Travel Blog
Former Boeing Engineer Questions Safety of 787 Dreamliner
by Michael Yessis | 09.18.07 | 5:47 PM ET
Boeing’s highly touted new 787 Dreamliner isn’t scheduled to carry its first commercial passenger until next year, but it’s already facing tough criticism. A former Boeing engineer who was fired “under disputed circumstances,” according to the Seattle Times, says the 787 Dreamliner’s innovative carbon-fiber composite body may make it unsafe because it “will shatter too easily and burn with toxic fumes” during a crash. Vince Weldon, a 46-year-veteran of Boeing, according to the Times, will air his views tonight on Dan Rather Reports, an HDNet program.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Palin Effect’: Next Stop, Eastern Europe
by Julia Ross | 09.18.07 | 2:42 PM ET
Likeable travel host Michael Palin launched a new series on BBC over the weekend, and UK tour operators are bracing for the fallout. It seems Palin’s “New Europe” series—in which he explores the length of Eastern Europe, from Estonia to Albania—could trigger something tour companies have dubbed the “Palin Effect”: a spike in bookings to any country the Monty Python alumnus highlights. “Previous Michael Palin series including Himalaya and Sahara resulted in a surge of interest in countries such as Bangladesh that were previously not really on the tourist map,” one tour operator told the Telegraph. “We were surprised by the effect it had.” Let’s hope Palin’s fans leave a lighter footprint than the stag party weekenders lately buffeting cities like Riga and Prague.
Related on World Hum:
* British Secondary Schools Add Michael Palin’s ‘Himalaya’ to Required Reading List
* Prague Latest Magnet for Misbehaving Brits
Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Destinations: Prague
Northwest Passage Open for Business?
by Eva Holland | 09.18.07 | 12:30 PM ET
When we picked the Northwest Passage as one of our Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet, we didn’t anticipate just how apt the “shrinking” moniker would be. The AP is reporting that the Arctic ice has reached its lowest-ever recorded level, meaning that a navigable passage could be open much sooner than previously predicted.
The Eiffel Tower: A View From Underneath (Pig Fat Included)
by Terry Ward | 09.18.07 | 10:27 AM ET
Photo by rayced, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
A story from the always intriguing Time Zones series in the Washington Post gives a view of Paris few tourists see—and from the city’s most iconic landmark, no less. Molly Moore’s foray into the inner workings of the Eiffel Tower, as experienced alongside the head of services for the tower’s operations, one Fabrice Fevai, gives a ground-up view of Gustave Eiffel’s coup de grace. “People enter the Eiffel Tower as though it’s a monument with lots of iron,” Fevai tells Moore, while threading his way through a sea of milling tourists. “But the Eiffel Tower is like a factory—they don’t even realize what’s underneath.”
The New Native American Tourism: More History and Culture. Less Truck Stop Wooden Chiefs.
by Michael Yessis | 09.18.07 | 9:56 AM ET
During the last decade or so, South Dakota’s Lower Brule Sioux tribe has made an effort to transcend the cliches and kitch that have colored the perceptions of Native Americans. World Hum contributing editor Frank Bures recently spent some time on the Lower Brule Reservation with Scott Jones, leader of the tribe’s cultural protection and tourism efforts, and his story for the Washington Post Magazine’s travel issue reveals some intriguing successes.
The Sen. Larry Craig Bathroom at the Minneapolis Airport: ‘It’s Become a Tourist Attraction’
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 4:53 PM ET
This was inevitable. “When tourists ask for the bathroom in the Minneapolis airport lately, it’s usually not because they have to go,” reports the AP. “It’s because they want to see the stall made famous by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest in a sex sting.” Karen Evans, information specialist at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, says it’s become a tourist attraction and that “People are taking pictures.”
