Travel Blog
Morning Links: A Surge in Train Travel (Stories), the Truck Stop Dentist and More
by Michael Yessis | 03.09.09 | 7:38 AM ET
- Several airlines are rerouting flights after North Korea said it can’t guarantee the safety of flights near its airspace during joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises scheduled to begin today.
- The Washington Post gave President Obama’s vision for high-speed rail the front-page treatment.
- Andy Isaacson took a slow train across the U.S.—and recorded voices from the rails—for the New York Times.
- Here’s a touching piece by Jeff Greenwald about Nepal and the death of his father.
- Catherine Watson gets lost in Bahrain.
- Meet the truck stop dentist, Dr. Thomas P. Roemer of Exit 284 of Interstate 80.
- The Delta Queen is now a floating hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
- Air Asia is apparently giving bloggers the opportunity to be pilots—and some hilarious fodder in this promo video. (via @Marilyn_Res)
- Finally, congrats to the winners of this year’s North American Travel Journalism Association awards, including World Hum contributor Julia Ross.
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Yahoo! BuzzWhat We Loved This Week: Kutiman, the Scorpions, Meat (Glorious Meat)
by World Hum | 03.06.09 | 4:14 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Rob Verger
I loved this hilarious pro-flying bit by comedian Louis CK on the Conan O’Brien show. My favorite part? When he says, “Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going, ‘Oh my god, wow!’”
Valerie Conners
Meat, glorious meat! Went to one of Philly’s more interesting restaurants, Ansill, to try the special “European Barbecue.” It involved a plethora of mysterious meats (think quartered hearts and kidneys from an unidentified beast) and very tasty grilled meats served with a variety of dipping sauces. The experience brought me right back to my days living in Leuven, Belgium, and one of my fave restaurants there.
Is the Dead Sea Ailing?
by Joanna Kakissis | 03.06.09 | 2:27 PM ET
Water levels have been dropping dramatically at the giant salt lake in the last 30 years, risking the viability of the thousands-year-old tourist attraction and Biblical landmark, Science Daily reports.
Researchers at the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany, discovered that the lake has lost 14 cubic kilometers of water in the last 30 years, an alarming drop which could translate into problems such as receding shorelines that could make it difficult for tourists to access the waters and the formation of a dangerous landscape of sinkholes and mud that could also damage roads.
The high-mineral concentration in the Dead Sea—the lowest body of water on Earth, at 400 meters below sea level—has attracted health tourists for thousands of years, apparently intriguing the likes of Aristotle, Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba. Modern doctors also tell their patients that soaking in the Dead Sea can ease skin ailments. Today, the area is bustling with resorts, spas, restaurants and hotels.
The scientists say climate change hasn’t caused the drop; rather, it’s a result of spiking human water use in the area.
Happy 75th to the Great Smokies
by Jenna Schnuer | 03.06.09 | 1:30 PM ET
Photo courtesy of the National Park Service. Great Smoky Mountains National Park turns 75 this year. So go there and take a hike (or listen to some mountain music or check out the wildflowers or…) Then, come back and tell us all about it. Or, of course, if you already have a tale of the Smokies, share away.
My favorite memory of the Smokies: seeing evidence of the lives lived there before the land was designated a park. While on a horseback ride in the park, my guide pointed out a nearly perfect square of bright pink flowers. Though the cabin they had been planted around was long gone, the flowers have returned year after year to give a pretty tip of the hat to the woman who used to live on the land.
Hope for Clean-Energy Road Trips (Neil Young soundtrack included)
by Joanna Kakissis | 03.06.09 | 12:44 PM ET
I had to cheer when I read about the members of the Indian Youth Climate Network driving across 3,500 kilometers of the subcontinent in three electric Revas, a plant-oil-fueled truck, a van run on vegetable oil and another van with solar panels. They passed 15 major Indian cities to promote climate change awareness, while also advertising the effectiveness of clean-energy road-tripping. Hurray!
Momentum is definitely with them, and so is Neil Young, a master of great road songs who is transforming his 1959 Lincoln from a gas-guzzler into an electric vehicle. He’s even written a soundtrack for his electric-car project, which could inspire some clean-energy road-tripping on this continent. (Via Inhabitat)
Ryanair ‘Serious’ About Charging for Bathroom
by Rob Verger | 03.06.09 | 12:03 PM ET
The AP reports that the head of Dublin-based Ryanair is indeed “serious about making passengers pay for the right to relieve themselves on flights—and is flush with interest in the idea of mounting credit card-operated toilets.” Charging by credit card is logistically easier than charging by coin, as had been suggested earlier, which “wouldn’t work in part because Ryanair operates heavily in areas using both the euro and British pound.”
I’ve said it before about Ryanair (when they had some not-so-nice words about bloggers) and I’ll say it again now: oy vey.
What about someone who needs to go, but doesn’t have a credit card?
Morning Links: Paris Celebrates Voids, Favellywood, the Travel Bug and More
by Jim Benning | 03.06.09 | 11:03 AM ET
- Gotta love diplomatic pressure: Iranian officials say they’re going to free American freelance journalist and NPR contributor Roxana Saberi.
- Slate’s Jack Shaffer visits Africa a few times a week—thanks to the New York Times’ man in East Africa.
- Paris celebrates the art of the void at the Pompidou Centre.
- The Telegraph has put together a fine list of the 20 best travel books, including some fiction. Your assignment: Compare and contrast with our list of the best 30.
- Busted: Catalonia’s tourism officials, who used a photo of an Australian beach to represent Spain’s Costa Brava.
- Rio’s favelas + Hollywood film crews = Favellywood? One neighborhood where crews can “shoot without getting shot.” Ugh.
