Travel Blog: News and Briefs
A Detour to Seattle
by Eva Holland | 09.21.10 | 3:10 PM ET
Over at Gadling, World Hum contributor Andrew Evans has a sad, thoughtful piece about a last-minute trip to Seattle to attend a funeral. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a favorite sequence:
The day after the funeral, the friend I was crashing with whipped out a yellow legal pad and began making a list of things to see and do in Seattle. Mostly, he suggested I do a lot [of] eating. We made plans to meet up for lunch at a popular Russian café; my friend slipped me the address as we walked downtown. I had no map and no idea how I would find him.
“Just remember,” he panted, “Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest.” He ran all the words together as one and it didn’t make any sense at all.
“Huh?”
“It’s a way to remember the streets: Jesus is for Jefferson/James. Christ—Cherry and Columbia. Made—Marion/Madison . . . and so on, you’ll see. It’s easy—just follow the streets in that order. Be at Cherry and Third at one o’clock.”
“Jesus! Christ! Made! Seattle! Under! Protest!” he shouted out each word as he spun around the corner and marched uphill. Every street in Seattle goes up or down.
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Yahoo! BuzzAre the Olympics ‘Toxic’ for Tourism?
by Eva Holland | 09.21.10 | 2:20 PM ET
That’s the concern in London, where a report from the European Tour Operators Association suggests that host cities routinely overestimate the visitor bounce they’ll receive from the Games. Here’s the Guardian’s Owen Gibson:
Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, has talked of 1 million “extra” visitors coming to the UK for the games.
But the ETOA report claimed that the perception that the host city would be crowded and prices expensive was likely to tarnish the view of the country as a whole.
It said its members were already dealing with the perception that the UK would be crowded and so best avoided in 2012.
For what it’s worth, London, I’m hoping to be there.
The Wired Guide to Road Tripping in Kabul
by Eva Holland | 09.21.10 | 1:54 PM ET
Zach Rosenberg shares some lessons learned from four months of driving in the Afghan capital. The story includes some fascinating observations alongside the practical advice—Kabul’s most popular bumper stickers may surprise you.
High-mileage Toyota Corollas are so ubiquitous as to deserve a place on the Afghan flag. In fact, if you’re in Kabul, you’re probably driving one. Most of them are well-worn imports from Canada, the United States, Germany and other western nations and many bear stickers or flags identifying them as such. They often sport bumperstickers from their homelands. Logos of American universities are common. Less common but endlessly ironic are the occasional “Bush/Cheney ¹04,” “Jesus Saves” and “My Child is a Star Pupil At…” stickers.
The Theme Park Industry ‘is Moving to Asia’
by Eva Holland | 09.21.10 | 1:07 PM ET
Florida may not be the unofficial Theme Park Capital of the World for much longer. The theme park business is exploding in Asia, thanks in large part to a growing middle class in countries like China, India and Indonesia—and a resulting domestic tourism boom. The AFP has the details:
Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea, the Universal Studios park in Osaka and South Korea’s homegrown Everland ranked among the world’s top 10 theme parks in terms of visitors last year, according to industry consultancy Themed Entertainment Association (TEA).
Encouraged by Asia’s promise, Universal Studios signed a deal in January to build its largest theme park in the world in South Korea at a cost of around 2.67 billion dollars.
When completed in 2014, the resort will be bigger than Universal Studios’ four other parks in Hollywood, Florida, Osaka and Singapore combined.
‘I Studied Abroad in Africa!’: Fair or Unfair?
by Michael Yessis | 09.20.10 | 5:06 PM ET
Students who have ventured to Africa are getting called out on the Tumblr I Studied Abroad in Africa! for “wearing your ‘traditional’ African clothes, eating ‘weird’ foods and taking as many photos of black children as possible.” Fair or unfair? (Via urlesque)
Retracing Steinbeck’s ‘Travels With Charley’
by Jim Benning | 09.20.10 | 3:50 PM ET
Fifty years ago this week—on Sept. 23, 1960—John Steinbeck set out on the 10,000-mile road trip that would inspire the classic American memoir, “Travels With Charley.”
This Thursday, writer Bill Steigerwald will set out to retrace Steinbeck’s journey. He plans to write about it, using the trip as “the frame for a book that compares simple, poor, square 1960 America with 2010 America.”
He admits the two journeys will be very different.
Steinbeck camped out under the stars a bunch of times. I won’t. He drove a clunky uncomfortable truck with a Spartan camper shell on its back. I’ll stay at pre-1960 motels when I can and drive a 2010 Rav4 I can sleep in when I must. When Steinbeck was on the road he had only an AM radio and pay phones to keep him tethered to the world. I’ll have enough communication gear for a trip to the moon.
The book “Travels With Charley” will be my map/guide/timeline to the places Steinbeck went and the things he mused, complained or fretted about. Unfortunately, “Charley” is not a travelogue and wasn’t meant to be. It’s often vague and confusing about where Steinbeck actually was on any given date, and Steinbeck, who died in 1968, left no notes, no journal, no expense records.
