Travel Blog: News and Briefs
The All Coast U.S.A. Map
by Michael Yessis | 08.25.10 | 8:21 AM ET
Craig Robinson’s all coast map of the U.S. eliminates the borders with Mexico and Canada. The country looks a bit like a turkey leg. Clever and disorienting.
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Yahoo! BuzzSpike Lee and the ‘Bipolar Parlance of Life’ in New Orleans
by Eva Holland | 08.24.10 | 5:24 PM ET
Spike Lee’s new documentary, If God is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise, is airing on HBO this week. It’s a follow-up to his award-winning 2006 Katrina documentary, “When the Levees Broke,” and Salon’s Billy Sothern, a NOLA resident, says it nails the voice of the city. Money quote:
The people telling the story in this documentary are many of the same people whose names appear in the paper. Some are policy wonks; others, activists or artists; but nearly all are fervent New Orleanians. Some of them speak in a strongly held hyperbole that hints at madness or mania, both about the good and the bad here. There are angry words, never precisely defined, about “the powers that be” and their efforts at “ethnic cleansing” on the one hand, and on the other, references to the Saints’ Super Bowl win that suggest a local belief that the victory was an act of God, as if New Orleans, like the long-suffering Job, had been rewarded for its faith. This is the bipolar parlance of life here, stemming from the widely held belief that the city is vastly better than, worse than, and not really a part of the rest of the country.
(Via The Atlantic)
China’s 10-Day Traffic Jam, in Photos
by Eva Holland | 08.24.10 | 4:50 PM ET
NPR has a sequence of remarkable photos from the ongoing jam, which stretches for more than 60 miles. Hat tip to Boing Boing’s Maggie Koerth-Baker, who speculates about how the AP photographers managed to make it to and from the scene: “I’m imagining a dirt bike was involved.”
Swiss Hiker Drowns Near McCandless Bus
by Eva Holland | 08.24.10 | 2:05 PM ET
The 29 year-old woman, Claire Ackermann, died while crossing the Teklanika River on the Stampede Trail this weekend. Her companion told state troopers that they weren’t on their way to visit the old school bus where Christopher McCandless died in 1992, but the incident has renewed concerns about McCandless pilgrims nonetheless.
The Anchorage Daily News story about Ackermann’s death notes a number of recent near-misses for other hikers attempting the crossing, and one local resident told the paper: “Honestly, I’m amazed this hasn’t happened earlier.” (Via @lunaticcarl)
Travelers Checks: Now Available in Yuan
by Eva Holland | 08.24.10 | 10:41 AM ET
Yep, American Express is now offering the first-ever travelers check in Chinese currency. The news begs two questions: First, is this more evidence that China is on its way to becoming the world’s top tourist destination? And second, does anyone still use travelers checks?
Genghis Khan and the New Mongolia
by Eva Holland | 08.23.10 | 4:03 PM ET
The Atlantic has a dispatch from Bill Donahue, who’s been traveling in a changing Mongolia. As Donahue explains, the long-dead warlord is central to the country’s new commercial efforts:
Genghis Khan is Mongolia’s future. After his conquests were downplayed in the history books during seven decades of de facto Soviet rule, the nomad who ruled an empire stretching from the Caspian Sea to Siberia reemerged in 1990, as democracy was being established. Today, he is a poor nation’s avatar of hope—and he’s becoming a major industry.
In Ulaanbaatar, you can drink Chinggis beer at the Grand Khaan Irish Pub. (For obscure reasons, the local spelling differs from the Western.) The Genco Tour Bureau, an Ulaanbaatar-based company, has spent about $7 million on the Chinggis Khaan Statue Complex, a commercially minded homage where the giant steel Chinggis will soon be flanked by an artificial pond, a skating rink, and 200 small gers, or round tents, for paying campers. Nearby, Genco has also built a 13th-century living history museum, sort of a Colonial Williamsburg on the steppes, where artisans make felt by beating wool with wood sticks. And at the Chinggis Khaan Golf Country Club, the greens are tiny, bright patches of artificial turf on the infinite brown.
With a poignant hopefulness, Mongolia, population 2.7 million, is trying to establish a market economy in the deep shadow of neighboring China.
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Wanderlust’
by Eva Holland | 08.23.10 | 1:37 PM ET
Details are still thin on this one, but it looks as though the Judd Apatow comedy crew is turning its attention to travel. Wanderlust stars Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd as an “urban couple” who hit the road, aiming to “live a more counter-culture lifestyle.” Apatow is producing, while Rudd and director David Wain are collaborating on the screenplay.
