Travel Blog: News and Briefs
The Critics: ‘Up’
by Eva Holland | 05.14.09 | 11:01 AM ET
Pixar’s “Up,” an animated travel movie that we’ve been keeping an eye on, opened the Cannes Film Festival in 3D last night, making history in the process. Today, the reviews are rolling in—and, for the most part, they offer two thumbs, er, up.
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Yahoo! BuzzMorning Links: Prince Harry in NYC, a Swimming Kangaroo and More
by Eva Holland | 05.14.09 | 8:15 AM ET
- Get ready, teen girls of the five boroughs: Britain’s Prince Harry will be making a formal visit to New York City at the end of May. Harry plans on visiting Ground Zero and participating in a polo match on Governors Island.
- NPR talked to Doug Gollan, editor in chief of Elite Traveler, about the “PR problem” wealthy travelers face, and why it’s important that they keep spending; here’s the transcript.
- And speaking of PR problems: Hospitality and tourism industry leaders were in Washington this week, asking Congress to lay off the harsh criticism of recession-era business travel.
- Australian travel headline of the day: Man saves kangaroo from shark infested waters. (And yes, there’s video.)
- Hard-traveling “Survivor” host Jeff Probst spills to USA Today about his favorite spots around the globe, and why he has nothing against penguins.
- Budget Travel picks the most beautiful ferry rides in the United States—check out the slideshow.
- A new air quality report shows traces of cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid in the air in both Barcelona and Madrid; the article notes that both studies “were carried out close to universities.”
- Remember “Supertrain,” the short-lived 1979 TV series about a nuclear-powered express train? Jason Kottke does—and he points the way to some online clips.
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NYC Raises Subway Fares; Sky Falls
by Eva Holland | 05.13.09 | 2:50 PM ET
Photo by Eva Holland After months of ominous foreshadowing, New York City’s transit authority finally did it: Effective June 28, subway and bus fares will jump from $2.00 to $2.25. Reaction has been swift and snarky—check out this satirical subway advisory, for instance. Said one commenter on this Jaunted post about the hike: “Yet again NYC trumps all when it comes to being plain expensive.”
Whoa, hold on a minute. Sure, nobody likes a price increase, especially when consumers aren’t expecting to see improved service in return—the move is an effort to stop the bleeding, not rejuvenate the system. But New York City’s public transit is still cheap compared to what’s available in other big cities, and—much like the city itself, which I will always maintain is a fantastic budget destination—it remains a great value for money.
Morning Links: Travel Phobias, a Walt Disney Museum and More
by Eva Holland | 05.13.09 | 7:29 AM ET
- Myrtle Beach’s short-lived Hard Rock Park will reopen as the more “family-friendly” Freestyle Music Park, says USA Today. Sounds like Led Zeppelin is out, and the Monkees are in.
- Christopher Elliott names the top five travel phobias, and offers some advice for handling them.
- Check out this cool short video, mapping all Tweets that began with “Just landed in ...” or “Just arrived in ...” over a four-hour span.
- Long live the railway cafe! The Guardian picks 10 of Britain’s best.
- Jaunted looks forward to a new Walt Disney museum, one that “isn’t supposed to be a whitewash or a vanity project.”
- Pixar’s “Up” debuts tonight in 3D at the Cannes Film Festival. The Times Online goes inside Pixar headquarters to learn more.
- Several U.S. airlines have in-flight wi-fi programs in the works; the Boston Globe rounds up the latest news.
- The cockpit transcripts for the plane that crashed in Buffalo this past winter have been released.
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Hunter S. Thompson’s Puerto Rico
by Eva Holland | 05.12.09 | 4:31 PM ET
Johnny Depp’s been on the Puerto Rico set of “The Rum Diary” for about a month now, and interest is building in the film, an adaptation of an early Hunter S. Thompson novel. The story follows journalist Paul Kemp (played by Depp) as he flees New York City for a small newspaper on the island, where hard drinking and treacherous expat intrigues ensue.
The Subtle Bouquet of Cat’s Pee and Other Wine Aromas
by David Farley | 05.12.09 | 2:29 PM ET
In the 1980s, the University of California, Davis gave a gift to wine snobs everywhere by creating the “Aroma Wheel, ” a lexicon that allowed your average wino to stick his nose deep into your long-stemmed Riedel and then emerge using words like grapefruit, blackberry, banana, black pepper and oaky.
Some of the Wheel’s vocabulary bordered on the undrinkable-sounding: sweaty, barnyard and wet dog, for example. Which allowed for descriptions like this: This deep red blend offers an intense bouquet of wet dog balanced by hints of banana and sweaty barnyard with a body robust enough to be, as the Italians would say, perfectly corposo.
Morning Links: Boutique Hostels, an Airport’s ‘Wildlife Management Canine’ and More
by Eva Holland | 05.12.09 | 8:44 AM ET
- As the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches, Berliners are having some regrets about how thoroughly it was wiped off the cityscape.
- Manhattan’s travel-themed Idlewild Books is celebrating its first birthday this Friday from 7pm to 9pm. Friends and supporters are welcome to stop by.
- Budget Travel offers up 7 ways to annoy a flight attendant. (Confession: I’m guilty on #6, every time.)
