Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Geist Magazine Announces Postcard Story Winners
by Eva Holland | 06.24.10 | 3:34 PM ET
Once again, Geist has announced the winners of their annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest, celebrating very short stories inspired by vintage postcards. I liked Honorable Mention We Are Electric, by Kellee Ngan, about a couple on a beach holiday. Here’s a taste:
We were supposed to be spotting wildlife for him to photograph. I pointed out pigeons and other everyday animals. He wielded his camera more like a telescope than a machine gun. He gazed through the lens but didn’t fire, didn’t try to catch the heron I spied mid-flight.
“It’s got to be something special,” he said.
I drew a line in the sand with my big toe. “You can erase what you don’t like.”
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Yahoo! BuzzIs Your Concierge Reading Your Tweets?
by Eva Holland | 06.24.10 | 1:37 PM ET
Well, maybe. The Wall Street Journal checks in with some hotel managers who are keeping an active eye on their customers’ Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts, aiming to respond to complaints before any widespread damage is done.
Sounds like good news for plugged-in travelers, right? Sure. But as World Hum contributor Alexander Basek warned after a hotel Twitter dust-up last year, “with great power, comes great responsibility… If you’re going to broadcast a gripe about a business, it should be a serious one.”
Postcards From the ‘World’s Most Failed States’
by Michael Yessis | 06.24.10 | 10:21 AM ET
There’s a Big Picture-esque slideshow at Foreign Policy, with some horrific and amazing shots from Chad, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and other unstable places. As Elizabeth Dickinson writes, sometimes you “only know a failed state when you see it.”
By the Numbers: America’s Most Dedicated Drivers
by Eva Holland | 06.23.10 | 4:32 PM ET
Bundle.com crunches the numbers on American gas spending, state by state and city by city. The result is a pretty interesting set of graphics on U.S. car use. The country’s busiest road-trippers? Oklahomans. Hawaiians, meantime, drive the least.
The study notes that, on average, Americans spend 72 minutes a day in their cars—in other words, “290 hours [annually] of drive-time radio, talking back to the GPS and wondering why, for the millionth time, people think it’s okay to drive 60 in the left lane.” (Via The Daily Dish)
Here Come the ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Product Tie-Ins
by Eva Holland | 06.23.10 | 3:28 PM ET
With the movie adaptation just weeks away, the Los Angeles Times books blog has an intimidating list:
By the time the movie opens in August, you will be able to get “Eat, Pray, Love” furnishings from Cost Plus; shop the “Eat, Pray, Love” way with the Home Shopping Network, get “Eat, Pray, Love” jewelry from Dogeared, spray “Eat, Pray, Love” eau de parfum from Fresh, wear organic “Eat, Pray, Love” T-shirts from Signorelli, and drink “Eat, Pray, Love” tea.
I’m holding out for the official “Eat, Pray, Love” Yoga Mat and DIY Ashram Home Decorating Kit, myself. (Via @julia914)
Can Greece Count on Tourism to Rescue it From its Economic Hole?
by Michael Yessis | 06.22.10 | 4:59 PM ET
It’s sure trying. World Hum contributor Joanna Kakissis reports for NPR on Greece’s efforts to lure visitors and fight the perception that rioters plague the country. One key target market: Germans.
German politicians are not popular in Greece. Greeks see them as the instigators of austerity measures that will mean years of recession ahead. The German media has also played up the rift between the two countries.
And that seems to be reflected in the number of Germans avoiding holidays here.
Germans usually make up about 15 percent of visitors to Greece. But the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises estimates that 300,000 of them—or about 12 percent of the Germans who come to Greece annually—will stay away this year. About 16 million travelers visit Greece each year.
So Greece’s tourism ministry is trying to restore the country’s image in Germany and beyond.
Greece’s government has also “offered to compensate tourists stranded by labour unrest ahead of a new travel strike,” according to AFP.
Travel Reads for Summer Laughs
by Eva Holland | 06.22.10 | 4:30 PM ET
The Baltimore Sun offers up a list of funny travel books for your summer beach-reading needs. Three of our 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time—“In a Sunburned Country,” “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “The Innocents Abroad”—made the cut. (Via The Book Bench)
William Dalrymple’s Trans-Global ‘Spinal Tap’
by Eva Holland | 06.22.10 | 10:41 AM ET
Writing in The Daily Beast, William Dalrymple looks back on a nine-month book tour that, from the sounds of it, almost warrants a book of its own. Here’s an enumeration of his companions on the trip:
[A] smoky-voiced Tamil diva who is struggling to keep alive a dying sacred song tradition from the temples of Tamil Nadu on the southern tip of India; six Sufi mystics from a shrine in the badlands of Pakistan who sing the poetry of an 18th-century saint in a strangely haunting falsetto, and who between gigs have been fending off the Pakistani Taliban from taking over their home town; five dope-smoking Bauls, the minstrels of Bengal who travel from village to village teaching tantric mysticism through their songs; and a dancer and part-time prison-warder who is believed in Northern Kerala to be the human incarnation of the God Vishnu; he travels with his side-kick, a small-town taxi driver who has a second career as a theyyam make-up artist and drummer.
Dalrymple’s “City of Djinns” recently landed on our list of the 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time.
China Tackles Poor-Quality Tourist Tchotchkes
by Eva Holland | 06.21.10 | 4:04 PM ET
Is your cheaply made Chairman Mao statuette getting you down? Hunan’s Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision is on the case. Xinhua reports that new technical standards for the popular souvenirs will come into force July 1.
