Travel Blog
‘Wouldn’t it be Nice if the High Gas Prices Brought Back Hitchhiking?’
by Jim Benning | 05.29.08 | 11:28 AM ET
Oh Tom Swick, how you amuse us so.
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Yahoo! BuzzFoodie Alert: ‘Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris’
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.29.08 | 10:01 AM ET
Clotilde Dusoulier, the popular food blogger from France, has written a new guidebook that features her favorite restaurants, markets and shops in Paris. The 28-year-old former software engineer’s book gives tips not only on where to find the best Tarte-Gateau Poire Chocolat (pear and chocolate cake-tart) but on how to mind your manners when it comes to dining and food-shopping with the French. (Hint: Don’t dis the food.)
Photo by grahamandsheila via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Summer Culture Tours: Hookup Central
by Julia Ross | 05.29.08 | 9:37 AM ET
For young, hyphenated Americans looking to connect with their ethnic roots in places like Taiwan and Israel, summer culture tours offer more than short courses in Mandarin, reports the New York Times Weddings section. As one college-age participant puts it, “My parents didn’t know it was a big hookup fest.”
The Polar Bear and the Canadian Arctic
by Eva Holland | 05.28.08 | 5:15 PM ET
A recent U.S. decision to ban the import of polar bear hides and other bear-hunting trophies could put an end to hunting-related tourism in Canada’s Arctic. The ban stems from the polar bear being upgraded to “threatened” status under the U.S. government’s Endangered Species Act.
Why Does He Pack So Many Books on Trips?
by Jim Benning | 05.28.08 | 3:21 PM ET
Journalist and novelist Ben Ehrenreich tells the Los Angeles Times, “I live under the hopeful illusion that I will have far more time to read than I ever end up having.” That sounds like the story of my non-reading life.
Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Che’: ‘Almost Unreleasable in its Current Form’
by Jim Benning | 05.28.08 | 2:07 PM ET
That seems to be the consensus of those who saw the biopic at the Cannes Film Festival. While Benicio Del Toro (pictured) won the best actor award for his performance of the rebel who launched a million T-shirts, critics say Soderbergh’s highly anticipated biopic, which runs no less than four and a half hours, isn’t likely to find its way into theaters soon. The film was made in two parts, the first covering the revolution in Cuba, the second focusing on Guevara’s ill-fated adventures in Bolivia. It’s “almost unreleasable in its current form in any country in the world,” critic John Powers said yesterday on NPR’s Fresh Air.
A Guidebook Writer’s Short History of Lonely Planet
by Jim Benning | 05.28.08 | 12:20 PM ET
Former Lonely Planet author Wayne Bernhardson blogs about the controversy surrounding Thomas Kohnstamm’s Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? and offers his own short history of the guidebook company. “Even assuming he wrote truthfully of everything he did ... Kohnstamm’s self-indulgent analysis of the guidebook industry was flagrantly superficial,” he writes. “Moreover, almost everyone who responded with indignation to his hype got it mostly or nearly all wrong.” We gave Kohnstamm his say here.
Related on World Hum:
* Thomas Kohnstamm’s Lonely Planet: The Firestorm Around ‘Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?’
* ‘Worst Guidebook Writer Ever?’
* Lonely Planet at 30
Oysters, Cheesecake and a Russian Girl’s Magic Pot of Faraway Food
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.28.08 | 12:09 PM ET
When Lara Vapnyar was a child living in Russia, she wrote an essay for school about the thing she most wanted a Magi to give her: a magic pot that would create any food in the world. She had grown up reading European and American novels that featured exotic delights such as cheesecake, asparagus and oysters, and she longed to know if they tasted as good as they did in her imagination. The descriptions of these foods were not only words; they took on a power that transported her to other worlds.
New Travel Novel: ‘Dear American Airlines’
by Michael Yessis | 05.28.08 | 10:46 AM ET
Author: Jonathan Miles
Released: April 29, 2008
Travel genre: Fiction—the literature of “Airworld”
Territory covered: Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, the life of protagonist Bennie Ford
Travel Headline of the Day: ‘Vancouver: The Jolly, Green Giant’
by Eva Holland | 05.28.08 | 9:39 AM ET
Photo by D’Arcy Norman via Flickr (Creative Commons)
I’m sure The Independent meant well with this effusive profile of “the world’s most liveable city.” On the other hand, I’m not so sure that Vancouver’s tourism authorities will be thrilled at the association of their fair city with canned corn niblets.
Congratulations, DK Guides
by Eva Holland | 05.28.08 | 8:53 AM ET
British guidebook publisher Dorling Kindersley has hit 50 million books sold, and the company is celebrating by putting out a pair of best-of lists: the Top 20 Buildings in the World, and the Top 20 Buildings in Britain (and Ireland). Perhaps you enjoy overanalyzing these types of lists as much as I do.
R.I.P. Sydney Pollack
by Jim Benning | 05.27.08 | 5:24 PM ET
Among other career highlights, of course, he brought Isak Dinesen’s “Out of Africa” to the big screen.
Travel and Scents: Your Limbic System is a Target Market
by Michael Yessis | 05.27.08 | 2:47 PM ET
Photo by josef.stuefer, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
We knew this last year. We just didn’t know how far hotels would go to brand themselves through scent. “Everyone is scenting. Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La, Marriott,” writes Chandler Burr in the June Travel+Leisure. “When it comes to making an impression, a comfortable lobby and high-quality service are essential, of course, but among the more subtle cues, none is getting more attention these days than fragrance.”
Why We Travel: ‘I Go Looking For God’
by Michael Yessis | 05.27.08 | 1:51 PM ET
Kelly Westhoff reveals why she hits the road in a piece on The Huffington Post. “I’m not daft. I know evil exists,” she writes. “But travel, more than any worship service I have ever attended, reveals the awesome wonder and good that exists in this world.”
Record-Setting Week Atop Mount Everest
by Eva Holland | 05.27.08 | 12:39 PM ET
The last week has been particularly eventful at the top of the world. Near-perfect conditions at Mount Everest prompted a rush to its icy reaches, resulting in a record 75 climbers reaching the summit in a single day. (The highest previous total was 63 summits, in 2002.) One of those 75 climbers was Apa Sherpa, who also set a record of his own by summiting for the 18th time. According to the CBC, Canadian Andrew Brash was also among the 75. Brash became a minor celebrity two years ago when he gave up his first Everest attempt just 200 meters from the top to rescue a fellow climber.
