Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Motel 6 Gets an Upgrade
by Eva Holland | 08.05.09 | 1:30 PM ET
Yep, the roadside budget standby has got a flashy new interior design, described as “bold, sleek, frugal euro-modernism”—but don’t worry, the new look won’t affect the reliable prices. The Los Angeles Times has photos and a review.
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Yahoo! BuzzBritish Tourists: Still ‘Pissing About’ in Latvia
by Eva Holland | 08.05.09 | 12:27 PM ET
And Riga’s mayor, Nils Usakovs, has had enough. Usakovs spilled to the Guardian about his frustration with the British stag parties that arrive via low-cost carrier, get good and drunk and, more often than not it seems, take a moment to urinate on the city’s Freedom Monument before flying home. “We have a stigma about British tourists,” said the mayor’s spokeswoman. “They are probably not the ones we want to see.”
Yet somehow, Americans are the ones stuck with the “ugly” label?
Freed U.S. Journalists Return Home From North Korea
by Eva Holland | 08.05.09 | 11:15 AM ET
Laura Ling and Euna Lee arrived in Los Angeles this morning after months of imprisonment. In the Daily Beast, World Hum contributor (and resident expert on Korean prisons) Cullen Thomas sheds some light on how the happy ending came to be.
Does the Taj Mahal Need a Ferris Wheel?
by Eva Holland | 08.05.09 | 10:43 AM ET
The Telegraph’s Michael Kerr doesn’t think so. Kerr is unimpressed by the news that the Agra Development Authority is contemplating the addition of ropewalks, cable cars and a Ferris Wheel at the most famous mausoleum in the world, all in the name of “enhancing the visitor experience.” He writes: “The Taj Mahal, has, of course, long been a tourist trap, one of those sights that we can take in only as part of a swarm of camera-clicking visitors. Nearly three million people a year are drawn to visit it. Somehow, 360 years on, it is still surviving the swarm. The threat to it now has less to do with improvement than with greed, a greed that infantilises rather than enhances experience.”
Buckingham Palace: Jazz Landmark?
by Eva Holland | 08.04.09 | 4:25 PM ET
So did you hear the one about Louis Armstrong and King George V? Satchmo shocked the court, in a 1932 gig at the royal residence, by offering His Majesty the following shout-out: “This one’s for you, Rex.” And that’s just one of several bizarre anecdotes in this story from the Telegraph, about the unlikely history of jazz at Buckingham Palace and its resulting nomination to a list of seminal U.K. jazz venues.
I’ve never had much urge to visit the palace when I’ve been in London, but suddenly I’m intrigued.
Travel Movie Watch: ‘The Tourist’
by Eva Holland | 08.04.09 | 3:18 PM ET
The French thriller Anthony Zimmer is being remixed for English speakers as “The Tourist,” starring Charlize Theron and Sam Worthington. Theron will play an agent who seduces an unwitting American tourist in order to lure a criminal mastermind out of hiding, while Worthington will play either the tourist or the agent’s dastardly quarry—either way, if the trailer for the original is anything to go by, there will be plenty of intrigue on TGV trains and other French eye candy for armchair travelers. The movie is due out in late 2010.
Here’s that original trailer, un-subtitled I’m afraid:
Harrods: ‘The Ultimate Bespoke Travel Agency’
by Eva Holland | 08.04.09 | 11:54 AM ET
Forget about those discount holiday packages on sale at the grocery checkout counter: Travel-retail fusion has gone upscale. The personal shoppers at Harrods, the venerable London department store, are now offering customized holiday bookings—with a low, low minimum purchase of £2,500. And the maximum? There isn’t one. Over the course of a few phony phone calls, the Times Online’s Mark Rudd took the new travel service for a test drive.
What Travelers Can Learn From Dos Equis
by Eva Holland | 08.04.09 | 10:47 AM ET
Do you live vicariously through yourself? World Hum contributor Kelsey Timmerman takes a look at a popular Dos Equis ad campaign and warns travelers about succumbing to The Most Interesting Man in the World Syndrome when they return home.
$20 Per Gallon? Say it Ain’t So.
by Eva Holland | 08.04.09 | 9:28 AM ET
A recent New York Times interview with Chris Steiner, author of the new book $20 Per Gallon, has caused a bit of a stir in the blogosphere. Andrew Sullivan buys into Steiner’s argument that higher gas prices could jump start innovation and be, on balance, a good thing, while Outside the Beltway’s James Joyner thinks that $20 per gallon “would really, really suck”:
Now, it’s quite conceivable that the forced innovation would indeed make our lives better in ways that I can’t imagine ... But the transitional impact would be absolutely devastating for most people. Even Steiner admits that whole industries—from airlines to amusement parks to sushi restaurants—would go under. Almost all homes outside urban centers would be simultaneously unlivable and unsellable. Only the independently wealthy would be able to travel abroad. Essentially, we’d set our lifestyles back a hundred years.
Has the ‘Obama Effect’ hit Hawaii?
by Eva Holland | 08.03.09 | 3:41 PM ET
Slate’s Moneybox columnist, Daniel Gross, recently headed to Hawaii to see if the islands’ tourism industry was seeing an Obama bump. The verdict: “This unreimbursed, hazard-filled assignment—sunburn, expensive macadamia nuts—yielded some surprising findings. Like the stimulus package, the Obama Effect, while holding the promise of gains down the road, hasn’t been able to overcome a sour economic climate.”
Contiki: ‘Backpacking is so 1997’
by Eva Holland | 08.03.09 | 1:23 PM ET
So said a message that the popular bus tour company posted on Facebook awhile back, with the added boast that Contiki holidays were “hundreds of dollars” cheaper than independent travel in Europe. Nomadic Matt objected—and now he’s crunched the numbers to prove Contiki wrong, on the savings claim at least. As for backpacking being “so 1997”? I guess that’s subjective.
In Defense of Martha’s Vineyard
by Eva Holland | 08.03.09 | 12:08 PM ET
Tom Swick may think President Obama could have done better for a vacation spot, but Lonely Planet’s Robert Reid begs to differ. Here’s his compelling list of 22 reasons why Obama was right to pick Martha.
Incidentally, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. would probably agree. Gates told Travel + Leisure in 2007 that the Vineyard was his favorite place.
Three U.S. Travelers Detained in Iran
by Eva Holland | 08.03.09 | 10:59 AM ET
Apparently, they were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan and wandered over the poorly marked border. One of the three, Sarah Shourd, is a contributor over at Brave New Traveler.
Homeless Polish Men Build Ship, Plan to Sail Around the World
by Michael Yessis | 08.03.09 | 10:05 AM ET
Nicholas Kulish has the details in a terrific story in the New York Times. The two dozen homeless men are building the ship in the yard of a former tractor factory in Warsaw, and “their story strikes deeper chords because, for all the modern tools in the building and corporate sponsors providing the raw materials, their endeavor echoes mythic themes of escape, adventure and redemption that can seem out of reach in a world of biometric identity cards and debt-collection agencies.”
What We Loved This Week: TBEX, Corn Season and Sleeping In-Flight
by World Hum | 07.31.09 | 2:31 PM ET
Photo by Alicia Imbody Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Alicia Imbody
I loved jamming out at a concert to two great import bands: Swedish newcomers Peter Bjorn and John, and British legends Depeche Mode. It was an eclectic crowd, an incredible show, and it helped keep my mind off all the wanderlust-inducing summer concerts I’m missing. Here’s a shot of Depeche Mode rocking under a psychedelic disco world ... or something:
