Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Passenger Rights Breakthrough: No More Tarmac Strandings
by Eva Holland | 12.21.09 | 2:30 PM ET
The federal government moved to beef up air passenger rights today, introducing substantial fines for airlines that leave travelers stuck on the tarmac for hours. The new rules mandate $27,500 fines for any instance where passengers are left stranded for more than two hours without food, or prevented from de-planing for more than three hours. It’s a big step, and hopefully it means the end of long-term strandings like this one.
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Yahoo! BuzzWhat We Loved This Week: Snowmobiling, Angry People in Local Newspapers and Flying Over the Rockies
by World Hum | 12.18.09 | 7:50 PM ET
Photo by Jim Benning Eva Holland
Snowmobiling. I had my first-ever excursion last weekend on a series of frozen lakes about an hour south of Whitehorse, and—carbon footprint be damned—I loved flying over the snow alongside wolf and caribou tracks.
The Daily Dish Goes Below the Mason-Dixon Line
by Eva Holland | 12.18.09 | 3:11 PM ET
Over at the Dish, guest blogger Conor Friedersdorf asked readers for some advice on achieving “immersion” during a road trip in the South—and they responded with a slew of tips and recommendations. Selections are posted here and here, and my favorite email is below:
If you’re looking for somewhere to see how Southern the South is, you’re looking for a stereotype, which is exactly what we need to move past…
I’m not a born Southerner… but I did spend some time working there and got to rub shoulders with people every day. Did I see the southern stereotypes fulfilled pretty much every day? Yes, I did. I heard the accents, I ate the grits, I was called “darlin.” But it was much more than that. Was there some place to go there that would provide the kind of “local color” you’re looking for? Probably, there’s usually something to that effect in every small Southern town. But that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d tell you to avoid. If you want to immerse yourself, just immerse yourself. Go to a town at random, or go to several. Stop on the highway whenever you feel like it. What drives me so crazy is that people who haven’t been to the South continue to avoid it, which just keeps the status quo.
I’m sure you’ll receive loads of email telling you to try this barbecue joint or that small-town museum. I don’t really care where you go. Just go.
Audio Slideshow: The Cinemas of Cuba
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.09 | 9:51 AM ET
GlobalPost’s Nick Miroff looks at what remains of Cuba’s once thriving cinema and movie culture.
Video You Must See: Hollywood Teaches World Geography
by Eva Holland | 12.17.09 | 5:09 PM ET
(Via Andrew Sullivan)
The Benefits of Writing in Trains
by Michael Yessis | 12.17.09 | 3:17 PM ET
Most of the writers featured in Emily St. John Mandel’s essay in the Millions write on trains out of necessity: They need to squeeze in writing time whenever they can, even if it means doing so during a commute. But there’s something else about trains, Mandel writes, that’s “oddly conducive to writing.”
For me it’s not so much about the hand writing—I write almost everything in longhand before I transcribe it to my computer anyway, whether I’m at my desk or on the F train—but the rhythm and the white noise, the momentum of travel, the feeling of being immersed in the life of the city.
Agreed. I occasionally write on trains out of necessity, but the rhythm of the rails does help me focus. It’s great. Until I miss my stop.
The Quest to Save Endangered Languages
by Michael Yessis | 12.17.09 | 11:03 AM ET
Great story in the Independent about efforts to preserve the “linguistic diversity stored in tiny pockets of speakers around the world.” Mark Turin is the point man.
The University of Cambridge academic is leading a project that aims to pull thousands of languages back from the brink of extinction by recording and archiving words, poems, chants - anything that can be committed to tape - in a bid to halt their destruction. Languages the majority of us will never know anything about.
Of the world’s 6,500 living languages, around half are expected to die out by the end of this century, according to Unesco. Just 11 are spoken by more than half the earth’s population, so it is little wonder that those used by only a few are being left behind as we become a more homogenous, global society.
Slate Tackles the New York Times and ‘Jewspotting’
by Eva Holland | 12.16.09 | 3:21 PM ET
Jack Shafer thinks the Times should lay off the “hey-folks-we’ve-found-some-Jews-living-in-a-strange-place” stories. Money quote:
Jewspotting stories appear to be about something when they’re really about nothing. Then why such enthusiasm for them at the Times? Because journalists love to write about holdouts—the guy who refuses to sell his home, the Papua New Guinea tribe that won’t become “civilized,” the last blacksmith in town, the last survivor of World War I, even the last Oldsmobile. Rarity stories are easy to write, and their sappiness makes them even easier to read.
I suspect that the relative stability of Jewish populations—outside a drop in inhospitable countries—is the real story. But things staying the same is the opposite of a story, right?
(Via Jeffrey Goldberg)
Video: Black Carbon Travels the Globe
by Eva Holland | 12.16.09 | 1:39 PM ET
Wired has a video simulation (and brief explanation) of the movement of black carbon—the emission from diesel, wood and coal burning—around the earth’s surface. Who knew pollution could look so cool?
The Onion Honors Mankind’s Greatest Monuments
by Eva Holland | 12.16.09 | 11:15 AM ET
America’s finest news source has a slideshow of our most impressive creations, complete with fun facts. For instance: Did you know that Easter Island’s Moai were created in an attempt to blow Leonard Nimoy’s mind? (Via @douglasmack)
The Challenge of Curating a ‘Museum of Ideas’
by Eva Holland | 12.15.09 | 4:35 PM ET
The Globe and Mail has a thoughtful, in-depth look at the process of creating Canada’s still-in-progress Human Rights Museum—a museum, as James Bradshaw, writes, “whose mandate is to grapple almost entirely with the world’s touchiest subjects.” He goes on:
“It is a museum of ideas. And ideas, of course, are never static,” says Yude Henteleff, the chair of the museum’s Content Advisory Committee.
If human rights are a human construction, a set of collective ideas, then the public view of them will be forever shifting, amorphous and vulnerable to attack. And a museum that tries to document that process on its walls promises to have its combustible moments.
France Returns Frescoes to Egypt
by Eva Holland | 12.15.09 | 2:12 PM ET
Big news in the antiquities world: The French government has returned five disputed frescoes to the Egyptian government. The painted stone fragments had been held by the Louvre for the past few years, and the Egyptians—claiming that the Louvre’s curators bought them knowing they were stolen goods—had cut off all formal ties and cooperation on archaeological digs with the museum as a result. I suspect that the British Museum, among others, hopes this move won’t become a precedent-setter.
Travel Movies Go to the Golden Globes
by Eva Holland | 12.15.09 | 12:07 PM ET
The nominations are in for the second-biggest awards show of the year, and, as expected, “Up in the Air” leads the pack with six nods. The movie was nominated for Best Picture (Drama) and Best Screenplay, while Jason Reitman, George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick are all in the running for Best Director, Best Actor (Drama) and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.
But it’s not all about Reitman, Clooney and co.—some other travel movies we’ve kept an eye on this year are among the nominees as well. The Hangover and Julie and Julia are both nominated for Best Picture (Musical/Comedy), while Meryl Streep landed a Best Actress nod for her role in the latter as Julia Child. Sandra Bullock also received a Best Actress nomination for her role in “The Proposal” as an uptight Canadian editor who heads to Sitka, Alaska for an attempted greencard wedding. Finally, Up is nominated for Best Animated Feature Film, while it and Where the Wild Things Are were both nominated for Best Original Score.
“Up in the Air” and Meryl Streep were shoo-ins here—you can expect to see them on the Oscar nominations list when it comes out, too, while “The Hangover” and Sandra Bullock will more than likely disappear when the division between comedy and drama is dropped for the big show.
On the Move: ‘Climate Migrants’ in Bangladesh
by Eva Holland | 12.14.09 | 5:16 PM ET
World Hum contributor Joanna Kakissis reports for The World on the growing numbers of Bangladeshis displaced by a changing landscape. The story’s also available as an audio file. Here’s a sample:
[T]he farmers of Kalikabari are on the leading edge of what could be a great wave of migration. Studies estimate that the effects of climate change could force 30 million Bangladeshis from their homes by the middle of this century. Many environmental migrants are already showing up here—in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.
New Travel Book: ‘To Hellholes and Back’
by Eva Holland | 12.14.09 | 3:10 PM ET
Chuck Thompson’s follow-up to his travel writing tell-all, Smile When You’re Lying, landed in bookstores last week. To Hellholes and Back: Bribes, Lies and the Art of Extreme Tourism sees Thompson journeying to “the world’s most ill-reputed destinations” to see if they live up to the hype. Intelligent Travel’s Christopher Elliott interviewed Thompson about the new book.