According to the bureau’s chief engineer: “The move is expected to curtail the production and sale of low-quality Mao statues that harm the tourism market and people’s feeling for the great man.” (Via Gawker)
What We Loved This Week: Turista Libre, ‘The Imperfectionists’ and Cycling Whitehorse
by World Hum | 06.18.10 | 4:53 PM ET
Jim Benning
I loved the daylong tour of northern Baja I took last weekend with Turista Libre, culminating in dinner in Puerto Nuevo. Good fun with a good group of people—and worth checking out if you’d like to visit Tijuana with a group.
Interviews With Travel’s Most Celebrated Authors
by Eva Holland | 06.18.10 | 3:20 PM ET
Over the years, we’ve interviewed several of the authors that appeared on our list of the 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time. Here they are, talking about travel, writing and everything from the Dalai Lama to Chinese driver’s exams:
Interview with Greg Mortenson: One Traveler Changing Lives
David Frey asks the bestselling author about the “Three Cups of Tea” approach to travel and life
Interview With Peter Hessler: Behind the Wheel in China
Frank Bures asks the New Yorker writer about his new book, “Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory”
Interview With Alain de Botton: ‘A Week at the Airport’
Frank Bures asks Heathrow’s first writer-in-residence about non-places, taking time to arrive and what airports tell us about ourselves
Interview With Paul Theroux: Invisible Man on a Ghost Train
Jim Benning asks the author of “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” about his new book, aging and the challenge of disappearing in the age of the BlackBerry
J. Maarten Troost: Enduring Pollution and Reptile-Laden Lunches in China For Our Benefit
David Farley chats with the author of “Lost on Planet China” about the Olympic Games, Tibet and eating not-so-well in the Middle Kingdom
Tony Horwitz: Rediscovering the New World
Ben Keene talks to the author of the new book “A Voyage Long and Strange” about travel, American myths and the importance of visiting places where “history happened”
Pico Iyer: On ‘The Open Road’ and 30 Years With the Dalai Lama
The iconic travel writer’s new book taps into his personal experiences with the Dalai Lama. Kevin Capp asks him about the exiled spiritual leader’s “global journey.”
Michael Palin: The New ‘New Europe’
David Farley asks the Monty Python member-turned-travel host about the call of the road and his new television series
Jeffrey Tayler: Facing Africa’s ‘Angry Wind’
Jim Benning asks The Atlantic’s Moscow correspondent about travel writing, his latest book and the allure of the world’s most remote regions
Jeff Greenwald: Travel During War
As war rages in Iraq, Jim Benning speaks with the travel writer about his anti-war stand, his call for Americans to journey abroad, and his new organization, Ethical Traveler
In-Flight Peanut Debate Rears Its Head Again
by Eva Holland | 06.18.10 | 2:56 PM ET
Yep, a possible airplane peanut ban is back on the table this week, and, much like the legume in question, opinions are split down the middle. Over at Salon’s “Ask the Pilot,” Patrick Smith thinks a switch to pretzels or another peanut-free snack should be a straightforward decision. Christopher Elliott isn’t so sure, noting the difficulties in enforcing a complete ban.
Read More From Travel’s Most Celebrated Authors
by Eva Holland | 06.17.10 | 3:08 PM ET
As we noted in our by-the-numbers breakdown of the 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time, five World Hum contributors are represented on the list: Tom Bissell, Jeff Greenwald, Peter Hessler, Pico Iyer and Jeffrey Tayler. Here, to whet your appetite for their books—or to give you another taste of their fine writing, if you’ve already read them—are a few of their contributions to the site:
War Zones for Idiots
The “World Series of Journalism” had begun in Afghanistan, and Tom Bissell didn’t have to qualify to play. He just had to show up.
Burma’s Ongoing Cycle of Despair
Burma was once known as the “Golden Land” by Western adventurers. Not any longer. Under a tyrannical regime, the country’s spiritual and de facto political leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes in prison. For her 60th birthday, Jeff Greenwald has a gift idea.
How I Got My Chinese Driver’s License
In an excerpt from his new book, “Country Driving,” Peter Hessler—aka Ho Wei—recalls his Beijing driving exam
Lover’s Moon
Pico Iyer on the power of travel to make a forgettable Glenn Frey song last forever
Michael Jackson and Me: Strangers in Moscow
Jeffrey Tayler recalls a cold night in 1993 when he took a break from writing his first book to see a performance by the “King of Pop”
Happy Birthday, Hotel Horror Movies!
by Eva Holland | 06.17.10 | 12:44 PM ET
Time to dust off a couple of classic DVDs for a very scary birthday celebration. Hitchcock’s “Psycho” has been scaring travelers in their motel showers for five decades this week, while “The Shining” turned 30 last month—the Atlantic’s James Parker visited the hotels that inspired Stephen King’s novel and Stanley Kubrick’s subsequent movie for the occasion.
Both movies made our list of 13 Great Travel Horror Movies a couple years back.
It’s Bloomsday. Do You Know Where Your Nearest ‘Ulysses’ Reading Is?
by Jim Benning | 06.16.10 | 10:50 AM ET
Happy Bloomsday, the day (June 16) that James Joyce immortalized in his epic novel, “Ulysses.”
If you have the evening free and are in the mood, this might be a good time to seek out a local “Ulysses” reading or related pub crawl. The L.A. Times offers up a short list of gatherings around the U.S. For more on the annual rite, check out this New York Times story.
And look at that: Even Twitter is lighting up with posts about Bloomsday.
