Travel Blog: Life of a Travel Writer
Happy Birthday, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift
by Michael Yessis | 11.30.07 | 10:46 AM ET
Heard on the radio this morning that Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift, creators of the World Hum’s No. 7 and No. 6 greatest fictional travelers respectively, share a birthday today. Twain was born on this day in Missouri in 1835; Swift was born in Dublin in 1667. While in Ireland last week, I saw an early 19th century edition of “Gulliver’s Travels” at the Dublin Writers Musuem. The page in the photograph was surreptitiously taken there.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzA Travel Writer’s Call to Arms
by Eva Holland | 11.29.07 | 1:06 PM ET
The Hollywood writers’ strike is in full swing—I’ll be pining for those sassy doctors on “Grey’s Anatomy” tonight—and it was only a matter of time before other writers started organizing as well. In his latest column, South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor Thomas Swick calls for travel writers to take some action. Writes Swick: “Our concern is not so much money but respect. In the literary hierarchy, we fall even lower than the screenwriters and TV scribes in L.A. There’s never been a joke about an ambitious blonde sleeping with a travel writer. We are so invisible we don’t even figure in punch lines.” Swick makes a number of demands. My favorite: “No one is allowed to ask us, on our return from a trip, how our ‘vacation’ was.”
Related on World Hum:
* Thomas Swick on Travel Writing
Happy Thanksgiving
by Jim Benning | 11.21.07 | 12:24 PM ET
Columnist on Airbus A380 Invitation: ‘I’m Blacklisted’
by Jim Benning | 11.12.07 | 12:51 PM ET
Salon.com pilot-columnist Patrick Smith has called the new Airbus A380 superjumbo jet, which debuted last month, “the most hideous airliner ever conceived.” He was hoping for a media invitation to ride on an early flight, along with hundreds of other writers. It never came, and now he has a theory about that. “Granted I am not well known among the aviation media corps, but I’ve got another, more exciting theory to account for being so coldly snubbed: I’m blacklisted,” he writes. “Thanks to my relentless criticism of the A380’s aesthetic failings, I am aviator non grata at any and all Airbus-related events.”
‘Iconoclasts’: Jon Krakauer and Sean Penn in Alaska
by Jim Benning | 11.02.07 | 1:35 PM ET
It’s not often that an outdoor/adventure writer like Jon Krakauer gets more than a sound bite of TV time to talk about writing and the outdoors. So I was eager to see the latest installment in the Sundance Channel series “Iconoclasts.” The show features Krakauer and actor/filmmaker/provocateur Sean Penn traveling to Alaska, talking writing and filmmaking. The pair reflect on the life of Chris McCandless, the subject of Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild,” which Penn just turned into a film. They make a pilgrimage to the bus where McCandless spent his final days. Afterward, Krakauer shows Penn the ropes of ice climbing and they talk life philosophy. It turned out to be a pretty good, thoughtful hour of television.
Doris Lessing, Travel Writing and the Nobel Prize for Literature
by Eva Holland | 10.19.07 | 5:35 AM ET
Chalk up one Nobel Prize victory for travel writing! Okay, okay. Admittedly this year’s winner Doris Lessing is much better known for writing novels and short stories than for her travel memoir, African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe, about her return to her newly-independent childhood home after decades of government-imposed exile. But much of her best-known fiction, from debut novel “The Grass Is Singing” to the “Children of Violence” series, also focuses on the white settler experience in Rhodesia, and the details of place and time are vital to the story in each work.
Tony Wheeler on What’s Next for Burma Travel
by Michael Yessis | 10.17.07 | 9:45 AM ET
Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler writes in the Guardian that his travel contacts within Burma are reeling from the recent protests and the ensuing crackdown. However, he adds, boycotts and isolation are not the best response to recent events; he continues to be an advocate for travel to the country.
Bill Bryson Reveals the Value of a Good Travel Guide
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.07 | 1:31 PM ET
Yeah, I’m talking about the same Bill Bryson who famously took to the Appalachian Trail accompanied by his college friend, the “big soft flabby baby” Stephen Katz. Bryson admits in the first line of this piece in the Guardian that “Anyone who has read my books will know that I don’t tend to use guides when I am travelling.” Yet he was asked to help judge the Paul Morrison/Wanderlust Guide Awards, and the experience caused him to reflect on times he did use a guide and how important guides can be to a travel experience.
Luggage We Have Loved
by Julia Ross | 10.12.07 | 1:48 PM ET
I recently parted ways with a beloved North Face backpack, one that had seen me through seven years of delayed flights, typhoon rains and a would-be pickpocket in Shanghai. Its zippers had broken down irretrievably, the plastic lining was crumbling, and the water bottle pockets had stretched way beyond their usefulness. When I finally surrendered the pack to a recycling truck in Taiwan, I felt a small stab of grief and wondered how I could ever replace it.
Secret Thoughts of Travelers Revealed
by Terry Ward | 10.12.07 | 11:03 AM ET
PostSecret is one of those Web sites I wander onto and proceed to lose a good half morning. The site’s founder, Frank Warren, invites strangers to send him their deepest, often darkest secrets on a handmade postcard. The results range from enlightening to downright disturbing. So I was interested to see this recent Frequent Flier piece in the New York Times relaying the secret thoughts of travelers, as mailed to Warren.
Q&A With George Saunders: The Outtakes
by World Hum | 10.05.07 | 12:36 PM ET
Last week’s Q&A with “The Braindead Megaphone” author George Saunders took some intriguing turns, some of which didn’t make it into the final version. In these outtakes, Saunders and interviewer Frank Bures talk about the writing process, travel as transformation, “noble confusion” and why it’s not always necessary to be “Johnny Authority.”
What’s it like when you come back from a trip and sort through your material?
‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Author Elizabeth Gilbert Does ‘Oprah’ Today
by Jim Benning | 10.05.07 | 10:43 AM ET
Elizabeth Gilbert goes where few travel memoir authors have: “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Gilbert is featured on today’s broadcast, and according to Oprah.com, “It’s the show Oprah’s been waiting months for.” The site adds: “Oprah says she has seen women carrying this New York Times bestseller with them everywhere. ‘I’ve been counting down the days to this show!’”
Related on World Hum:
* Elizabeth Gilbert: ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
* Three Travel Books: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Picks
BBC Worldwide Buys Lonely Planet
by Jim Benning | 10.01.07 | 11:33 AM ET
Big news in the travel publishing world: BBC Worldwide has purchased indie guidebook publisher Lonely Planet. Founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler will retain a 25 percent stake in the company they founded more than three decades ago. Reuters puts the price of the deal at $203 million. Tony Wheeler said he believes the sale will help Lonely Planet stay competitive while allowing the publisher to remain true to its original values. While he and Maureen will now have more time to travel, it wasn’t easy for them to “sell out,” he said. In an audio interview, he told Australia’s ABC, “It’s been 34 years, it’s been our entire working life together…It’s been a long road…although we’re convinced it’s the right thing for the business…it’s a difficult thing to do.” I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.
The Critics: Paul Theroux’s ‘The Elephanta Suite’
by Frank Bures | 09.27.07 | 11:00 AM ET
Paul Theroux is back, right on schedule, with a new book of fiction, this time a collection of three novellas about Westerners in India called The Elephanta Suite. Pico Iyer gives it a glowing review in Time, calling it “a set of brilliantly evocative and propulsive novellas.”
Where in the World Are You, David Farley?
by World Hum | 09.20.07 | 2:11 PM ET
The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: David Farley, World Hum contributor and Holy Foreskin chronicler. His response landed in our inbox today.
World Hum: Where in the world are you?