David Wain also directed one of our favorite summer vacation movies, “Wet Hot American Summer,” and Paul Rudd is one of my favorite actors, so from where I’m sitting this looks promising. “Wanderlust” is due out in 2011. (Via Frank Bures)
Google Maps—Minus the Map
by Michael Yessis | 08.23.10 | 11:29 AM ET
Yet another interesting way to look at the world or, in this case, Los Angeles. (Via Kottke)
What We Loved This Week: Ayaz Nanji and Eating in San Francisco
by World Hum | 08.20.10 | 5:23 PM ET
Michael Yessis and Jim Benning
We spent Thursday evening out in New York City with fellow Travel Channel staffers to say goodbye to our friend and colleague, Ayaz Nanji. As senior director of Interactive, Ayaz oversaw the company’s digital operations, including World Hum. This site wouldn’t exist without serious support, and Ayaz was as smart, thoughtful and supportive a boss as we could hope for. He also happens to be a hardcore traveler—recent trips have included weeks in Tunisia and Uzbekistan. He’s leaving Travel Channel to embark on a ‘round-the-world trip, and we wish him all the best. He’ll be sorely missed.
Talking Truth in Turkey
by Jim Benning | 08.20.10 | 12:20 PM ET
Claire Berlinski offers a provocative take on Turkish culture in World Affairs:
As the First General Law of Travel tells us, every nation is its stereotype. Americans are indeed fat and overbearing, Mexicans lazy and pilfering, Germans disciplined and perverted. The Turks, as everyone knows, are insane and deceitful. I say this affectionately. I live in Turkey. On good days, I love Turkey. But I have long since learned that its people are apt to go berserk on you for no reason whatsoever, and you just can’t trust a word they say. As one Turkish friend put it (a man who has spent many years in America, and thus grasps the depth of the cultural chasm), “It’s not that they’re bad. They don’t even know they’re lying.”
(Via AL Daily)
The Russians Are Coming ... to Italy
by Michael Yessis | 08.20.10 | 11:37 AM ET
And they’re spending wads of money. Silvia Marchetti writes:
Luring tourists from Russia is a lucrative pursuit in Italy. Many of the most breathtaking and expensive locations have been virtually colonized by them.
They’re the former Soviet Union’s new nobility—billionaire businessmen, bankers and investors who travel across the peninsula in limousines, yachts and helicopters (for 2,000 euros an hour), picking the most romantic scenery for the purchase of dreamlike castles and sea manors.
Rolf Potts: Around the World, Baggage-Free
by Eva Holland | 08.19.10 | 3:49 PM ET
World Hum contributor Rolf Potts is about to embark on his latest project: a six-week ‘round-the-world tour with no bags. Check out the rules for the expedition and the thinking behind it. The project is on Twitter, too, and the trip gets started in two days.
Afghan Carrier Offers ‘Cheerfully Blunt’ In-Flight Magazine
by Eva Holland | 08.19.10 | 1:21 PM ET
Here’s something you won’t read in most in-flight magazines:
The rooms are individually air-conditioned, accessorized with amenities you will find in 4-star hotels abroad, sheets are clean, view from the room is nice, and—after the suicide bombing that took place—security measures have been implemented.
But, apparently, that sort of unblinking coverage is standard for Safi Airways, the Afghan airline whose in-flight magazine is profiled in this Wall Street Journal story. Says a Safi executive: “Anyone who is going to Afghanistan knows about these issues anyway. What would be the point of not talking about them openly?” (Via Julia Ross)
‘Everything was Richly, Gloriously Strange’
by Eva Holland | 08.18.10 | 2:09 PM ET
Thirty years later, Guardian writer Peter Bradshaw looks back on a youthful European tour he took as winner of an essay contest. It’s a good read:
There was no listening to iPods or iPhones - even the Sony Walkman was years away from being commonplace - and no tearful texting our mums from our mobiles. We didn’t tweet and we didn’t upload loads of digital pictures to our Facebook pages. We were going abroad, cut off utterly by the Channel, taking pictures with Kodak instamatic cameras that would take a month to develop. There was no nonsense about making sure we didn’t get dehydrated, or giving us water bottles etc. We just sweated southward through Europe in those non-aircon coaches, got out, did some sightseeing and partied after-hours in our hotel-rooms—although using the word “party” as an intransitive verb was something else no one did in 1980.
And the World’s Most Prolific Pop-Music-Producing Nation Is ...
by Eva Holland | 08.17.10 | 5:13 PM ET
Sweden—at least, it is if you adjust for national GDP while measuring any given country’s share of the pop music market. Foreign Policy has a cool explanatory graphic.
Don’t worry, America: Writer Joshua Keating also notes that “the world’s most popular artists, no matter where they’re from, often perform rock, R&B, and hip-hop tunes that are unmistakably American in origin.” USA! USA! (Via @nobauerm)
