Travel Blog
Delta, Northwest Merger to Create World’s Largest Airline
by Michael Yessis | 04.15.08 | 8:01 AM ET
Delta and Northwest announced plans to combine last night. “The proposed merger would be the largest U.S. airline deal ever, creating a global giant with more than 800 jets, 6,400 daily flights and nearly $32 billion in annual revenue,” according to USA Today. “The carriers estimate the value of the new company at $17.7 billion dollars, far above their current market value.”
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Yahoo! BuzzOnion: Southwest Swaps Planes for Shuttle Buses in ‘Bold New Leap’
by Michael Yessis | 04.15.08 | 7:43 AM ET
It’s “a major breakthrough in commercial aviation,” says America’s finest news source.
Thomas Kohnstamm, Lonely Planet and the Question of Eternal Damnation
by Jim Benning | 04.14.08 | 6:23 PM ET
Some writers have declared that former Lonely Planet author Thomas Kohnstamm just might be going to hell. Others charge that he’s a fraud. My take: The author of the new book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?, about his not-so-ideal experience in the travel-writing business, has said some stupid things (which he regrets). His publisher is playing up his book’s salacious details. And he may not win a Nobel Peace Prize or lifetime achievement award. But he’ll escape eternal damnation—at least on travel-writing grounds. We just posted an interview with him covering the high points of the controversy (with links to a number of stories about it). And we got to the sex stuff, too.
Anderson Cooper on the Rewards of Rough Travel
by Jim Benning | 04.14.08 | 9:33 AM ET
It turns out that CNN’s Anderson Cooper has some inspiring things to say about travel. In an interview in the May 2008 Outside, he talks up an outfitter-led trip to Africa he took at the age of 17, after coming across an ad for the company in the back of Outside magazine. Interviewer Patrick Symmes mentions that many Americans are afraid to travel to places like Africa because they think, “This is going to suck.” To which Cooper responds:
Violence, Tourism and Hemingway in Kenya
by Eva Holland | 04.14.08 | 9:13 AM ET
In the Globe and Mail, Stephanie Nolen offers alternative safari destinations for travelers scared off by the recent post-election violence in Kenya. For those of us not currently planning a wildlife-peeping trip to Africa, though, the most interesting part of the story is Nolen’s scene-setting introduction: from the normally hustling (and now abandoned) Exchange, a Nairobi bar once haunted by Hemingway himself. She writes:
Peter Hessler on C-Span’s ‘Washington Journal’
by Michael Yessis | 04.14.08 | 9:07 AM ET
The prominent travel writer—not an annoying fake one—appears on C-Span’s “Washington Journal” program this morning to discuss China issues.
Related on World Hum:
* Peter Hessler Nominated For National Magazine Award
‘Prominent Travel Writer’ Judy Grimes on SNL
by Jim Benning | 04.14.08 | 8:53 AM ET
Just kidding. No we’re not.
World Hum’s Most Read: April 5-11
by World Hum | 04.11.08 | 6:19 PM ET
Our five most popular features and blog posts this week:
1) Why the World is Avoiding America
2) Absolut on How to Lose Customers with Historical Maps (pictured)
3) How to: Use a Squat Toilet
4) Out of the Wild? Alaskan Town Considers Removing McCandless Bus
5) Inside the ‘2008 Typo Hunt Across America’
What We Loved This Week: Surfing Barbados, Onion News and Tibetan Folk
by World Hum | 04.11.08 | 6:13 PM ET
World Hum contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Jim Benning
I somehow wound up with a CD by folk singer Tendor Logchopa, who I’d never heard of before but who is active in fighting for the Tibet cause. Song titles include “Prisoner of the Himalayas” and “Sweet Suffering.” It’s not every day you hear a Tibetan folkie. I don’t know much about him—there’s not much to be learned online—but given the recent protests in Tibet and the ongoing torch controversy, he seems destined to be a hit on the coffee house circuit:
The Life of a Pilot: ‘It’s a Nightmare’
by Michael Yessis | 04.11.08 | 3:49 PM ET
Pilots sound off on what it’s like to be an airline pilot in 2008 in this New York Times story. Among the revelations: “You’re much better off going into plumbing, from a purely financial perspective.”
A Clash of Civilizations Over Disney’s ‘It’s a Small World’
by Jim Benning | 04.11.08 | 3:06 PM ET
Disneyland fans are abuzz—and many are up in arms—over news that changes are coming to the classic boat ride “It’s a Small World.” The attraction was inspired by a conference Walt Disney attended in 1956, at the invitation of President Eisenhower, aimed at promoting “world peace through international civilian travel,” according to Wikipedia. Slow-moving boats pass scenes depicting various countries and cultures, all set to music. (See this YouTube video.)
To Seattle, Guided Only by User-Generated Information
by Michael Yessis | 04.11.08 | 8:59 AM ET
A writer for Slate tried to pull off a trip to Thailand guided by user-generated information last year, but ended up purchasing a copy of Lonely Planet. Now another writer has tried a similar experiment. Wayne Curtis appears to have made it all the way through his trip to the Pacific Northwest without picking up some professional dead-tree media, but with mixed results. “For travelers, as for so many other Web users, the Internet is great for finding the needle in the haystack,” he writes in the Atlantic. “But it’s not so good at finding the haystack—at culling infinite possibilities into a manageable list of options.”
American Cancels 570 More Flights Today
by Michael Yessis | 04.11.08 | 8:37 AM ET
That brings the number of travelers affected by the carrier’s troubles this week to more than 250,000. In a Senate subcommittee hearing yesterday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller called the rash of groundings “an embarrassment to the nation.” If you’re still wondering why this is all happening, USA Today has a quick Q&A rundown.
Where in the World Are You, Carl Hoffman?
by World Hum | 04.10.08 | 6:07 PM ET
The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: writer Carl Hoffman, a contributing editor to Wired and National Geographic Traveler. His response landed in our inbox minutes ago.
Where in the world are you?
Why the New York Times Killed its Weekly Travel Essay
by Michael Yessis | 04.10.08 | 5:43 PM ET
I lamented the loss of the New York Times’ weekly travel essay in December 2004, and, as with Salon’s late Wanderlust section, I’ve felt a little hole in my travel-essay-loving heart ever since it vanished. I’m not alone. New York Times travel editor, Stuart Emmrich, is answering questions from readers this week, and he fielded one from R. Davidson, who asks, “Your articles on the inside last page were often the most interesting. Why have you dropped them in favor of a huge photo and boring explanation of why someone travels to a particular place?”
