Travel Blog: News and Briefs
R.I.P. National Geographic Adventure
by Eva Holland | 12.03.09 | 2:21 PM ET
The National Geographic Society announced today that its 10-year-old adventure title will cease publishing, apparently due to declining ad sales. This month’s issue will be its last. Here’s West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro on the loss of the magazine:
For those of you who are just passing readers of the magazine, its demise might be a mere curiosity or random note of economic discord. But for those of us who care about good writing, great photography, insight and curiosity and advocacy for an engaged relationship with the world at large, it is a truly remorseful day.
We interviewed National Geographic Adventure editor John Rasmus about a new travel anthology a couple months back.
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Yahoo! BuzzPolitical Geography and the Jordanian Gerbil
by Eva Holland | 12.03.09 | 1:38 PM ET
Foreign Policy takes a look at a fascinating study that suggests political boundaries could have an impact on the development of animals living on opposite sides of the line. One of the test cases: Israeli and Jordanian gerbils. From the story:
A second study revealed that Israeli gerbils are more cautious than their Jordanian friends… The agricultural fields on the Israeli side of the border not only create a gulf between habitats and thereby cause an increase in the number of species in the region, but they also hail one of the most problematic of intruders in the world: the red fox. On the Jordanian side, the red fox is far less common, so that Jordanian gerbils can allow themselves to be more carefree.
(Via Kottke)
Passports With Purpose is Back
by Eva Holland | 12.02.09 | 5:37 PM ET
And it’s bigger and bloggier than before. In its second year, the travel blogging/fundraising effort, co-founded by World Hum contributor Pam Mandel, is aimed at building a school in rural Cambodia. Here’s Pam on the inspiration behind the project:
For me, this is something of a selfish act. I have been—what is it? Haunted is too strong a word. Obsessed, perhaps, is closer to the truth. I have wanted so badly to do something, anything, to mend the heartbreak that Cambodia left me with. Passports with Purpose is going to help me answer that question of doing something, anything, to help.
A huge group of travel bloggers has signed on, and there are fabulous prizes—three nights in a Waikiki hotel, anyone?—up for grabs. Each $10 donation made towards the effort lands you a spot in the prize giveaway of your choice. You can find all the details here.
Cartography: A ‘Nether Region Between Science and Art’
by Michael Yessis | 12.02.09 | 4:13 PM ET
More to love from the world of strange maps: Slate has a slideshow and essay about “cartographic curiosities,” courtesy of author Frank Jacobs, whose book of strange maps we blogged awhile back.
R.I.P. Binion’s Hotel
by Eva Holland | 12.02.09 | 2:31 PM ET
Photo by Eva Holland The “gambling hall” portion of Binion’s Gambling Hall and Hotel will remain open, at least for now, but KVBC is reporting that the venerable downtown Vegas casino is closing down its nearly 400 hotel rooms. Roughly 100 staff are being laid off, too. Sad news for those who prefer Fremont St.‘s vintage charms to the super-sized fun of the Strip. (Via @jenleo)
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Pelada’
by Michael Yessis | 12.02.09 | 11:15 AM ET
When I interviewed Gwendolyn Oxenham and Ryan White in 2007 they were packing for Trinidad, the first stop in a journey to play pick-up soccer around the world. They, along with Rebekah Fergusson and Luke Boughen, planned to chronicle their experiences in a documentary.
More than two years later, a rough cut of their film is finished. Soon they’ll be pitching “Pelada” to film festivals. In the meantime, here’s the trailer:
The Puzzle of ‘Cool Cities’ and Migration
by Eva Holland | 12.01.09 | 3:16 PM ET
New Geography’s Aaron M. Renn explores a paradox of the 2000s: Why do America’s “cool cities”—“the ones that are supposedly doing the best, the ones with the hottest downtowns, the biggest buzz, leading-edge new companies, smart shops, swank restaurants and hip hotels - the ones that are supposed to be magnets for talent”—experience a higher rate of domestic outmigration than the cities with less cache? In other words, why are people moving to Dallas instead of San Francisco? It’s a slightly dense, interesting read. (Via The Morning News)
The Onion Reveals How to See the ‘Real Morocco’
by Michael Yessis | 12.01.09 | 12:59 PM ET
It’s just down the alley that curves into the distance, and Tahar Hissou knows you’ll like the woven goods you’ll find down there. “I could tell by your Boise State University T-shirt that you are an educated man who knows it is truly best to visit my country alone,” he writes. “That is how you get to see the real Morocco, the one you cannot find in any guidebook.”
