Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Happy 200th Birthday to the Manhattan Grid
by Eva Holland | 03.22.11 | 12:33 PM ET
On March 22, 1811, city officials in New York certified a proposed grid plan of 11 north-south avenues and 155 east-west streets—the building blocks of modern Manhattan. Here’s the New York Times on the impact of the plan:
The grid was the great leveler. By shifting millions of cubic yards of earth and rock, it carved out modest but equal flat lots (mostly 25 by 100 feet) available for purchase. And if it fostered what de Tocqueville viewed as relentless monotony, its coordinates also enabled drivers and pedestrians to figure out where they stood, physically and metaphorically.
“This is the purpose of New York’s geometry,” wrote Roland Barthes, the 20th-century French philosopher. “That each individual should be poetically the owner of the capital of the world.”
I agree: The grid has always made me fearless as a tourist exploring New York City. I never feel lost for more than half a block—regaining my bearings is as easy as walking to the nearest intersection.
The Times also has an interactive map of the original plan laid over today’s city streets. (Via @douglasmack)
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Yahoo! BuzzPico Iyer: The Japanese ‘Have More Resolve and Fortitude Than Almost Anyone I’ve Seen’
by Jim Benning | 03.15.11 | 12:38 PM ET
Like everyone, I’ve been horrified by the news out of Japan following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosions. Among other things, I’ve been wondering how author and World Hum contributor Pico Iyer is doing, and whether he has been home in Japan or traveling as the disaster unfolds.
I just heard from him via email:
By curious chance, and with rare good timing, I actually flew out of Japan last Thursday night, hours before the earth began to move, and so I’m just sitting in placid Santa Barbara now, where nothing seems to move at all. But everyone I know in Japan sounds fine, and is going about her life as usual, for now at least a safe distance from all the horror.
He added:
Let’s hope the Japanese, who have more resolve and fortitude than almost anyone I’ve seen, can put their land together again very soon.
Let’s hope.
This is What Hundreds of Overlapping Photos of Chichen Itza Look Like
by Michael Yessis | 03.10.11 | 12:48 PM ET
Swiss artist Corinne Vionnet combined hundreds of digital images of the same famous landmarks to create what Boing Boing calls “metaportraits.” Like Chichen Itza above. Madeline Yale looks deeper into the project:
What is remarkable about Vionnet’s findings is the consistency in online iterations of the travelers’ gaze. It makes one wonder, how do we determine the optimum spot to photograph landmarks? Maybe we stand at the gateway to the Taj Mahal to render its architectural façade in perfect symmetry, or we stand where we can frame all four American presidents in equal scale at Mount Rushmore. Perhaps we instinctively choose how to photograph known monuments as we are socially conditioned to take pictures we have seen before—images popularized through film, television, postcards, and the Internet.
I found Vionnet’s project goes hand-in-hand with Doug Mack’s audio slideshow, Not-So-Flattering Views of Famous European Landmarks.
R.I.P. Alberto Granado, Travel Companion to Che
by Jim Benning | 03.07.11 | 11:39 AM ET
The fellow Argentinian who joined Che Guevara on the Latin American road trip immortalized in The Motorcycle Diaries has died in Cuba at the age of 88.
On their journey:
As young medical students, they witnessed deep poverty across the continent, particularly Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, and their stay at a Peruvian leper colony left a lasting impression on the pair.
They parted ways in Venezuela, where Granado stayed on to work at a clinic treating leprosy patients.
In 1961, Granado moved to Cuba, where he taught biochemistry at Havana University.
Related: Will ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ Spawn a New Magazine: Condé Nast Revolution?
On the Pleasures of Speaking a D-List Language
by Jim Benning | 03.02.11 | 12:29 PM ET
There’s something to be said for speaking French, German, Spanish or other major foreign languages when you travel. I know my Spanish skills helped open doors that otherwise would have been closed to me in Latin America. There’s no way, for example, that a mariachi group in Chihuahua, Mexico, would have asked me to join them on their evening rounds—from bars to a quinceñera to a wedding—if I hadn’t, in Spanish, expounded upon my love for Jose Alfredo Jimenez’s heart-wrenching songs. A trumpet player literally opened the door to their minivan and invited me in.
But in the latest Smithsonian, World Hum contributor Tom Swick celebrates the unexpected joys of speaking minority languages—say, Polish—that are, as he puts it, on the D-list:
By learning a language that is usually considered difficult and not markedly practical, you accomplish something few outsiders attempt. And appreciation for your effort is almost always greater than that shown, say, to a French major spending her junior year in Paris.
