Travel Blog
24 Hours in Airworld: Morning in the Terminal
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 8:14 AM ET
I slept, kind of, for a couple hours, my blue rain jacket pulled over my head. I had managed to get a good spot on one of the leather couches by Gate 14, and awoke early this morning as Flight 819 boarded for Santo Domingo in a loud rush of Spanish. (Did you know that, in keeping with airport superstition, there’s no Gate 13 here?)
Outside, the expanses of the Kennedy airfield I can see now are gray with fog. A tall cup of coffee (the Illy place has been open since 4:30 a.m.) is making this morning feel a little more manageable. But now I’ve been hanging out here for about 20 hours, and a lot of that time has been somewhat less-than-fun.
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Yahoo! Buzz24 Hours in Airworld: An Empty Terminal
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 2:21 AM ET
Photo by Rob Verger The terminal empties out for the night.
24 Hours in Airworld: Late Night Sports Fans
by Rob Verger | 06.10.09 | 12:12 AM ET
Photo by Rob Verger A few basketball fans linger as the terminal gets quieter.
24 Hours in Airworld: Mall or Airport?
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 11:21 PM ET
Photo by Rob Verger The beat goes on here at T5. Last I checked—at around 10:20 pm—JetBlue still had about 15 more flights to get out tonight (delays were frequent today with the bad weather), and then the first flight out tomorrow morning is the 5:45 to Puerto Rico.
While delays may be bad for the traveler, they’re good for the restaurants in the terminal, including Deep Blue, where I ate a quick dinner of tasty but too-spicy Pad Thai followed by a big cup of green tea. (Anything to warm me up in this hostile, freezing environment.) I enjoyed sitting in the white and blue bar space there, looking out at the rest of the terminal as things began to wind down. From the shopping area here, as I mentioned before, it’s hard to tell you’re in an airport. (Although the people walking by pulling suitcases are something of a giveaway.)
24 Hours in Airworld: The Airport Bar
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 8:20 PM ET
Photo by Rob Verger Airport terminals are, by their nature, transitory places. Nearly 12 million people flew through Kennedy airport on JetBlue (the largest carrier here, measured by passenger volume) between March 2008 and March 2009, according to numbers from the Port Authority. And so I’ve often wondered: Do airport restaurants and bars have regular customers? Do they have a rhythm to them, the way other places might?
I ate lunch today at a tapas place called Pequillo here in T5, and afterwards, went and sat at the place’s bar, which is set in a cave-like space where it’s easy to forget you’re in an airport. (It advertises itself as the first tapas restaurant in an American airport.) I talked to the gracious bartender there, Kenia, regarding my question about airport bars and regulars. She was born in Honduras, and now lives in Brooklyn, and says that regulars—maybe 20 or 30 different people—come in about twice a week. “If you remember their name, and whatever they drink, it makes them feel good, I guess,” she said.
Finding Trouble in Asia: Let Us Count the Ways
by Julia Ross | 06.09.09 | 4:31 PM ET
Is it me, or has it been a surreal few months for Americans in Asia? Guidebook writers and State Department travel monitors, take note: a few new travel “don’ts” have entered the lexicon. To recap, here’s what we know not to do next time we journey East.
24 Hours in Airworld: Terminal 5, Old and New
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 3:11 PM ET
It was raining this morning in New York City as I made my way to J.F.K. to spend 24 hours hanging out in JetBlue’s Terminal 5. Every time I come to this airport, I’m reminded how far away it is from Manhattan. I took the 1 Train to the 2 Train to the E Train to the AirTrain to get here—a trip longer than some short flights.
On the elevated walkway from the AirTrain to T5, I was able to look out on the old Eero Saarinen TWA terminal—JetBlue’s new terminal sits in front of the beautiful, soaring old building, which is currently closed for renovations and is under the management of the Port Authority. Once it opens, JetBlue will have two self-service kiosks in there, and there’s a rumor that the building could one day become a museum—or a pod hotel. Today the building sat there closed, under gray skies, a landmark from another era, connected to the new building through the old tubes.
Kilauea’s Hot Summit
by Pam Mandel | 06.09.09 | 12:48 PM ET
It used to be that you had to go to the end of the winding Chain of Craters road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park if you wanted to get a look at hot melted planet. I’ve never done it—once the road was closed due to excessive volcanic activity, and once there wasn’t time and once ... Oh, my excuses are endless.
But if you’re on the Big Island right now, you don’t have to make that trip. According to the L.A. Times, Kilauea is “glowing brightly as molten lava swirls 300 feet below its crater’s floor, bubbling near the surface after years of spewing from the volcano’s side.”
JetBlue’s New T5: A Nice Place to Live?
by Rob Verger | 06.09.09 | 10:54 AM ET
JetBlue’s terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport sparkles. At a cost of $743 million, the 635,000-square-foot terminal known as T5 opened in October 2008. I’ve passed through it twice and was impressed with how bright and scrubbed clean it felt. And it offers what every terminal needs: free Wi-Fi.
