Travel Blog
Canuck to American Travelers: Lose the Canadian Flag
by Eva Holland | 08.31.09 | 12:58 PM ET
Gadling’s Sean McLachlan has a message for fearful Americans headed overseas: “The world doesn’t hate you as much as you think it does.”
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Warm Bacon-y Wind of New York City
by Michael Yessis | 08.31.09 | 12:05 PM ET
Jason Logan walked New York City from tip to tip, chronicling the smells of his journey in a fantastic New York Times Op-Art piece. It looked great in print yesterday. Online, it’s better—and interactive. Click on TriBeCa and you’ll find out that while he was there Logan smelled, among other things, deep-fried something, faux-leather fanny pack and a warm bacon-y wind.
There’s great detail throughout. For instance, roll over the map and your cursor turns into a nose.
Revealed: Robert Frank’s Elevator Girl
by Michael Yessis | 08.31.09 | 11:09 AM ET
The previously unknown woman in Robert Frank’s photo “Elevator—Miami Beach,” the woman Jack Kerouac singled out in his introduction to Frank’s book, “The Americans,” has revealed herself. She’s Sharon Collins. At the time of the photo she was working the elevator at the Sherry Frontenac Hotel.
Kerouac described Collins as “That little ole lonely elevator girl looking up sighing in an elevator full of blurred demons.” In an interview with NPR this weekend, Collins said Kerouac’s description of her was “pretty close.”
He saw in me something that most people didn’t see. I have a big smile and a big laugh, and I’m usually pretty funny. So people see one thing in me. And I suspect Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac saw something that was deeper. That only people who were really close to me can see. It’s not necessarily loneliness, it’s ... dreaminess.
Here’s the iconic photo.
20 Years Later: Reading up on the Berlin Wall
by Eva Holland | 08.31.09 | 9:34 AM ET
With the 20th anniversary of the wall’s destruction coming up in November, the time seems right for a look back. Here’s a handy starting point: The Guardian’s books blog has a thoughtful list of 10 must-reads, fiction and non.
What We Loved This Week: Stockholm, ‘District 9’ and Bernstorffstraßenfest in Hamburg
by World Hum | 08.28.09 | 5:24 PM ET
Photo by Eva Holland Eva Holland
Stockholm. I was in town for an absurdly brief weekend visit—my first to Scandinavia—and I spent all the hours I could spare just wandering from island to island. Here’s one of my favorite shots:
If it’s August, it Must Be ‘Les Vacances’
by Eva Holland | 08.28.09 | 3:17 PM ET
We’ve all been there: wandering in a medieval town emptied of locals, or reading the note in our guidebook about business closures for the month of August—those pesky paid vacation days again. Global Post’s Teri Schultz takes a look at government-mandated vacation time over in Europe, and the lack thereof back in the States.
In Venice, Will Tourists Put up With the Advertising ‘Bombardment’?
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.09 | 2:06 PM ET
As Judith Martin writes, “Venice has always been frankly and happily commercial.” But it’s also taken pride in its beauty. Now that Venice is in a bad place financially, it’s turning more and more to commercial advertising that resides on and around the iconic places we all want to see when we visit. Martin’s piece in the Financial Times looks at the possible repercussions.
From Our Contributors: Vintage Hogs, Advice for Writers and The Introvert’s Corner
by World Hum | 08.28.09 | 1:37 PM ET
Some more link love for our contributors, who’ve been cropping up all over the web in recent days.
- In The Faster Times, David Farley reveals how his search for the Holy Foreskin resulted in a used-car curse.
- Alexander Basek visits Steve McQueen’s dirt bike, and other vintage motorcycles, in Miami, Oklahoma.
- Joanna Kakissis looks back at a lifetime of meze in Greece and the Dakotas—and provides some recipes, too.
- In the Oregonian, Frank Bures shares some advice for aspiring travel writers.
- Sophia Dembling, who confessed to her status as an introverted traveler and then provided some tips for her peers here on World Hum, is now blogging in The Introvert’s Corner over at Psychology Today.
Travel Song of the Day: ‘The Letter’ by The Box Tops
by Eva Holland | 08.28.09 | 12:55 PM ET
McWorld Goes Local
by Jim Benning | 08.28.09 | 12:16 PM ET
Further evidence (not that we needed it) that a globalized McWorld does not necessarily mean global homogeneity: Increasingly—though it has been going on for years—fast food franchises around the world are rolling out menu items created for local tastes.
Domino’s pizzas come topped with squid in Taiwan, black beans in Guatemala and feta cheese in Greece. In China, Kentucky Fried Chicken sells rice congee, while Col. Sanders in India woos vegetarians with offerings like the Chana Snacker, a chickpea burger topped with Thousand Island sauce.
New Orleans: The Tourists are Back
by Eva Holland | 08.28.09 | 11:43 AM ET
With the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina being marked this weekend, and the re-building still ongoing, there’s some hopeful news for New Orleans: Tourism in the city is creeping steadily back towards pre-disaster levels. USA Today crunches the numbers.
Photo We Love: Obama on Holiday
by World Hum | 08.28.09 | 10:59 AM ET
REUTERS/Jason Reed President Obama, who clearly didn’t read Tom Swick’s open letter about his vacation plans, cycles on Martha’s Vineyard.
What’s Your Favorite B-List City?
by Eva Holland | 08.27.09 | 4:47 PM ET
Over at Flyover America, Sophia Dembling praises those lesser-known towns “that are on nobody’s bucket list” but pull out all the stops for potential visitors nonetheless. Her picks? Abilene, Texas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. I’d add Vicksburg, Mississippi, to the list that’s growing in the comments.
Brit Lit and Venice: A Love Affair
by Eva Holland | 08.27.09 | 3:00 PM ET
In the Independent, Peter Popham has a thoughtful essay about the world’s—and, in particular, the British writing community’s—ongoing fascination with Venice. He writes: “Venice is the great seducer, the feminine city incarnate, risen like Venus from the waves and always threatening to sink into them again; demanding to be rescued, to be immortalised yet again by pen or brush, even though already, 250 years ago, one jaded visitor complained it was a city ‘about which so much has been said and written—that it seems to me there is nothing left to say.’”
He wraps up the essay with a list of artistic Brits who’ve gotten caught up in the city’s charms, from Lord Byron to Elton John. I’d add Jan Morris’ “Venice” to the list of worthy titles Popham mentions.
Pulitzer Finalist Takes Road Trips to Wawa, Sheetz
by Michael Yessis | 08.27.09 | 2:08 PM ET
Hank Stuever spent part of his summer traveling to the competing convenience stores throughout the mid-Atlantic, “a local sort of road trip, a mini-mart epic.” His story about it is odd and kinda brilliant. He writes about Wawa vs. Sheetz:
It’s even a toss-up to which one gets stranger as the night wears on. They come into the Sheetz on Prince William Parkway in Dale City in the darkest of night, and poke-poke-poke at the made-to-order menus on the touch-screens. Touch the picture of the sandwich you want. Touch the picture of the kind of cheese. Now touch the pictures of lettuce, the pickles. Now touch the mustard, the ketchup. The touch-screen system is not merely there to impress you. “We used to do it where you fill out a paper form and leave it in the basket, but people got smart and realized the paper at the bottom of the basket comes first, so they’d stick theirs in at the bottom and then you get problems,” Stan Sheetz says.
Also: “You would be shocked how many people can’t read and write.”
I also love this comment on the piece from JOKR715: “Finally, a fluff piece I care about!”