Yet the benefits extend beyond appreciation. When you acquire a new language, you acquire a new set of references, catchphrases, punch lines, songs—all the things that enable you to connect with the people. And the smaller the community, the deeper the connection. Speakers of D-list languages often feel misunderstood; a foreigner who understands—gets the allusions, reads the poets—not surprisingly becomes like family. All languages open doors; minority languages also open hearts.
Makes you want to run out and learn a little Basque, no?
Travelers’ Tales Announces 2011 Solas Award Winners
by Eva Holland | 03.01.11 | 2:24 PM ET
The complete list of this year’s winners is out, and pieces by several World Hum contributors are among the honored travel stories. Michael Shapiro’s “Beneath the Rim” took the Bronze award for Best Travel Story of the Year. David Farley’s World Hum story On the Perils of Travel Writing received a category award, along with stories by Peter Delevett, Erin Byrne and Lola Akinmade. Congratulations to all the winners.
Wired’s Kevin Kelly: Travel as ‘Higher Education’
by Eva Holland | 02.23.11 | 11:41 AM ET
Chris Mitchell interviewed Kelly, who’s taken a break from writing bestsellers about technology to release a travel photography book. The book, Asia Grace, compiles photos from Kelly’s travels through Asia as a young backpacker in the 1970s. Here’s the Wired co-founder on those early travels:
I had hoped to work for National Geographic. I even called up one photo editor there and told him where I was going, looking for an assignment, but of course, they did not work that way… My travels never “paid” for themselves in any economic way, but I never really tried very hard to do so. I think of them more like my higher education. And for the amount of time I spent there, and what I learned, it was the cheapest education ever.
Daisann McLane Learns to Love Cold-Weather Travel
by Eva Holland | 02.09.11 | 6:41 AM ET
Well, “love” might be an overstatement. In her latest, the National Geographic Traveler columnist (and World Hum contributor) describes her transition from outright cold-avoidance to a slow acceptance of winter’s offerings for travelers.
I always have the best travel experiences when I push myself out of my comfort zone. Asked by others how to make their travel richer, I invariably recommend they charge boldly into the unfamiliar—landscapes, customs, languages, cuisines. Climate is just as much a part of a travel experience as food. I didn’t turn up my nose at the Oaxacan locust wrapped in a tortilla or the snake soup in Guangzhou, so why did I limit my travels to a temperature range of 75 to 95 degrees F?
I’m a big proponent of winter travel, so I was thrilled to read about another traveler’s conversion. Welcome to the fold, Daisann.
Protests in Egypt: Five Links for Travelers
by Eva Holland | 02.03.11 | 3:14 PM ET
Photo by Ahmad Hammoud via Flickr (Creative Commons)The protests in Egypt are entering their second week, and the flow of news stories, blog posts, links, tweets and video can be overwhelming. Here are five links, in case you’ve missed any of them:
- The AP has a round-up of the government travel warnings and cruise and tour cancellations that began cropping up late last week.
- Reuters has coverage of the evacuations of foreign nationals that began earlier this week.
- Al-Jazeera English has been live-blogging daily from Cairo, Alexandria and Suez—a must-read.
- Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish is another good resource.
- Finally, The Atlantic has a really well-done video compilation of the early days of the protests.
A ‘Commie-Pinko’ Goes to An All-Inclusive Resort
by Michael Yessis | 02.03.11 | 12:23 PM ET
Some interesting twists in this New York Times Lives essay by Said Sayrafiezadeh:
To my surprise, I wasn’t really bothered by the fact that, as we were being driven to the gated entrance of the place, Mexican resort workers were trekking the mile on foot in 90-degree heat. Nor by the fact that everyone, including the man who mopped the floors, seemed to be happier for the vacationers than they were for themselves. Nor even the fact that on the second day of our stay, the United States won a major sporting event, causing just about every male resortgoer to jump into the swimming pool screaming: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”
No, the real problem was that the place was immeasurably cheap. Especially the food but also the accommodations. The Web site advertised a wonderful selection of gourmet cuisine from around the world. Instead, there was runny flan and soggy farfalle. There was iceberg lettuce. There were giant columns made of faux marble and a long spiraling staircase ascending to a saxophonist playing bad jazz. This wasn’t wealth; this was the illusion of wealth, a theme park of opulence for those who have no chance of ever attaining it, including myself. I was irritated by this gulf of reality. My irritation was compounded by the understanding that my fellow countrymen and -women seemed to be unfazed by the resort’s shortcomings. They ate heartily and merrily, without any apparent discernment. I despised them for their ability to enjoy what I believed should not be enjoyed. In fact, I mocked them for it. I mocked them in the way that middle-class people will mock poor white people for eating sandwiches made with marshmallow spread. These weren’t poor white people, though; they were middle-class white people. And I was no longer the true son of communists. I was a member of the bourgeoisie, and a snob.