There’s more information and an interactive map here.
The New Oxford American Dictionary: Embracing Travel Lingo
by Eva Holland | 09.20.10 | 1:45 PM ET
A handful of the travel-themed words and phrases we’ve covered here on the blog are now bona fide entries in the New Oxford American. The lucky winners? Hypermiling and staycation—this, despite our attempts to quash it. “Flyover” also received some attention; the dictionary now acknowledges its informal role “denoting central regions of the US regarded as less significant than the East or West coasts.” (Via The Book Bench)
Pico Iyer’s ‘10 Best Travel Books for Your Second Act’
by Eva Holland | 09.20.10 | 12:31 PM ET
Over at Second Act, a site aimed at the over-40 crowd, the author of “Video Night in Kathmandu” shares his “wildly subjective list of the books that have moved me to think about life in new ways and transported me to the farthest corners of possibility.” Four of his picks—along with two of his own books—appeared on our list of the 100 most celebrated travel books of all time.
What We Loved This Week: Grey Mountain, Don George’s Peru and ‘Sweatpants in Paradise’
by World Hum | 09.17.10 | 5:20 PM ET
Eva Holland
Last weekend I drove up Grey Mountain, just outside Whitehorse, for some great views and fall color. Here’s one of my favorite shots from the excursion:
The Onion Reports: More Colleges Offering Dick-Around Abroad Programs
by Eva Holland | 09.17.10 | 4:27 PM ET
This just in from America’s finest news source: A growing number of colleges are now offering their students “the chance to spend every night partying in pretty much the same way they would have at home.” Lehigh University senior Christie Oden says she’s “dicked around in France and Australia.” She continues:
“I tell everyone I know: Definitely dick around abroad if you get the chance. It’s the best thing I did in college.”
For students like Oden, who are seeking opportunities to waste enormous amounts of time in a specific field, some schools offer specialized programs for dicking around abroad. Engineering majors at MIT, for example, can spend a semester in a drunken haze at the school’s Munich location, while juniors studying art history at Northwestern University may sign up for a year of yanking their puds in the museums of Paris.
(Via Adam Karlin)
Four Great Gringo Songs About Mexico
by Jim Benning | 09.17.10 | 2:10 PM ET
We just linked to a list of the 10 “most Mexican” songs of all time, and that got me thinking about my favorite songs about Mexico that aren’t Mexican at all—songs that were, in fact, written and recorded by gringos.
Here are my top four. What are yours?
‘Mexico’ by James Taylor
‘Mexican Radio’ by Wall of Voodoo
Travel Movie Watch Update: ‘The Tourist’
by Eva Holland | 09.17.10 | 11:12 AM ET
Sound familiar? That’s because we blogged this flick just over a year ago—as a thriller starring Charlize Theron and Sam Worthington. The movie’s due out in December, only the lead characters—a seductive Interpol agent and the hapless tourist who gets caught up in her schemes—are now being played by Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.
Here’s the trailer, complete with plenty of European vistas and on-the-TGV intrigue:
(Via the L.A. Times and Eli Ellison)
The 10 ‘Most Mexican’ Songs of All Time
by Jim Benning | 09.16.10 | 3:05 PM ET
El Universal has offered up a list of the 10 “canciones más mexicanas.” Great stuff from Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Jorge Negrete and others.
Here’s one that made the list, Pedro Infante singing “Cielito Lindo”:
(Via NPR’s Multi-American blog)
Local Newspapers: ‘The Heartbeat of Any Great Place’
by Michael Yessis | 09.15.10 | 4:55 PM ET
Daisann McLane is no luddite. She reads newspapers online when she’s at home. When she’s on the road, though, bring on the ink smudges.
For a long time I thought it was just coincidence that so many of the places I gravitated to as a traveler—Colombia, India, the West Indies, London, Hong Kong—also happen to be places with a lively, even raucous, newspaper scene. (In this “post-print” era, Hong Kong’s citizens defy the pundits by continuing to support 15 to 16 daily newspapers.) But as I travel to more cities and countries and read more local newspapers, I realize they’re in the same category as public squares, street markets, and local coffee shops. They’re the heartbeat of any great place. When I visit regions that, because of political repression or economics, don’t have a good daily paper, I feel like something is missing, as though there’s a lack of oxygen in the air. Havana was wonderful, but it would have been even better if I’d awakened, as I did that time in Veracruz, to the “Music! Happiness! Wounded bulls!” headline.
Jonathan Gold Goes to Bat for Food Trucks
by Eva Holland | 09.15.10 | 2:05 PM ET
In response to some legal pushback against the popular trucks—driven in part by restaurateurs worried about lost business—the L.A. Times’ food writer explains their appeal. Here’s Gold:
The draw could be the communal experience, or it could be the feeling that you belong to a fraternity of the plugged-in. It could be that moment that defines street food of all types—your food is cooked, served and consumed in what seems like a single fluid motion; desire and fulfillment becoming one. Or it could be the impulse of citizenship: This sidewalk looks a lot like Los Angeles.
(Via The Atlantic)
