Travel Blog: News and Briefs
‘Out of the Wild’: Adventures in Tastelessness?
by Eva Holland | 04.17.09 | 12:24 PM ET
A new travel reality show premiered on the Discovery Channel this week. Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment follows nine people who’ve been dropped into the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, with “just three days of survival training and limited supplies.” And, the promo claims dramatically, “Not everyone will make it Out of the Wild.” Sound familiar? Hey, yeah, that is kind of like what happened to that McCandless kid, now that I think about it.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzThe Last Taco in Playa del Carmen
by David Farley | 04.17.09 | 10:19 AM ET
Photo by David Farley I was dying for a good taco. I’d been on the tourist-board-branded Mayan Riviera (the coastline south of Cancun) for a few days and had been planted in beachside, tourist-crammed towns where a legion of mediocre restaurants lined the sea like B-grade culinary sentries guarding tourists from the locals-only edible delights off the beaten path.
The last straw came when my wife, Jessie, and I picked the most salt-of-the-earth eatery in Playa del Carmen and sat down, thinking the place might yield something more authentic than what we’d been served so far.
Morning Links: High-Speed Rail, a Traveling ‘Joyologist’ and More
by Eva Holland | 04.17.09 | 9:21 AM ET
Interview With Jason Barger: Author of ‘Step Back From the Baggage Claim’
by Rob Verger | 04.16.09 | 4:07 PM ET
I love the transitory airport realm sometimes described as Airworld, a place selected by World Hum as one of the Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet.
I like the buzz of people coming and going, I like buying the occasional New Yorker magazine from Hudson News to pass the time, and I even like the sharp whiffs of jet exhaust you get going down the gate ramp.
But what would it be like to spend seven consecutive days in Airworld, flying around the country with no destination but the next city, sleeping in airports and killing time until your next flight leaves?
BusJunction: One More Reason to Take the Bus
by Eva Holland | 04.16.09 | 10:29 AM ET
It’s been almost a year since I grudgingly acknowledged that, train delays and airport security being what they are these days, taking the bus might sometimes be the most convenient and comfortable way to go.
Since then—one gruesome incident notwithstanding—I’ve gone from a still-reluctant bus user to a full-on regular. And I’m not the only one: new bus lines have been popping up everywhere (and particularly here in the U.S. Northeast), and now there’s even a dedicated bus carrier search engine, BusJunction.com.
Morning Links: Snakes on a Plane, Porn Stars in the Cockpit and More
by Eva Holland | 04.16.09 | 8:49 AM ET
- Yup, they’re going there: United Airlines will begin charging obese passengers for two adjacent seats, and will bump them on full flights. (Via @davedemerjian and @whereishawkins)
- World Hum contributor Jenna Schnuer talks travel with “The Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan.
- Travel horror comes to life: a Qantas flight was grounded after four baby pythons escaped from their container.
- A pilot has been stripped of his license after, um, fraternizing with a Swedish porn star while flying—this, despite the fact that “there is no specific rule against having sex in the cockpit.”
- The L.A. Times reports that Mexico’s tourist zones are up to 26 times safer than comparable U.S. destinations; meanwhile, World Hum contributor Eric Lucas has a few choice words for a group called Americans United to Halt Tourism in Mexico.
- Jaunted stumbles on a truly grim in-flight grilled cheese sandwich.
- World Hum contributor Frank Bures finds art and Americana on the upper stretches of the Great River Road.
- A group of French fishermen have ended their blockade of several ports on the English Channel, allowing the Dover-Calais ferry to resume service.
Got a suggestion? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) your link.
A Room Service of One’s Own
by Alexander Basek | 04.15.09 | 5:18 PM ET
After a terrible-yet-exciting day in the Malaysian town of Johor Bahru last fall, returning to my room at the Hyatt was the highlight of my visit. Malaysia’s second largest city had not treated me well. Worse, I missed dinner. It was late, and I was hungry. So why, even under duress, did I waffle about ordering room service? Don’t worry, I did—and I didn’t hesitate to remove several Tiger beers from the mini-bar while I waited—but I felt guilty about it anyway.
For years, I saw room service as a luxury for people with too much money or not enough inclination to explore the city they were visiting. Why bother to stay in when so many other options were outside the front doors of the hotel? In Johor Bahru, though, I was glad to have it. As my writing career has progressed and I’ve found myself holed up in towns where bringing a laptop outside isn’t such a bright idea, room service has come in handy. It’s never very good, but that’s the price you pay. Literally—food on a silver platter doesn’t come cheap.
So what does room service mean to you? Is it utility food or a time to splurge when getting dressed is too much to ask?
Still No Word on What Caused Scabies Outbreak Among Boston TSA Staff
by Rob Verger | 04.15.09 | 10:53 AM ET
Photo of Pohnpei's airport by Rob Verger In late March, five TSA workers at Boston’s Logan Airport were infected with scabies, a nasty little bug that literally lives and breeds underneath the host’s skin.
The incident merited a posting on the TSA’s blog, reassuring passengers that there was basically no chance they could have contracted the bugs by going through security. (One of the many reasons why it would have been practically impossible for a passenger to become infected this way is that the TSA screeners wear gloves, and scabies is usually only spread through direct skin-to-skin contact.)
When I contacted the TSA this week to see if they had any leads in how the outbreak began, Ann Davis, the Public Affairs Officer for the TSA in Boston, said via email:
Trip Planning: Museums on Twitter
by Jenna Schnuer | 04.15.09 | 9:34 AM ET
The experiment: ignore various, er, discussions over whether Twitter is good, distracting, or evil and find other ways to use it to enhance future travel experiences and planning. Since I tend to like museums big, small, and flat-out odd, I figured I would see what some U.S. museums are doing with it.