R.I.P. Poppa Neutrino
by Michael Yessis | 01.28.11 | 3:34 PM ET
That’s the name David Pearlman began going by when he turned 50, a year after recovering from an illness. Before and after, Neutrino/Pearlman led an amazing and unconventional American life. Among the highlights: He built rafts out of junk and made like Thor Heyerdahl, sailing across oceans.
The New York Times obit notes:
In 1988 Mr. Pearlman converted an abandoned barge into a paddle-wheel houseboat, Town Hall, that tied up at Pier 25 on the Hudson River off TriBeCa for several years.
It was then that he began scavenging the material for Son of Town Hall, a 40-foot raft made of discarded timber, foam bricks and plastic bottles lashed together, basketlike, with 3,000 feet of rope abandoned by Con Edison.
Alec Wilkinson wrote a book about Neutrino, The Happiest Man in the World.
We’ve celebrated him over the years in our own way, including enshrining him at the top of our list of the 39 greatest names in travel and adventure.
Poppa Neutrino was 77.
‘You’re from Idaho? Oh, Iowa? Whatever. Same thing, right?’
by Eva Holland | 01.24.11 | 3:18 PM ET
Over at The Atlantic, Midwesterner Ann Friedman contemplates an adult life spent mostly on the coasts:
In New York, San Francisco, and D.C. I got used to hearing, “You’re from Idaho? Oh, Iowa? Whatever. Same thing, right?” This is perhaps why I love to visit cities and parts of the country not typically defined as tourist destinations. Pittsburgh. Peoria. Milwaukee. Wichita. Reno. When I told friends who had only lived on the coasts that I was about to embark on a month-long road trip, most were jealous. They’ve always wanted to do a cross-country drive! To face their fears of the limited menu at Country Kitchen, the bleakness of the Nebraska landscape, sexist good ol’ boys and racist yokels. Maybe to assuage a low-level guilt that they have been to rural India but never rural Indiana.
Ouch.
‘Ruin Porn’ in Detroit
by Eva Holland | 01.24.11 | 2:13 PM ET
In Guernica, John Patrick Leary takes a look at a couple of new books that depict Detroit’s empty urban landscape and ponders the broader trend they’re a part of.
So much ruin photography and ruin film aestheticizes poverty without inquiring of its origins, dramatizes spaces but never seeks out the people that inhabit and transform them, and romanticizes isolated acts of resistance without acknowledging the massive political and social forces aligned against the real transformation, and not just stubborn survival, of the city. And to see oneself portrayed in this way, as a curiosity to be lamented or studied, is jarring for any Detroiter, who is of course also an American, with all the sense of self-confidence and native-born privilege that we’re taught to associate with the United States.
(Via The Daily Dish)
A Very Different Take on Nepal
by Jim Benning | 01.20.11 | 12:29 PM ET
Writes Andrew Hyde:
A deep depression hit me about an hour into my visit to Nepal and lasted for the first two weeks. Nepal, as a travel destination, is nothing short of raved about. “The Himalayan Mountains are majestic and the people are the nicest in the world!” was a common travel tidbit I heard. What I found was a developing nation with deep problems becoming worse by the month with tourism hastening the poisoning of the well. The pollution is the worst I have ever seen. Air, land, sound and water, nothing is spared the careless trash.
The Peace Corps Volunteer Inspired by Angelina Jolie
by Jim Benning | 01.19.11 | 2:01 PM ET
Sean Smith is leaving his job as a writer at Entertainment Weekly to join the Peace Corps. Why?
As he writes in The Daily Beast, he was tiring of his job covering the entertainment industry when he traveled to India to interview Angelina Jolie.
A reported 43 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people live in slums, and the depth of poverty is soul-sickening. By the time I met with Jolie, I felt raw and rattled, and I was eager to learn how she coped with this kind of suffering in her role as a U.N. ambassador. She said it was painful, yes, but it wasn’t debilitating because she was active. Her work was bringing attention to crises in the world. “If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know how I’d be around it, because I’d feel helpless,” she told me as we drove through the city. “You know, we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow. Then when I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I’d done the right things with my life. It’s as simple as that.”
As a rule, I don’t ask celebrities for advice about anything, save hotels and restaurants, and I didn’t exactly race home and quit my job. But Jolie’s insight stuck with me, and over the next few years, as my ambivalence about my career deepened, I realized that she had provided me with an answer. I had absolute freedom. If I was willing to make a few sacrifices, I could find my sense of purpose and engage myself in work that would feel meaningful to me and be helpful to others.