This last detail makes it perfect to work from—perhaps even, for a very short period of time, to live in.
So starting today, with the permission of the good folks at JetBlue, I’ll be living in T5 for 24 hours and blogging about it as I go. I’m not flying anywhere. I’m headed to the airport just for fun and will spend a full day and night writing about the pulse of the place and anything else that comes up.
Morning Links: Machu Picchu on the Cheap, a Milestone Cross-Country Drive and More
by Eva Holland | 06.09.09 | 8:16 AM ET
- 100 years ago today, Alice Huyler Ramsey, the first woman to drive cross-country, left New York for San Francisco. The trip took 41 days and 11 spare tires.
- In the New York Times Happy Days blog, Pico Iyer reflects on life in New York and Kyoto, and on “the joy of less.”
- Cue up a YouTube clip of Blame Canada: Researchers from the Smithsonian have traced the geese that brought down US Airways Flight 1549 back to Labrador.
- World Hum contributor Kelsey Timmerman recently sat down for an interview with Budget Travel’s This Just In.
- Arthur Frommer isn’t impressed with that bill to restrict the use of full-body scanners at airports, currently making its way to the Senate. He calls opposition to the scanners “misguided.”
- Matador Trips has advice on how to see Machu Picchu for just $80 all-in.
- The Telegraph looks at some of the measures airlines are resorting to in an effort to cut down on weight and fuel consumption. Among them? Japan’s JAL has shaved down its cutlery.
- New York City’s High Line opens today. The High Line Blog has photos and a short dispatch from yesterday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
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‘The Bachelorette’ Meets the Rocky Mountaineer
by Eva Holland | 06.08.09 | 4:38 PM ET
British Columbia and reality TV: together at last.
For any BC-philes out there who want to catch an eyeful of Canada’s westernmost province (and don’t mind swallowing a televised dating show to do so), here’s a heads-up that “The Bachelorette” kicks off a three-episode tour tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Bachelorette Jillian will bring her remaining suitors north of the border to her hometown, Vancouver, for sea kayaking, curling and—I hope for their sake—a taste of the city’s abundant Asian food offerings. Next week brings adrenaline thrills in Whistler and, on June 22, the trip concludes with a ride on the Rocky Mountaineer—from everything I’ve heard, a trip that is jaw-hits-tray-table stunning.
Samurais and Maharajas: It’s an Asian Art Summer
by Julia Ross | 06.08.09 | 3:34 PM ET
I’m fortunate to live in a city that’s home to one of the best Asian art museums in the world—the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Gallery—but I’m not averse to traveling to see a really great museum or exhibit elsewhere. In fact, on a trip to Dublin last fall, I spent an entire afternoon immersed in the wonderful Chester Beatty Library, gazing at Persian paintings and Islamic manuscripts. I know, I know—I was supposed to be out drinking Guinness, but I couldn’t help myself.
Parsing East-Meets-West Sex
by Julia Ross | 06.08.09 | 1:33 PM ET
Well, well. The Asian sex trade seems to be a popular literary theme this summer. While Lawrence Osborne’s latest book, Bangkok Days, examines the issue of loneliness among Western men prowling the streets of Thailand, another new book, The East, The West and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters, takes a more academic approach to what author Richard Bernstein calls “an old and enduring story.”
About Those Souvenirs: Made in Hawaii?
by Pam Mandel | 06.08.09 | 10:22 AM ET
I find souvenir shopping tricky. I like things that really scream of place or are packed with a trip’s significance—no pressure, souvenir makers! I was eager to buy a Hawaiian-made uke on my last trip, though the one I ended up getting is more global than I’d have ideally liked—the parts are made in Indonesia and shipped to Oahu for assembly. Is it made in Hawaii? Sort of.
Morning Links: Learning to Love France, Angkor Wat at Night and More
by Eva Holland | 06.08.09 | 8:26 AM ET
- In the Telegraph, Michael Simkins attempts to overcome his “good old Anglo-Saxon prejudices” and learn to love France.
- More bad news from Mexico: A group of tourists was evacuated in Acapulco over the weekend after a shoot-out broke out between soldiers and gunmen nearby.
- The Washington Post worries about the fate of Chesapeake Bay as human impact increases. There’s a lovely accompanying photo gallery.
- A bill placing restrictions on the use of full-body scanners at airport security has made its way through the House and on to the Senate.
- In the New York Times, World Hum contributor Evan Rail checks out Budapest’s growing design scene.
- Cambodia may open up Angkor Wat to night tourism to draw more visitor dollars: Good news for night owls, but bad news for the already under-pressure site?
- National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel has a preview of some of the post-renovation additions to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
- Scotland’s Scotch Whisky Association is taking its trademark battle against a Cape Breton single malt—Glen Breton—all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court.
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