I’ll admit, I didn’t use the most scientific of methods. I searched Twitter for the term “museum” and, click by click by click, signed up for the first couple dozen on the list.
The information started to drip, drab, and, in some cases, flow in. Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum, famous for its jars of medical oddities, was (and I love this!) offering free health screenings (@MutterMuseum); Northport, Alabama’s Kentuck Museum (@KentuckMuseum) wanted you to put its April 24 poetry festival on your calendar; and Baltimore’s Walters Museum (@walters_museum) offered up a behind-the-scenes photo of an intern working on a Roman sarcophagus and an invitation to its college night with “mash-up DJ artists, tours, & more!”
Morning Links: Mileage Runs, Life in a Finnish Mökki and More
by Michael Yessis | 04.15.09 | 8:07 AM ET
‘Adventureland’: Hooked by Travel Writing and the Adventure of Summer Jobs
by Eva Holland | 04.14.09 | 12:06 PM ET
Publicity still via IGN I can tell you the exact moment I came off the fence and really fell for Adventureland, the theme park-set comedy romance that hit theaters last weekend.
Early on, not long after starting his grim summer job as a games operator at the local amusement park, protagonist James tells love interest Em what his earnings are for: he wants to move to New York City, complete a master’s in journalism at Columbia University and become a travel writer. But, he’s quick to add, he wants to write travel stories about “real life,” like Charles Dickens.
I’m not far removed from my own dreamy undergraduate perusals of the Columbia website, and I love a good real-life travel story, too—so naturally, I was hooked.
Morning Links: Cuba Travel, Tiger Tourism, Nanobots and More
by Michael Yessis | 04.14.09 | 8:30 AM ET
- The Obama administration announced anticipated changes to U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba. Are commercial flights in the works?
- World Hum contributor Michael Shapiro gets “wedged under a 40-foot parade float featuring biblical all-stars” during Semana Santa in Guatemala.
- GlobalPost looks at tiger tourism in India.
- The Travel Weekly virtual trade show will feature a session with Nancy Novogrod of Travel + Leisure, Nina Willdorf of Budget Travel, and Wendy Perrin of Conde Nast Traveler. The show takes place today and tomorrow.
- Another Burger King ad has stirred up anger and charges of cultural insensitivity, this time in Mexico.
- In this economic climate, luxury hotels are “just getting killed.”
- Marriott has stopped automatic newspaper delivery to guest rooms.
- G. Y. Dryansky says, “Now that we’ve forgotten about freedom fries, our American tolerance and curiosity about the French is back to what it was.”
- GOOD magazine asks Ray Kurzweil, “Will travel be altogether obsolete in the future?” His answer involves nanobots.
Got a suggestion? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) your link.
The Littered Beaches of Britain
by Joanna Kakissis | 04.13.09 | 10:13 AM ET
As depressing as I find many British beaches, I was appalled to read that visitors are practically treating them like landfills. Reuters reports that the Marine Conservation Society, who recruited 5,000 volunteers to help clean up the shores, discovered an average of 2,195 pieces of trash per kilometer of beach—an increase of 110 percent since 1994. Food wrappers and cigarette butts make up about a third of the litter, the group says. Trash dumping on British beaches has doubled in the last 15 years to reach the highest level in history.
Morning Links: The Most Mailed-In Travel Column Ever, the Travel Situation in Thailand and More
by Michael Yessis | 04.13.09 | 8:31 AM ET
- We have Andy Rooney to thank for the most mailed-in column about travel ever published.
- World Hum contributor Tony Perrottet ventures into “America’s Outback,” aka Southern Utah. There’s also a slideshow.
- The Washington Post’s Time Zones spends a few hours in Tel Aviv.
- The U.S. welcomed a record amount of travelers last year.
- Did you hear yet about Woody Harrelson and the zombie at LaGuardia?
- The situation in Thailand has grown dangerous for travelers, according to many governments. World Hum contributor Newley Purnell is updating news and posting on-the-ground reports via Twitter.
- Have all those TV shows about Alaska helped tourism in the state? (via Fark)
- The AP wonders if Cuba “is ready for an onslaught of Americans unseen since the days of Meyer Lansky and Al Capone.”
- A man CC’d The Consumerist on his complaint letter to United Airlines. A ticket agent allegedly stopped his girlfriend from catching a flight and seeing his dying mother because it was time for her break.
- Stan Stesser looks at the state of “The ‘36 Streets’ of Hanoi’s Old Quarter.”
- Larry Habegger goes shopping for shirts in Egypt.
- Finally, Saudi Arabia has banned some “offensive” license plates. Like one with the letters “USA.”
Got a suggestion? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) your link.
What We Loved This Week: Beijing Street Food, a Cupcake’s Journey and More
by World Hum | 04.10.09 | 3:34 PM ET
Photo by Terry Ward Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days:
Terry Ward
Snacking my way through my last day in Beijing with my friend Lilian Chou, a former food editor for Gourmet magazine. Everywhere we saw a line at a restaurant or food stall, we filed in and ordered whatever the locals were queuing up for, which included some surprising “Chinese” fare—custard tarts similar to pasteis de nata (Portugal’s mark on China), little glass jars of creamy yogurt and sweet potatoes roasted on a brazier streetside. “We need two stomachs” was Lilian’s passionate refrain as we carried on noshing, day into night.
Frank Bures
I loved this study proving what we already know: Investing in experiences makes you happier than buying a bunch of crap. More evidence here and here.
