Travel Blog
What We Loved This Week: Roadside Cinnamon Buns, Off-the-Beaten-Path Ethiopia and a Good Rant
by World Hum | 07.23.10 | 6:42 PM ET
Eva Holland
A delicious, enormous cinnamon bun—no joke, it was the size of my head—from a roadside bakery on the Klondike Highway, between Whitehorse and Dawson City. That’s my kind of road trip fare.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz‘Some Zoos Go Above and Beyond Expectations of Horrible’
by Eva Holland | 07.23.10 | 1:57 PM ET
Here are a few spots to avoid on your next trip. Global Post rounds up 10 of the world’s worst zoos—places, it says, where “you don’t want to bring the kids. Or yourself for that matter.”
The list spans four continents, and includes two close-to-home North American offenders.
The Travel Writing of Paul Bowles
by Jim Benning | 07.23.10 | 11:57 AM ET
Paul Bowles is best known for his 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky, but he produced quite a bit of travel writing during his lifetime, including one of our 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time (see #87). Much of his shorter stuff, covering places as diverse as the Costa del Sol and Sri Lanka, has just been collected into an anthology edited by Rough Guides founder Mark Ellingham. It just earned a positive review in The Independent.
Michael Jacobs calls particular attention to a piece included in the anthology about travel writing itself.
In this 1958 piece, Bowles voices concerns only too relevant today.
At a time when “in theory anyone can go anywhere”, he saw the genre as having shifted in emphasis “from the place to the effect of the place upon the person”. However, he thought that the sort of people likely now to travel would be generally unsympathetic towards subjective impressions and prefer a work containing practical information. Bowles believed that a travel book should be nothing more than “the story of what happened to one person in a particular place”, but he feared “such books form a category which is doomed to extinction”.
Fortunately for those of us who love great travel writing, they’re not quite extinct yet.
Video: Man Builds Vintage First Class Pan Am Cabin in His Garage
by Michael Yessis | 07.23.10 | 11:33 AM ET
Gawker: ‘Never Make a Vacation Video’
by Eva Holland | 07.22.10 | 1:35 PM ET
Gawker has a blunt response to the New York Times’ tips for shooting better vacation videos. Here’s Hamilton Nolan’s three-point argument:
1. Taking a video of your vacation is not as fun as taking your vacation.
2. Watching a video of your own vacation is not as fun as just remembering it, up in the ol’ mind.
3. Watching a video of someone else’s vacation is pure poison.
I think Gawker may have a point—unless, that is, you can pull together a video like one of those in our Video You Must See collection.
Pink’s Hot Dogs Arrives at LAX
by Eva Holland | 07.22.10 | 12:51 PM ET
The legendary dog vendor opened its first-ever airport location today in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Hungry travelers, rejoice!
Suitcase Stickers: Guaranteed to Get You Pulled Aside at Airport Security
by Eva Holland | 07.22.10 | 11:54 AM ET
TheCheeky.com is selling these adhesive troublemakers—just $25 for a set of four. Enjoy. (Via Boing Boing)
Niagara Falls Tourism: ‘Don’t Go To Toronto’
by Eva Holland | 07.21.10 | 1:50 PM ET
Yep, they went there. The Falls region has unveiled a new tourism campaign, contrasting an idyllic, natural environment—that’d be Niagara, apparently—with its next-door neighbor, Toronto. The big city is presented as a “crime-ridden, graffiti-laden, gridlocked urban prison,” to quote The Globe and Mail, and visitors are urged to “shake off the city” and visit Niagara instead. Toronto’s acting mayor called the campaign “an unnecessary cheap shot.”
This local TV news spot includes some footage of the ad in question—curiously, the Niagara depicted in it is entirely free of casinos, legions of tour buses, and gridlock all along the QEW.
How Do You Maintain an ATM in Antarctica?
by Eva Holland | 07.21.10 | 11:56 AM ET
Inquiring minds at Needcoffee wondered. A Vice President at Wells Fargo, which operates the bank machine at McMurdo, offers a detailed and weirdly fascinating answer. (Via Kottke)
Pico Iyer: ‘The Trip That Changed my Life’
by Eva Holland | 07.20.10 | 1:49 PM ET
Over at Gadling, Pico Iyer looks back, thoughtfully and lyrically as always, at his first trip to Thailand in 1983. Here’s a taste:
It wasn’t Thailand, of course, that was beckoning me, but all the force of the things I couldn’t make out. Night was day and late September was summer and men were women who became men again at dawn. The characters around me on the signs (the streets) were strange, and the language so tonal I couldn’t tell a player from a prayer. There were mirrors everywhere, in bars, hotels and what they gave me back to me was a figure I couldn’t recognize. I hadn’t realized ‘til that day that you travel to stumble into the unvisited corners of yourself.
Museums: ‘A Different Sort of Inspiration’
by Eva Holland | 07.19.10 | 5:42 PM ET
World Hum contributor Julia Ross ponders the connections between museums and their cities. On her favorites, she writes:
They’re an intrinsic part of travel for me, and the ones I love most distill the mood or aesthetic of a city in a way I can’t grasp walking the streets. It’s about more than art. It can be in the light, the design, or how the viewing public behaves. Something about the culture is captured.
Paste Picks 50 State Songs for the 21st Century
by Eva Holland | 07.19.10 | 2:01 PM ET
The magazine thought most states could use an update, so they picked a fresh 50, drawing only from songs written since the turn of the century. It’s a diverse list; Paste’s Josh Jackson notes that “[s]ome are marked improvements, while others might not have quite the boosterism state tourism boards long for.” Indeed. (Via @JennaSchnuer)
What We Loved This Week: The Chilkoot Trail, Susan B. Anthony House and a Virtual Tour of Chicago
by World Hum | 07.16.10 | 5:13 PM ET
Photo by Eva Holland Eva Holland
The Chilkoot Trail. I spent four days hiking the old Gold Rush route from outside Skagway, Alaska, over the Chilkoot Pass to Bennett Lake, where the stampeders of 1898 boarded boats for the rest of the journey to the Klondike. It was hard work, but the scenery was outstanding. Here’s a shot from a few kilometers beyond the pass:
‘35 Handkerchiefs, 10 Shirts, 10 Ties…’
by Eva Holland | 07.16.10 | 11:30 AM ET
World Hum contributor Doug Mack looks back at the packing list suggested by early guidebook author Temple Fielding. “Fielding’s Travel Guide to Europe” first came out in 1946—when, apparently, a “lounging robe” and a set of sealskin slippers were essential travel accessories.
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Due Date’
by Eva Holland | 07.16.10 | 10:03 AM ET
Otherwise known as “Planes, Trains and Automobiles 2010,” to judge by the trailer. Robert Downey Jr. plays the straitlaced family man on his way to Los Angeles for the birth of his first child; Zach Galifianakis is the chatty oddball along for the ride. It’s not clear why they aren’t flying, but they aren’t—and trans-American hijinx ensue.
“Due Date” hits theaters in November. (Via Get the Big Picture)