- Amid fears over bird strikes, the airport in Bend, Oregon has hired a border collie named Filly to serve as a “wildlife management canine.”
- But can she herd baggage carts, too? A Japan Airlines flight was disrupted yesterday when one of the plane’s engines sucked up and “ingested” a metal baggage container during push-back. No one was hurt.
- Like your hostels with a bit of style and a few perks? The Guardian has just launched an interactive map of boutique hostels worldwide.
- Eurocheapo offers five handy tips for cheap eating in Rome.
- A light at the end of the Airworld tunnel? The FAA is at work on a new navigation system that should cut down on weather delays and reduce flight times.
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Luring Tourists to a Little Eco-City on the Prairie
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.11.09 | 3:31 PM ET
Two years ago, a massive tornado tore apart more then 95 percent of the buildings in Greensburg, Kansas. Normally, the destruction of this tiny town of 1,400 people would have been just another natural disaster on the high plains, where twisters regularly shred the landscape. But Greensburg’s recovery has made headlines around the world because the town is rebuilding itself as a sustainable, clean-energy “laboratory for eco-friendly living,” according to Greenwire.
Straight to Airport Security, Your Phone as Your Boarding Pass
by Rob Verger | 05.11.09 | 12:13 PM ET
Have you ever checked in for a flight using your iPhone as your boarding pass?
Completely paperless check-in—by way of a boarding pass with an embedded barcode sent to your mobile phone, which you then present at security and the gate—may be becoming more widespread, NPR reports in All Tech Considered.
My Worst Hotel Rooms
by Alexander Basek | 05.11.09 | 10:59 AM ET
Lists are in the air lately, so I decided to get in on the action. Herewith, my four worst hotel rooms, lifetime. I won’t name names, because I’m a gentleman. And also, because the parties in question might hunt me down and throw tiny bottles of shampoo at me.
Singapore: I was at the edge of Singapore’s Chinatown, which, as it turns out, is also the edge of Singapore’s red light district. Not that I caught on—I thought all the scantily-clad women peering out from cracked front doors were zealous about saving the environment and keeping that AC indoors. My hotel room here was easily the darkest I’ve ever stayed in: a deep red and purple color scheme lit by one dirty window overlooking an airshaft. The only outlet was in the middle of the wall above the bed.
Morning Links: Airport Bestsellers, Where America went for Mother’s Day and More
by Eva Holland | 05.11.09 | 8:34 AM ET
- The novel that launched “Slumdog Millionaire” has been named the Best Travel Read in the inaugural Heathrow Travel Product Awards. (Via the Book Bench)
- Stanley Johnson asks: Has Britain’s storied Royal Geographical Society lost its sense of adventure?
- Gawker finds out where America went out for dinner on Mother’s Day. The Olive Garden leads the pack.
- The Telegraph rounds up 12 desperate airline publicity stunts from the past few years.
- Good news: American Airlines is now allowing one-way reward flights, using half the miles of a return trip. (I can’t be the only one who’s been sitting on half a flight’s worth of miles for ages, right?)
- Find out which tourism destinations are benefiting from Mexico’s swine flu pain.
- Slate’s Ron Rosenbaum looks at airport bookstore bestsellers, “the literary canaries in the dark coal mines of our paranoia.”
- From museums to sports teams to the Ringling Brothers, NewYorkology offers a list of key New York City Twitter accounts.
- Last week, Andrew Sullivan quoted Emerson on travel and narrow-mindedness; this week, one of his readers quotes John Stuart Mill in defense of travel.
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What We Loved This Week: Rick Steves, Italian Pop, Vienna Teng and More
by World Hum | 05.08.09 | 6:57 PM ET
Can Eco-Travelers Save the World’s Rainforests?
by Joanna Kakissis | 05.08.09 | 2:19 PM ET
I’ve been thinking about this question since I saw a public awareness video released on YouTube by Prince Charles’s Rainforests Project. His Royal Highness rightly points out that climate change is the “greatest threat facing mankind” and that deforestation worsens global warming. (Burning trees releases their stored CO2.) At home, we can buy coffee tables and cabinetry made from sustainable wood. But what can we do when we travel?
When Choosing the Best Food in America, What Matters?
by Jenna Schnuer | 05.08.09 | 12:01 PM ET
Lately, the word best has been tumbling around my mind a lot. Blame it on the Beard Awards. Who was it going to be? Who would capture the crowns for best chefs in America?
Now, before you slam me for being anti-best, I’m not. I make part of my living off the damned, er, lovely word. As a travel and food writer, I package a bit of this from one place with a bit of that from another. Drape a coat of “best” on it—after extensive tasting and inner turmoil over who I’m leaving out—and, blammo, a list is born.
A Twitter Road Trip Twitique: What Worked, What Didn’t
by Sophia Dembling | 05.08.09 | 9:48 AM ET
Photo by Sophia Dembling My husband Tom and I recently drove a loop south from Albuquerque. (Here’s an annotated map of our route, in case you want to follow in our tire tracks.) This was the first time I’ve Twittered from the road. Interestingly, the great to-Twitter-or-not-to-Twitter debate started up while I was Twittering my trip and triggered a little metacognition about the process. Is it the right thing to do, and what makes a good travel Tweet?
