Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Derrie-Air: Philly to L.A.? That’ll be $2.25 per pound.
by Elyse Franko | 06.09.08 | 1:43 PM ET
It seems a few Philadelphia advertisers saw reports like this one and decided to put “pay-what-you-weigh” pricing to the test—just for laughs. Friday’s editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News revealed ads for Derrie-Air, a new airline offering ticket prices based on the weight of passengers and their luggage.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzAir India Wins Legal Battle With ‘Fat’ Flight Attendants
by Eva Holland | 06.09.08 | 12:56 PM ET
Well, you can add this to our ever-growing list of ways to get thrown off a plane. Delhi’s high court has upheld Air India’s right to ground flight attendants who are deemed, as the BBC put it, “too fat to fly,” concurring that overweight staff could present a health and safety hazard. Of course, this could really be just another revenue rescue effort from a desperate airline—if the rumored pay-by-weight system we recently wrote about was applied to crew salaries, as well, think of the pennies that could be saved.
World Hum’s Most Read: May 31-June 6
by World Hum | 06.06.08 | 4:07 PM ET
Is the Internet Ruining Travel?
by Eva Holland | 06.06.08 | 12:19 PM ET
Photo by dro!d via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Several high-profile British travel writers think so. In the Times of London, they weigh in on the proliferation of internet cafes, mass emails home and the rise of blogging from the road. Says Wanderlust editor Lyn Hughes: “I like to remember when ‘poste restante’ was the only way of getting in touch. It was so much more exciting then.”
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
by Eva Holland | 06.06.08 | 11:59 AM ET
Forget about “How To ‘Green’ Your Travels” or “5 Ways To Stretch Your Holiday Dollars.” German newspaper Bild has taken the “How To” article to a whole new level, printing a guide to help its readers avoid British tourists abroad. According to the Independent, the guide was a response to a successful lawsuit by a British traveler, who sued his tour operator after finding himself at a resort full of Germans. Just another beautiful We Are The World moment in international travel.
Gidget, Miki Dora and the Creation of the Surfing ‘Lifestyle’
by Eva Holland | 06.06.08 | 11:51 AM ET
Photo by rappensuncle via Flickr (Creative Commons)
n the latest issue of The Believer, Peter Lunenfeld chronicles surfing’s meteoric rise from SoCal subculture to global brand. “The thing to remember is that, since 1957, surfing as something you buy has overshadowed surfing as something you do,” he writes. “I would hazard that no other activity has ever generated as many products among people who neither know how to do it, nor follow those who do.” The essay touches on topics ranging from Gidget to Freud to Malibu Barbie, and uncovers the unlikely role of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in propelling the sport to pop culture dominance.
Angry Esperantists to Protest G-8 Summit in Japan
by Elyse Franko | 06.06.08 | 10:53 AM ET
Speakers of the artificial international language, Esperanto, are expected to descend on Hokkaido, Japan, just in time for the G-8 summit in July. Their beef? Not unfair trade, human-rights violations or war, but the global linguistic dominance of the English language.
‘Dichos’: The Southwest’s Newer, Cooler Fortune Cookie?
by Joanna Kakissis | 06.06.08 | 10:41 AM ET
2008 Book Passage Travel Writing Conference
by Jim Benning | 06.06.08 | 10:22 AM ET
This year’s Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference takes place August 14-17 in Corte Madera, California. I’ll be on the faculty, along with many writers and editors I admire: Simon Winchester, Tim Cahill, Isabel Allende, John Flinn, Tom Swick and (conference chair) Don George, just to name a few. If you’re interested in studying travel writing or photography and meeting editors and writers, it’s a conference well worth considering.
Travel Headline of the Day: ‘Airlines May Start Treating Passengers as ‘Freight’’
by Eva Holland | 06.05.08 | 6:08 PM ET
Nope, I didn’t come across this one in The Onion. Instead it caps a story from Bloomberg, about the increasingly desperate lengths to which the airlines might go to recoup spiraling fuel costs.
Where in the World Are You, Elyse Franko?
by Elyse Franko | 06.05.08 | 3:57 PM ET
The subject of our latest up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: new World Hum intern Elyse Franko. She just typed this up in the office.
Where in the World Are You?
Exploring Eco-Tourism in the Original Banana Republic
by Jim Benning | 06.05.08 | 2:25 PM ET
Honduras, we learn in Elisabeth Eaves’s fourth Slate dispatch this week, is where short-story writer O. Henry had been exiled to in the 1890s when he coined the phrase “banana republic.” Her fine series of stories, beginning with Monday’s installment, looks at whether the country is benefiting from the rise of eco-tourism. Tomorrow’s piece, she tells us, will touch on Mel Gibson and the ancient Mayans. Eaves reviewed “The Darjeeling Limited” for us last fall.
Photo by Lauri Vain via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
‘There’s a Reason Why You’ve Never Heard of Bus Rage’
by Eva Holland | 06.05.08 | 11:25 AM ET
So says a Greyhound billboard that I pass every day on my way home, and I’m beginning to wonder if the company’s marketing people might be on to something. The one-liners about Greyhound (that its clientele is made up of freshly-released students and freshly-released convicts, for one) have been around longer than I have, but with the airlines rapidly catching up in the joke department, things may be changing. Could bus travel be making a respectability comeback?
Dark Travel Doesn’t Get Much Darker Than This
by Michael Yessis | 06.05.08 | 11:15 AM ET
Two recent stories show how the concept of dark travel is being taken to the extreme, one in New York Magazine, the other from Reuters.
New Snag for L.A.-San Francisco Bullet Train
by Jim Benning | 06.05.08 | 10:55 AM ET
No! Just months before Californians are scheduled to vote on a $10 billion bond measure for a bullet train, the Los Angeles Times reports that “an old-guard railroad is declining to share its right of way space” with the fast trains, citing safety and operational concerns. Somebody please resolve this problem now. Otherwise we’re all doomed to more scenes like the one pictured, aptly titled “Stuck on the 5.” Still not convinced? Check out the cool promo videos here.
