Travel Blog
Jan Wong: Looking Back at China’s Darker Days
by Eva Holland | 10.02.09 | 5:26 PM ET
In a powerful column, Jan Wong, the author of Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now looks back on her complicated love affair with China—from studying abroad in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution to covering the Tiananmen Square massacre from a hotel room uncomfortably nearby. As the country celebrates its 60th anniversary this week, it’s good to see some thoughtful reflection on the dark times in China’s past, too. (Via @DougSaunders)
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Yahoo! BuzzTravel Song of the Day: ‘Changes’ by Seu Jorge
by Jim Benning | 10.02.09 | 3:13 PM ET
Introducing the ‘Walkway Over the Hudson’
by Eva Holland | 10.02.09 | 2:28 PM ET
It seems pedestrian park-bridge hybrids are really catching on. After Manhattan’s High Line opened to rave reviews this summer, Poughkeepsie, NY, has followed up with its own offering, transforming a 1.25-mile railway bridge into a state park/walkway running more than 200 feet above the Hudson River. This Just In has the details on the grand opening.
Photo You Must See: Five Little Gandhis
by World Hum | 10.02.09 | 1:56 PM ET
REUTERS/Raj Patidar School children in Bhopal dress as Mahatma Gandhi for a celebration marking the 140th anniversary of his birth.
This Week in Tourism Slogan Mishaps
by Eva Holland | 10.02.09 | 12:45 PM ET
It’s been a rough week for a couple of local U.S. tourism boards. First up, the Wisconsin Tourism Federation changed its name—to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin—after catching on that the federation’s acronym, WTF, means something different when the kids say it. And then Reno’s mayor vetoed a proposed slogan that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t mean anything at all. The short-lived idea? “A Little West of Center”—which, said Mayor Bob Cashell, “doesn’t do a thing for me.”
Indeed. As the kids might say: WTF?
Lose Your Prosthetic Leg at Oktoberfest? Check With the Fundbüro.
by Michael Yessis | 10.02.09 | 11:34 AM ET
That’s the central lost and found for Munich’s Oktoberfest, and, as you might imagine, the drunken masses lose some interesting possessions. Over the years, the Fundbüro has taken temporary custody of, among other things, “a prosthetic leg, a wheelchair, a Superman costume, handwritten notes by the composer Johann Sebastian Bach and 15,000 marks in a soiled pair of lederhosen,” writes Nicholas Kulish in the New York Times.
For more Oktoberfest craziness, check out Life’s then and now slideshow.
Photo You Must See: Virgin Over Heathrow
by World Hum | 10.01.09 | 5:02 PM ET
REUTERS/Luke MacGregor A Virgin Atlantic plane flies low over nearby houses before landing at London’s Heathrow Airport.
‘Terminal Man’ Hits the 50-Flight Mark
by Eva Holland | 10.01.09 | 4:15 PM ET
And he still has a week to go. Judging by his latest blog post over at Wired, the 30-day airport challenge is starting to wear him down. Hang in there, Brendan!
Has the World’s First Novelty Restaurant Been Discovered?
by Michael Yessis | 10.01.09 | 3:08 PM ET
Looks like it. Archaeologists in Rome claim to have unearthed a circular rotating dining room used by Emperor Nero, proving, as Felicity Cloake writes in the Guardian, that “when it comes to naff eateries, anything we can do, the toga wearers did first.”
The AP has a proper news report on the discovery:
In Praise of ‘Hindoo Holiday’
by Michael Yessis | 10.01.09 | 1:56 PM ET
Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Dirda professes his love for J.R. Ackerley’s book about his five months in India, Hindoo Holiday—both for its content and his quest to find it.
“I first read Hindoo Holiday 25 years ago because of [Evelyn] Waugh’s atypical rave, which I came across in the massive, and massively enjoyable, volume of his collected essays and journalism,” Dirda writes. “In those pre-Internet days it took a while to turn up a copy of Ackerley’s onetime best seller, and I can still remember my glee in finally unearthing that worn Chatto and Windus edition in Heffer’s bookstore during a short visit to Cambridge, England.”
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Graceland’ by Paul Simon
by Eva Holland | 10.01.09 | 1:01 PM ET
Congratulations, First Clown in Space!
by Eva Holland | 10.01.09 | 12:09 PM ET
Space tourist and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté blasted off for the international space station yesterday, red clown nose and all. Now that’s a milestone to remember.
Travel Warning Issued for Samoa, Tonga
by Eva Holland | 10.01.09 | 11:28 AM ET
The British Foreign Office is advising travelers to stay away from Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga as the islands struggle with the fall-out from Tuesday’s tsunami. Milder warnings have also been issued for Sumatra, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines.
British Airways: Introducing the ‘Son of Concorde’
by Eva Holland | 09.30.09 | 4:42 PM ET
With BA’s luxury London-New York route launching this week—exactly forty years after the Concorde’s first flight—the Independent’s Simon Calder takes a closer look at the new service, and at the history of luxury and business class-only air travel.
The World’s Connections, Mapped
by Eva Holland | 09.30.09 | 3:30 PM ET
The New Scientist has a fantastic slideshow of world maps, showing global shipping lanes, railways, navigable rivers and more. The idea? To demonstrate how “little of the world’s land can now be thought of as inaccessible.” (Via The Morning News)