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Leap Year’
by Eva Holland | 12.01.09 | 10:27 AM ET
See, I told you Hollywood never gets tired of this story. “Leap Year” stars Amy Adams as uptight Anna, who decides to take advantage of an old Irish tradition and fly to Dublin on “Leap Day” to propose to her boyfriend. Of course, she gets sidetracked by a series of comic mishaps and a handsome European stranger—the trailer tells you the rest:
It hits theaters in January, alongside When in Rome, making it a good month for fans of the romance-in-Europe flick.
In-flight Magazines: Still Profitable
by Eva Holland | 11.30.09 | 4:03 PM ET
The Wall Street Journal reports that, despite the air industry’s recent woes and the travel publishing industry’s even worse ones, in-flight magazines are still a money-maker. The secret? Low marketing and distribution costs and a large, captive audience, for a start. (Via Gawker)
What We Loved This Week: The Icefields Parkway, ‘An Irreverent Curiosity’ and More
by World Hum | 11.25.09 | 12:23 PM ET
Photo by Eva Holland Mike Barish
I spent a morning staring in amazement at Boston.com’s gallery of National Geographic’s International Photography Contest submissions. From crashing waves to fighting hippopotamuses to a simple portrait of a child, the gallery reminded me that travel photos can tell stories in any number of ways.
The ‘Tintin’ Movie: ‘It’s Made’
by Eva Holland | 11.25.09 | 11:45 AM ET
The BBC has the latest on the “Tintin” movie we’ve been tracking. The filming and editing are complete, the Beeb reports, but the last stage—the computer animation—could take another two years. “Tintin is great,” producer Peter Jackson said. “It’s made. The movie is cut together and now [we] are turning it into a fully-rendered film.”
The same story also notes that Jackson is currently scouting locations in New Zealand for his adaptation of “The Hobbit.” I guess this time around we’ll be calling it a “Bilbo economy”?
What Psychologists Have Learned From Watching You on the Subway
by Michael Yessis | 11.25.09 | 10:41 AM ET
Tom Vanderbilt looks at what psychologists have gathered from studying subway riders, and why the subway is “a perfect rolling laboratory for the study of human behavior.”
As the sociologists M.L. Fried and V.J. De Fazio once noted, “The subway is one of the few places in a large urban center where all races and religions and most social classes are confronted with one another and the same situation.”
Or situations. The subway presents any number of discrete, and repeatable, moments of interaction, opportunities to test how “situational factors” affect outcomes. A pregnant woman appears: Who will give up his seat first? A blind man slips and falls. Who helps? Someone appears out of the blue and asks you to mail a letter. Will you? In all these scenarios much depends on the parties involved, their location on the train and the location of the train itself, and the number of other people present, among other variables. And rush-hour changes everything.
William Least Heat-Moon: ‘Speed Corrupts Travel far More Than Bad Chinese Food’
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.09 | 2:46 PM ET
CNN talks to the author of the classic travel book “Blue Highways” as part of its American Road Trips package. The Blue Highways experience, he says, is still out there:
There are still miles and miles of two-lane roads to take a traveler into recesses of America, where delights and amazements await.
The problem with an interstate is not the interstate itself but the speed at which one can move on an interstate.
(via Jaunted)
Photos: Accidental Geography
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.09 | 1:37 PM ET
Strange Maps just posted another amusing batch of photos where the familiar shapes of continents, countries, states and the like appear in things like shower tiles, cracks in floors, fruit and other random places. Here’s the first batch from last year. (via Coudal’s Fresh Signals)