‘Girls of Riyadh’: Saudi Arabia’s ‘Sex and the City’?
by Eva Holland | 09.17.07 | 12:40 PM ET
In June we blogged about one Western woman’s experience traveling under the abaya in Saudi Arabia. Now, Rajaa Alsanea’s debut novel, Girls of Riyadh, offers a look at the experiences of the women who spend their entire lives negotiating Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic code. The book, which is being called “Sex and the City, Saudi-style,” was recently released in North America and the UK; it already boasts bestseller status in Germany and the Netherlands as well as a banning in Saudi Arabia itself.
Vardo, Norway: Life at the Arctic Edge of Europe
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 12:13 PM ET
Boston Globe writer Tom Haines gave us a hint of what life is like in Vardo, Norway last month, when we caught up with him there for a Where in the World Are You? post. He wrote of thick fog, climate change and pizza with shrimp, green pepper and scallion. His Vardo story for the Globe has now surfaced, and it’s a detailed look at the 700-year-old village “anchored atop a treeless island just off the eastern edge of the mainland” that’s beginning to deal with the changes brought forth by global warming.
Searching for ‘Hermano del Sol’ in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico
by Terry Ward | 09.17.07 | 10:36 AM ET
Any travel story that starts with a teaser like this one is worth curling up with a coffee for: “Really, there is plenty to do in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, without going on a quest to find a middle-aged Mexican hippie who makes bongos.” But I enjoyed reading Ben Brazil’s Washington Post story about his experience in the mountainous Chiapas town for other reasons, too.
Plane Carrying Tourists Crashes in Phuket, Thailand
by Michael Yessis | 09.17.07 | 9:34 AM ET
More than 80 people were killed, including more than 50 foreigners, when an MD-82 operated by the budget airline One-Two-Go crashed Sunday on Phuket, Thailand’s popular resort island. News reports vary on the exact number killed and injured, but many note that it was Thailand’s worst air disaster in a decade.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: It’s Elemental
by Michael Yessis | 09.14.07 | 12:50 PM ET
‘A Big-Rig Career Change’: Boomers Hit the Open Road
by Eva Holland | 09.14.07 | 12:14 PM ET
We’ve all thought about quitting our jobs, filling up the gas tank and giving in to the lure of the open road. Now comes a story not about 20-somethings acting on the urge, but 50-somethings. The Globe and Mail reports that an increasing number of baby boomers are taking up long-haul trucking as a second career. One-third of the drivers at Schneider International, the largest trucking firm in North America, are in their 50s or older—an increase in that age group of 46 percent from two years ago.
Border Stories: A Journey to Korea’s Joint Security Area
by Michael Yessis | 09.14.07 | 12:01 PM ET
North Korea and South Korea meet at just one place, the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom, about 40 miles north of Seoul. The demilitarized zone, the mine-riddled buffer between the two countries, doesn’t extend there. Instead, “on the demarcation line itself stand five huts,” writes the Telegraph’s Alex Bellos about a trip to the JSA. “In the middle one, which tourists are allowed to enter, the line bisects the middle of a shiny, wooden negotiating table. Meetings between the two nations still go on here. Once in the hut, you can walk round the table—thus stepping a few yards into North Korea.” Bellos provides a brief but insightful look at the JSA, with some telling details about the efforts of both sides to control the propaganda war tourists are inevitably sucked into.
Where in the World Are You, Joanna Kakissis?
by World Hum | 09.13.07 | 5:53 PM ET
The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: Joanna Kakissis, a new contributor to the World Hum blog. Her response landed in our inbox yesterday.
World Hum: Where in the world are you?
‘Human Horses’ Defy Calcutta Rickshaw Ban
by Eva Holland | 09.13.07 | 12:00 PM ET
For more than a century, hand-pulled rickshaws have rolled through the busy streets and narrow alleys of Calcutta—or Kolkata (yes, we got the memo). But last month the BBC reported that the state government of West Bengal would be banning Calcutta’s famous human-powered transport. Now, the AFP has released this video report showing both rickshaw pullers and regular customers voicing their opposition to the ban. One customer noted that they were the only affordable transport for the injured or the sick, and wondered about compensation or re-training for the pullers. One rickshaw-puller said simply, “I have never done anything else.”
