Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Repairs Begin at Machu Picchu
by Eva Holland | 02.03.10 | 10:22 AM ET
iStockPhoto With the last of the stranded tourists freshly evacuated from the flooded area around Machu Picchu, the question now is: When will the World Heritage site re-open to visitors? The AP reports that the damaged rail lines connecting the site to the outside world could take at least eight weeks to repair—in the meantime, many locals laid off from shuttered hotels and restaurants are headed to nearby Cuzco in search of work. The Sacramento Bee has a dramatic photo essay of the flooding, landslides and subsequent evacuations.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz‘Up,’ ‘Up in the Air’ Go to the Oscars
by Eva Holland | 02.02.10 | 1:56 PM ET
As expected, a couple of the travel movies we’ve been following all year have landed some high-profile nods for the upcoming Academy Awards: “Up in the Air” has six nominations, while animated South American adventure “Up” has five; both are up for Best Picture.
Here’s the full list of nominees.
What We Loved This Week: Winter Carnival, El Cajon and ‘Bags Fly Free’
by World Hum | 01.29.10 | 5:55 PM ET
Douglas Mack
The Saint Paul Winter Carnival, which is one of my favorite things about living in the Twin Cities and a brilliantly counterintuitive celebration of one of Minnesota’s most infamous attributes. It supposedly began as a rebuttal to a New York reporter’s claim that Minnesota was “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation in the winter”—a view still held by plenty of people from warmer climes. But as I walked through Rice Park, marveling at the intricate ice sculptures and watching bundled-up kids (and adults) toss snowballs at each other, I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to be in some warmer, more boring place.
President Obama Says Yes to High-Speed Rail Plans
by Eva Holland | 01.29.10 | 3:46 PM ET
It’s not often that a major Presidential speech makes ears perk up in the travel media—but President Obama happily got our attention this week when he talked high-speed rail during his State of the Union address Wednesday. Here’s part of what Obama said:
[F]rom the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains or the new factories that manufacture clean-energy products.
Then yesterday in Tampa he outlined where $8 billion in grants will go: A Tampa-Orlando-Miami route in Florida is first up, with projects in California, Illinois and elsewhere to follow. The Christian Science Monitor and NPR have more on the details.
And the response? Bruce Watson of Daily Finance is optimistic, pointing out that an improved rail network’s benefits go well beyond the employment created by the trains themselves. He writes:
For years, critics have argued that rail ticket sales don’t cover the cost of passenger service. However, the same could be said of America’s highway and airline infrastructure, both of which receive far more state and federal funding than Amtrak. The key point is that passenger rail’s profitability doesn’t accrue to the rail line—which will almost always operate at a deficit—but rather to the areas that it serves, where the influx of people will bring business opportunities, tourist dollars and other investment.
Time’s Bryan Walsh is more skeptical. He predicts that much of the money will likely be spent shoring up existing service rather than creating shiny new TGV-style lines, and adds, “America’s antiquated rail system will have to advance a long way just to make it to the present, let alone the future.”
Finally, Politico’s Josh Gerstein picks up on Obama’s recent quip about passengers keeping their shoes on when boarding passenger trains—and ponders why security is so different on trains and planes.
The Critics: Apple’s iPad and Travel
by Eva Holland | 01.28.10 | 6:15 PM ET
REUTERS/Kimberly White Apple’s latest gadget has inspired plenty of talk—and plenty of jokes—over the last couple of days, and among the travel media the big question has been: How will the iPad change the way we travel?
National Geographic’s Mary Anne Potts is enthused, calling the iPad “the ideal on-the-go device for work and play.” Martin Rivers of Cheapflights begs to differ, criticizing—among other things—the lack of USB ports and calling the gadget “a playback device that does very little unless you also happen to be carrying another machine.”
Over at Jaunted, they’ve posted two takes on the iPad—the first argues its merits for travelers, while the second points out its shortcomings. Blogger JetSetCD summarizes:
To put it simply, the iPad is all about media consumption and not creation. It’ll be great for reading eBooks, watching movies, surfing the web, referencing Google Maps and flipping through photos you have already transferred onto it from your regular laptop or desktop. That said, it is not a standalone device; you will need to travel with your laptop in order to upload pictures and video from your camera onto it and do anything on software that doesn’t work on the iPad (like Photoshop).