- Is San Diego the new super-yacht capital? I’m hanging with the wrong crowd.
- And finally, from the Travel Channel home offices in Chevy Chase, Maryland: Do you have the travel bug? Pay a visit to the Travel Bug Treatment Center. I was diagnosed a “Trailblazer.” What form does your bug take?
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Searching for the Strudel Man of Zizkov
by David Farley | 03.06.09 | 10:39 AM ET
It might have looked that way, but my Czech friend Milos and I were not aimlessly wandering the hilly streets of Prague’s Zizkov (pronounced: Zheezh-kof) neighborhood. We had a destination in mind. A few minutes earlier, the excitable Milos suddenly got an idea: “Strudel,” he yelled out. “There’s a guy somewhere in Zizkov who’s been selling the best apple strudel in Prague from a tiny shop in his apartment building. We must find him. Now.”
My stomach, which had been rumbling just a few minutes earlier, agreed. Milos began accosting people on the street with the frantic demeanor of someone who’d just realized their child had gone missing. A mother and daughter carrying plastic shopping bags pointed down the hill. A few blocks later a sinewy bearded guy walking a dog pointed up the hill. A gypsy woman standing on the street corner, inexplicably holding a plate of sauerkraut, pointed in a completely different direction. Finally we were crossing Konevova street, the busy dark avenue that splits the valley in Zizkov.
Asia’s Disaster Tourism Over the Line?
by Julia Ross | 03.05.09 | 5:27 PM ET
As we noted yesterday, two new disaster-themed tourist sites are set to open in Asia this month: a museum to commemorate the 2004 tsunami that leveled Indonesia’s Aceh province, and previously off-limits ruins and a museum related to the May 2008 earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. We can debate the pros (local economic development) and cons (unwelcome voyeurism) of disaster tourism, but the descriptions of these two new sites seem to me to cross a line.
Of the tsunami museum, the BBC reports, “Inside, visitors enter through a dark, narrow corridor between two high walls of water—meant to recreate the noise and panic of the tsunami itself.”
At the Sichuan earthquake sites, AFP reports, “Tour groups will be able to go boating on a ‘quake lake’ and visit a museum featuring an ‘earthquake simulation.’”
There’s a fun house aspect to this that I don’t like at all. It’s one thing to establish a museum to educate the public on a disaster’s impact and pay homage to lives lost, but to make the experience entertaining? It’s just plain inappropriate.
When I visited New York’s Ground Zero about four months after 9/11, I found staring into the gaping hole in lower Manhattan unforgettable enough. No simulations needed.
Nothing Breaks the Ice Like a Travel Trivia Game?
by Eva Holland | 03.05.09 | 4:31 PM ET
When I first heard about Wanderlust, the new series of singles events from New York’s travel-focused indie bookstore, Idlewild Books, I was intrigued. After all, frequent travelers might well have a different set of expectations, relationship-wise, than the stay-at-home crowd; isn’t it logical, then, that New York’s most eligible travelers would want to meet other like-minded passport holders? Well, sure. It’s a grand idea in theory. The reality, though, when I arrived at Idlewild last night to check things out, was not so glamorous.
The Man Behind the ‘Greenest Luxury Hotel’ in the United States
by Joanna Kakissis | 03.05.09 | 3:27 PM ET
Chris Colin has a glowing profile in SFGate about Phil Sherburne, the developer of the newly-opened Bardessono Inn and Spa in Yountville, California. Though Sherburne has opened his multimillion-dollar luxury resort in the Napa Valley during the worst economic stretch since the Great Depression, “Bardessono has emerged a working laboratory where best practices are developed for sustainable building,” Colin writes.
For Hong Kong’s ‘Airport Auntie,’ Apology and Upgrade
by Julia Ross | 03.05.09 | 2:21 PM ET
Remember the hysterical Chinese woman who missed her flight out of Hong Kong? Cathay Pacific has apologized for causing her public embarrassment to the tune of 5 million YouTube viewers (and many unbidden late-night talk-show appearances) worldwide. Because a Cathay Pacific staff member taped the tirade, apparently the airline felt it needed to exercise damage control. “Airport Auntie,” as she’s known, also got an upgrade on her next flight to San Francisco. (via WSJ China Journal)
Waikiki Beach Boys
by Pam Mandel | 03.05.09 | 1:49 PM ET
If you want to hear about the golden days of Waikiki, your best bet is probably to head up to the Haleiwa to the Surf Museum. Since I’m no surfing aficionado, I wasn’t exactly roped in by the displays, but I sure enjoyed the time I spent talking with the museum’s proprietor, Hurricane Bob. Ask Hurricane Bob about what Waikiki used to be like, and he’s full of stories.
I couldn’t help but think of Hurricane Bob, the North Shore and Waikiki when I stumbled over this short documentary about the Waikiki Beach Boys. It crams a whole sensibility about Hawaii, surfing, Waikiki, and beach culture into just over six minutes. Six minutes well spent, I’d say.
About Mr. Brown’s Carbon Footprint ...
by Joanna Kakissis | 03.05.09 | 12:25 PM ET
NPR Asks ‘What Makes a Good Commercial Pilot?’
by Rob Verger | 03.05.09 | 11:17 AM ET
Earlier this week, NPR’s Talk of the Nation asked, What Makes a Good Commercial Pilot? While the program began with a discussion of the casualty-free ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, the scope quickly broadened to include general factors that have influenced commercial aviation safety over the years.
I felt most fascinated by what a guest commentator on the show, John Nance, an aviation analyst and a former Boeing 737 pilot, had to say about how air travel has changed from its “golden age.”
