Tony Hillerman and Ian Frazier. Remarked Frazier: “Told with passion and skill, filled with drama and dust and fascinating facts, ‘Mustang’ is a worthy addition to the literature of the horse in the American West.” Stillman is also the author of Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango and Twenty Nine Palms.
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Yahoo! BuzzShrinking Planet Statistic of the Day: Cars
by Jim Benning | 06.03.08 | 1:19 PM ET
“There are 887 million vehicles in the world, up from 553 million just 15 years ago,” notes the AP, citing the consulting firm Global Insight. If the firm is right, in four years the number of cars will reach 1 billion.
Related on World Hum:
* Shrinking Planet Statistic of the Day: Chinese Restaurants
Photo by 91RS via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Travel Lit Criticism: When Professors Stop Making Sense
by Jim Benning | 06.03.08 | 12:24 PM ET
In the Wall Street Journal, genetics professor Steve Jones praises Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, arguing that, in contrast to Darwin’s other books, the travel memoir “sings.” Fine, but the professor loses me with this observation: “The joy of the journey was that it had a point. Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux have each written great travel books about South America—but why, in the end, did they bother? The smell of the agent, the contract and the advance hangs around their pages, but for Darwin (who was in no need of money) every paragraph exudes instead the heady scent of discovery.”
Jalalabad’s Sweet Ice Cream Shop
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.03.08 | 11:33 AM ET
You never know when you might find yourself in eastern Afghanistan in need of a little ice cream. Try Pakiza in Jalalabad, which is lit up like a casino. NPR’s Ivan Watson recently sampled the handmade, cardamom-flavored ice cream, which comes plain and topped with a tangle of thick white noodles (an Afghan specialty called jalla). His verdict? “It melts fast, but for a sweet moment offers a much-needed escape from the Jalalabad heat.”
Photo by zoonie via Flickr (Creative Commons).
In What Country Does a Gallon of Gas Cost $11?
by Jim Benning | 06.03.08 | 10:40 AM ET
Beautiful Turkey. It topped a recent survey of various nations’ fuel prices conducted by AP correspondents. I wound up discussing the article with a big, burly Turkish immigrant who runs a copy shop I occasionally visit here in San Diego. He shook his head and said with a wry smile, in a way that suggested years of frustration with the country he left behind, “At least Turkey is number one in something.”
Related on World Hum:
* The $4 Gallon Survival Guide
* Visiting Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul
Photo by Wrote via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
When Futuristic Vacation Villas Go Bad
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.03.08 | 10:29 AM ET
Taiwanese officials started building San-Zhr Pod Village in the 1960s, with every hope that it would turn out to be a hip place to visit or even live. It was supposed to be an ahead-of-its-time kind of development, with spaceship-like dwellings, an amusement park and a dam that protected it against sea surges. But the project turned out to be doomed from the start.
Back to the Garden: Woodstock Museum Opens Today
by Eva Holland | 06.02.08 | 4:14 PM ET
From time to time in high school, I used to throw my dad’s old vinyl copy of the Woodstock album (complete with crowd chants and warnings about the brown acid) on the record player, crank the volume, sit back and try to pretend that I, too, was at Max Yasgur’s farm (pictured) on a wet August weekend in 1969. Seems I’m not the only one keen to re-create the event. The Museum at Bethel Woods opens today on the site of the original concert in upstate New York, and it sounds groovy.
Violent Robberies up by Real Pirates of the Caribbean
by Jim Benning | 06.02.08 | 2:46 PM ET
Among the targets: those aboard luxury yachts off islands like St. Vincent. Reports the Los Angeles Times: “Most of the hundreds of incidents collected from 30 countries and territories over the last four years involve dinghy and outboard motor thefts or burglaries of boats while passengers were ashore. But guns and knives are being used more frequently, and dozens of incidents involving beatings and stabbings are among the crimes reported.”
Photo by lyng883 via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Airlines Will Never Charge $15 For This, Will They?
by Michael Yessis | 06.02.08 | 1:53 PM ET
Hilarious editorial cartoon by Steve Benson. I just hope it doesn’t give the airlines any more awful ideas.
China’s Panda Reserve May Relocate
by Julia Ross | 06.02.08 | 1:25 PM ET
One of China’s premier tourist attractions—the Wolong National Nature Reserve, home to the nation’s panda conservation center—may relocate due to damage sustained by the Sichuan earthquake, the AP reports. Several panda shelters were destroyed and landslides have made roads to the remote center impassable, disrupting much needed bamboo supplies. National Geographic includes this amazing video of Wolong’s cubs being rescued in the hours after the quake. Here’s hoping for a full recovery.
Related on World Hum:
* Thousands Feared Dead in China Earthquake
* Peter Hessler’s Former Students and the China Earthquake
Photo by autan via Flickr (Creative Commons).
When it Comes to Fragile Places, ‘Don’t Go’
by Jim Benning | 06.02.08 | 1:06 PM ET
Think Machu Picchu, the Galapagos, Palawan in the Philippines. Writes Dan Neil in the Los Angeles Times Magazine’s travel edition: “Travel conscientiously wherever—Paris, Bangkok, Banff—but when it comes to the most delicate and imperiled places, resist the urge to see them before they, or you, are gone. The fact is, most places in the world cannot withstand retail tourism.”
Universal Studios Hollywood to Open Today, Despite Fire
by Jim Benning | 06.02.08 | 12:42 PM ET
The popular theme park will open on time, officials said, despite a fire yesterday that destroyed part of the King Kong attraction and various back-lot film sets.
Che Guevara: Revolutionary, Icon, ‘the Guy Who Invented Those Mojitos’?
by Jim Benning | 06.02.08 | 12:13 PM ET
Uh, something like that. In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, Ben Ehrenreich reflects on Che as pop icon, Steven Soderbergh’s Che and “Chevolution,” an intriguing new documentary about the famed Alberto Korda photo.
Foreclosure Tourism: Coming to a Suburb Near You?
by Eva Holland | 06.02.08 | 11:21 AM ET
It’s not too often that you see a guided bus tour winding its way through the suburbs. But, as Wendy A. Hoke writes, it could be an increasingly common sight. Hoke took a ride on one of those suburban tour buses in Cleveland recently, and filed a compelling story about the trip for the Christian Science Monitor:
R.I.P. Paper Airline Tickets
by Michael Yessis | 06.02.08 | 10:58 AM ET
The 240 airlines belonging to the International Air Transport Association, which represents 94 percent of the world’s airline traffic, officially went digital yesterday. Most U.S. airlines had already made the switch to electronic tickets years ago, but paper tickets had remained in use by many international carriers. The IATA projects that all-digital ticketing will save $3 billion a year in costs—as well as 50,000 trees. Perhaps all the savings will allow them to bring back free snacks.
Related on World Hum:
* Airlines Make ‘Last Call’ For Paper Tickets