Finally, PhoCusWright Connect aims to get beyond the rehashing of the iPad’s specs and capabilities and look at the bigger picture for content producers—namely, “what does yesterday’s announcement mean to you and I, what should we do about it and what does the future hold for travelers interacting with our brand and content.”
R.I.P. J.D. Salinger
by Eva Holland | 01.28.10 | 2:07 PM ET
The famously reclusive novelist, best known for “The Catcher in the Rye,” has died at age 91. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks of Salinger, and his “Catcher” protagonist Holden Caulfield, as being inextricably linked to New York City, and to Central Park in particular. Here’s a memorable passage from the novel:
I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.
World Hum contributor Beth Harpaz has a guide to Holden Caulfield’s New York City in USA Today.
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’ Redux
by Eva Holland | 01.27.10 | 3:19 PM ET
Yup, there’s a remake of the weekend-with-a-corpse beach getaway comedy in the works. Get the Big Picture predicts: “There’s no way this attracts any real talent, and only a slightly larger chance that it attracts an audience.”
Haggis Ban Lifted After 21 Years*
by Eva Holland | 01.26.10 | 1:32 PM ET
The sheep offal delight had been banned in the United States since the ‘80s due to BSE fears, but now Scotland’s most famous dish is back on the American dinner table. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
Update 3:01 p.m. PT: Sorry, haggis fans. A representative from the Department of Agriculture writes, “At this time, haggis is still banned in the U.S. The APHIS rule covers all ruminant imports, which includes haggis. It is currently being reviewed to incorporate the current risk and latest science related to these regulations. There is no specific time frame for the completion of this review.”
Where Should Conan O’Brien Go Now?
by Eva Holland | 01.25.10 | 5:20 PM ET
World Hum contributor Mike Barish has some vacation ideas for the newly unemployed comedian.
Video: ‘Please Arrive Three Days Prior to Your Flight’
by Eva Holland | 01.25.10 | 11:48 AM ET
A message from Transport Canada:
(Via @Gadling)
What We Loved This Week: Bermuda, ‘The Wire’ and ‘The Way of the World’
by World Hum | 01.22.10 | 4:48 PM ET
Larry Bleiberg
I indulged my inner geography nerd this week, flipping through Mark Stein’s oddly compelling book, How the States Got Their Shapes. So why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? What’s up with New Jersey’s tilted northern border? And isn’t California a little greedy taking up most of the West Coast? In almost every state the explanations range from politics to topography to an occasional surveying error.
New ‘World’s Highest Airport’ Planned for Tibet
by Eva Holland | 01.21.10 | 12:32 PM ET
The AFP reports that the new facility will be built in the Nagqu prefecture, at 4,436 meters (14,554 feet) above sea level—102 meters, or 335 feet, higher than the current record holder, also in Tibet. (Via @alisonbrick)
Michael Bay for TSA Chief?
by Eva Holland | 01.21.10 | 11:05 AM ET
As the hunt for a new agency head continues, Jeffrey Goldberg tosses the “Transformers” director’s name into the ring, noting that Bay “would fully embrace the fantastical, security theater aspect of TSA’s mission.” Cue the Megan Fox/full-body scanner jokes.
‘Fly Girls’: Reality TV at 37,000 Feet
by Eva Holland | 01.20.10 | 5:56 PM ET
Yup, a slice of Airworld is coming to prime time. The CW has picked up eight episodes of the new reality show, which follows five Virgin America flight attendants from the air to their Los Angeles “crash pad” and beyond. The Los Angeles Times describes “Fly Girls” as having “a ‘Gossip Girl’-meets- ‘The Hills’-vibe”—which, I’ll admit, doesn’t have me rushing to write the air dates in my calendar. The same story offers some interesting points about the intersection of infomercial and entertainment on the show.
Reviewed: The Matteo Ricci World Map
by Michael Yessis | 01.20.10 | 3:39 PM ET
Commissioned in 1602, the Matteo Ricci World Map is the first written in Chinese to show the Americas. It’s currently on display at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Edward Rothstein reviews the exhibition:
Ricci created two earlier versions, beginning in 1584, drawing on atlases and materials he took with him on his journey from Italy. But this third version is the earliest to survive and the first to have combined information from both eastern and western cartography. It is also the oldest surviving map to have given the Chinese a larger vision of the earth.
Even the sturdiest of wall maps tend to have limited life spans, but this large, segmented map is so rare that for centuries it was uncertain if this copy even existed, which is why it has been nicknamed the “impossible black tulip” of maps. It is one of six known copies.
