Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Photo We Love: Black and Blue in Istanbul
by World Hum | 07.06.09 | 5:26 PM ET
REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly Muslim women look out on the Golden Horn in Istanbul.
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Yahoo! BuzzWelcome to Naples. Meet Your Ex-Con Tour Guide.
by Michael Yessis | 07.06.09 | 12:27 PM ET
As Elisabetta Provoledo writes, “It seemed like a great idea at the time: hire ex-convicts to escort tourists through seedy Neapolitan streets. Who better to explain to the uninitiated the potential dangers lying in wait?” Alas, as she reports in the New York Times, the “Escodentro Project” has hit a rough patch.
AIDS Levy for Air Travelers?
by Eva Holland | 07.06.09 | 11:07 AM ET
There’s a proposal in the works to add a special tax, marked for efforts to fight AIDS in developing countries, to all flight purchases in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany. A similar tax has been in place in France for three years and has raised nearly $1 billion. The Financial Times has the details on what the plan might look like.
Gay Talese Takes the Circle Line
by Michael Yessis | 07.06.09 | 9:57 AM ET
The New Journalism pioneer overcame his aversion to water—“In some 50 years as a writer, I do not recall ever proposing a story that would likely lead to getting my feet wet,” he writes—and joined the tourists for a circumnavigation of Manhattan on the Circle Line.
Talese is still on his game. It’s a terrific story, with a terrific audio slideshow.
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Couples Retreat’
by Eva Holland | 07.06.09 | 9:42 AM ET
Here’s the set-up: A husband and wife facing marital troubles convince their three best couple-friends to take off on an all-inclusive vacation—the catch is, they’ve booked into a marriage counseling resort. Jason Bateman, Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are among the stars. Check out the trailer—this one has some comic potential, no?
What We Loved This Week: Turkish Coffee, Tinariwen and ‘Goin’ Places’
by World Hum | 07.02.09 | 2:45 PM ET
Photo by Cory Eldridge Ben Keene
Since seeing Youssou N’Dour with his band at the “Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas” celebration last month, I’ve been unable to stop listening to West African music. Currently in heavy rotation on my iPod: the austere yet entrancing guitar tones of the Touareg collective Tinariwen.
Travel, Politics and the U.S. Flag
by Michael Yessis | 07.02.09 | 1:29 PM ET
Timothy Egan has noticed something during his recent travels in the U.S.: “a surfeit of American flags.” In his story in the New York Times, he takes a shot at explaining the abundance of Stars and Stripes.
For a look at how the flag flies outside the U.S., check out our American Flag in a Shrinking Planet slideshow.
Photo We Love: The Glass Ledge at Chicago’s Sears Tower
by World Hum | 07.02.09 | 12:05 PM ET
REUTERS/Frank Polich Kids stand on just-opened Skydeck Ledge on the 103rd floor of Chicago’s Sears Tower.
‘How Much are Venice, the Everglades, and New Orleans Worth?’
by Eva Holland | 07.02.09 | 9:31 AM ET
Andrew Sullivan points the way to a Matt Steinglass post about the limits of measuring climate change damage in economic terms:
There will be no Everglades in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is marginal. There will be no Venice in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is tiny. There will be no New Orleans in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is extremely small. ... But the worth of many precious things cannot be measured in money.
Indeed.
Backpackers in Thailand Just Won’t Quit
by Alicia Imbody | 07.01.09 | 4:24 PM ET
Photo by René Ehrhardt via Flickr (Creative Commons) Tourism in Thailand has been suffering significant declines lately, and desperate vendors are offering discounts like free domestic flights, extra nights and other perks to lure money-conscious visitors.
But in spite of the setbacks to leisure and luxury travel, the AP reports “budget travel hasn’t suffered as badly, with beer stalls and hostels along Bangkok’s Khao San Road and other havens for backpackers still bustling.”
Keep on, keepin’ on, backpackers!
Osama bin Laden in Indiana: ‘And Just Like That, a Don DeLillo Novel is Born’
by Michael Yessis | 07.01.09 | 4:07 PM ET
Steve Coll breaks the news that Osama bin Laden and his family vacationed in the U.S. for two weeks in 1979, visiting California and Indiana. The details of Coll’s post in the New Yorker come from a forthcoming book by Osama’s first wife.
The DeLillo reference in our headline comes from a related snarky Gawker post. Gawker also asks: “Doesn’t Growing Up bin Laden sound like a great name for a reality show?”
Why not? It certainly would be more interesting than this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
Man, that’s tiring.
Sorry for the Dirty Looks, Traveling Moms and Dads
by Eva Holland | 07.01.09 | 3:33 PM ET
Here’s one that will likely ring true for most traveling parents: In the New York Times, Judith Warner’s latest post addresses “the petty humiliations of motherhood.” She writes:
You know what I mean: the nasty little looks, tones of voice, gestures, subtle and not-so-subtle criticism and even insults that so often seem to come the way of mothers. Harsh words delivered in all apparent innocence, innocuous-seeming observations made in a tone that cuts to the bone, odd little interactions, generally, that manage to make a mother feel condemned in the court of world opinion.
I did indeed know what she was talking about—I’ve certainly shot my fair share of icy “You’re a terrible mother” stares at the parents of seat-kicking toddlers on airplanes. Warner’s post was a healthy reminder to rein those urges in.
Javelin High-Speed Train Makes its Debut in London
by Alicia Imbody | 07.01.09 | 3:09 PM ET
Commuters and Olympics fans all over London are enjoying the U.K.’s first high-speed train, the Javelin, which began service Monday morning. It got off to an early start, arriving one minute early on its first run.
The train provides service between London and Kent, stopping at, among other places, the site of new Olympic stadium (still under construction for the 2012 Olympic Games) in Stratford.
Another Reason for Air Rage?
by Eva Holland | 07.01.09 | 2:11 PM ET
Sure, we all love those nifty seat-back entertainment systems—but as Jaunted astutely points out, the personal TV screens come with a major downside: a long-haul flight’s worth of punches to the back of the head.
I’m assuming that when they’re not busy making air travel greener and/or finding a way to remain afloat in this brutal economic climate, the industry’s brightest minds will be working on the problem?
My Deep-Sea Orbit Into a Love of Place
by Joanna Kakissis | 07.01.09 | 1:41 PM ET
Photo by Joanna Kakissis The deep, clean dive into the sea off Southwestern Greece probably sealed my lifelong attachment to the pristine in places. I was 9 years old and, until then, had only swam in chlorinated swimming pools and muddy river water in landlocked North Dakota. My father had grown up swimming in a secluded beach near the village of Kyparissia as a young orphan and had associated its salty breath and blue-green water with a wanderlust that would turn him dreamy-eyed even as a middle-aged man. To him, travel at its most elemental was about the unadorned land, enlivened by tides and breeze and hulking mountains. He described his childhood beach so lovingly that it almost sounded human.
