Travel Blog: Life of a Travel Writer
Chasing Authenticity
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.05 | 3:13 PM ET
The travel essay returns to the pages of the New York Times today, with Matt Gross writing about the search for authentic travel experiences. Sure, it’s been done before, but Gross frames the quest against a recent wave of ironic and inventive books about travel: Joel Henry’s Guide to Experimental Travel, Dave Eggers’s novel You Shall Know Our Velocity and the guidebook to a non-existent nation, Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring. It’s an interesting read.
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Yahoo! BuzzEsquire Names Roadtrip Nation “Best and Brightest” of 2005
by Frank Bures | 12.16.05 | 9:06 AM ET
The road trip may be a time-honored American tradition, but the guys from Roadtrip Nation, who were just chosen by Esquire as three of the “Best and Brightest” of 2005, have found a way to make it more than that.
A Rick Steves Christmas
by Jim Benning | 12.13.05 | 11:55 PM ET
All the big stars have done at least one TV Christmas special: Jackie Gleason, Charlie Brown, Nick and Jessica. This year, finally, a travel writer has gotten into the act. PBS Europe travel guru Rick Steves has produced Rick Steves’ European Christmas, and it’s airing this month on PBS stations around the United States. The show features Steves taking in holiday celebrations in seven locales, from Italy to Norway. He and his family play in the snow and sit down to delicious dinners, and watching it makes you wish the dollar wasn’t in the tank and that you, too, could afford a winter jaunt to Europe.
Newsham Pulls Plug on Impeachment Effort
by Jim Benning | 12.13.05 | 11:19 PM ET
We noted early last month that travel writer Brad Newsham had launched a campaign to impeach President Bush. He sent word Tuesday that he is calling off the effort. “As the impeachment movement is alive and well and growing, and as my Impeachment Pledge project did not generate the momentum I had hoped for, I am pulling the plug,” he wrote in an e-mail. Newsham urged readers to support other impeachment efforts.
Greg Lindsay on In-Flight Magazines and ‘Airworld’
by Michael Yessis | 12.08.05 | 10:28 AM ET
Advertising Age editor-at-large Greg Lindsay analyzed the current state of in-flight magazine publishing earlier this week on Mediabistro. His main conclusion isn’t too surprising: The magazines are “sans edge in an era that prizes knowingness and snarkiness above all.” The path he took to arrive at that conclusion, however, kept me rapt for a good part of yesterday afternoon.
Shameless Plug: Intro to Travel Writing in San Diego
by Jim Benning | 12.07.05 | 10:42 PM ET
I’ll be teaching an introductory course on travel writing at UC San Diego Extension beginning Jan. 11. It’s a nine-week hybrid course that includes five classroom meetings. Students will post their work online.
I’ve taught a number of travel writing courses at UCSD and they’re always a lot of fun. Travel writing is a tough way to make money, much less a living, so I make no promises of fame and fortune. But I do promise a solid introduction to the business and craft of travel writing, some great discussions and critical feedback on writing.
For those interested in the business of travel writing, as well as the pleasure of the work, I think Lonely Planet global travel editor Don George got it about right when he spoke with me earlier this year. His book is recommended reading in the course.
R.I.P. Orlando Sentinel Travel?
by Terry Ward | 12.07.05 | 4:18 PM ET
It looks as though the Orlando Sentinel Travel section is history. The Orlando Weekly reports today that the Sentinel cut 54 jobs last week, including that of travel editor Jay Boyar, a 22-year veteran of the paper. Boyar told the Weekly that the Sentinel plans to include travel coverage in a feature section. He’s still in shock. “I feel a sense of panic,” he told the paper. “I have an 11-year-old son and I would like him to have medical insurance.”
Space Travel Store Opens in Seattle
by Michael Yessis | 12.06.05 | 8:43 PM ET
The Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. features the latest in “atomic technology, protective and stylish spacewear, and rare imports from other planets.” All proceeds go to 826 Seattle, part of the Dave Eggers-led effort to support students with their writing endeavors.
Robert Young Pelton on the Writing Life
by Jim Benning | 12.02.05 | 1:15 PM ET
Rolf Potts has posted an interview with the man of many titles, including National Geographic Adventure columnist, filmmaker and book author. “I…wish I was as funny and professional as Tim Cahill, as mainstream popular as Bill Bryson and as literary as Paul Theroux,” Pelton told Potts. “But honestly, I just do my thing and if people dig it that’s good. If they don’t—well, as one of my favorite irate fan letters said: ‘I hated your book so much I am never going to check it out from the library again.’”
Jessica Smith of MTV’s “Laguna Beach” Named Let’s Go Spokesperson*
by Michael Yessis | 12.02.05 | 11:59 AM ET
It’s a sweet gig for the reality TV star. Smith will take trips to locales of her choosing, blog about her experiences and make personal appearances for Let’s Go. According to a Brandweek report (scroll to bottom), “Smith was seen as a good fit for the young-skewing budget-travel guides because, unlike some of the party-oriented and privileged Paris Hilton types chronicled on the series, she’s a more down-to-earth student.”
British Cyclist Completes Four-Year, ‘Round-the-World Trip
by Jim Benning | 11.30.05 | 12:35 PM ET
You have to admire Alastair Humphreys’ determination. He left England in 2001, explaining that he was “trundling along towards getting a job” and “just wanted to do something a bit more difficult and challenging.” So off he went on a ‘round-the-world trip by bicycle. He wanted to quit many times as he struggled with loneliness. But the 28-year-old endured, and earlier this month, having passed through Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa, he was in Paris and finally pedaling toward home, where he planned to write a book about the journey.
“Japanland” Author Karin Muller’s Top Travel Books
by Jim Benning | 11.22.05 | 11:56 PM ET
We often publish lists of writers’ favorite travel books when we interview them or review one of their books. So when Terry Ward reviewed Karin Muller’s “Japanland” recently, she tried to track down Muller to get her picks. Muller was out of reach, though, and we published the review without them. Then yesterday, Ward received an e-mail from Muller: “I’m so sorry for having been out of touch all these weeks….I know that in our modern age it’s hard to find a place that can’t get email, but the Mekong river in Cambodia apparently qualifies.” Apparently so. Of course, that sounded like a perfect excuse to us. Muller graciously included her three favorite books, and now her list, along with brief explanations, can be found with Ward’s review.
Jonathan Raban: “Stateless in Seattle”
by Jim Benning | 11.21.05 | 12:48 PM ET
Seattle Weekly last week published a feature story about—and interview with—writer Jonathan Raban. The focus is Raban’s new book, My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front, which writer Tim Appelo describes as “a kind of diary chronicling the shocks of our epoch: the [9/11] attacks, George W. Bush’s assault on American democracy, our traumatized attempt to fathom the Islamists’ motives and divine their next target, the weird mirroring of Islamofascists by U.S. neo-Puritans, the false dawn of Howard Dean, and Bush’s ugly second coming.”
Pico Iyer Discusses the Dalai Lama on Tibet.net
by Jim Benning | 11.21.05 | 1:43 AM ET
The official website of the Central Tibetan Administration has posted an interview with Pico Iyer, noting that Iyer is now at work on a book about the Dalai Lama. Iyer recalled meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala in 1974, before he had gained celebrity in the West. Iyer marveled that he and his father, who was a philosophy professor, rang the doorbell and “were able to spend an hour and half [in] conversation with His Holiness.”
Is Simon Winchester Inadvertently Creating Natural Disasters?
by Jim Benning | 11.18.05 | 12:54 PM ET
You be the judge. He wrote “Krakatoa,” which involved a tsunami, and shortly thereafter, tsunamis struck South Asia. Then he wrote “A Crack in the Edge of the World” about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and a horrific quake hit Kashmir. Winchester himself told an amused audience in Menlo Park, California last month that his publicist is concerned: “She said, ‘Simon, have you ever thought people are going to start to say, whenever Simon Winchester writes a book, Stay indoors?’”
