Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Chinatown Face-off: Mandarin vs. Cantonese
by Michael Yessis | 10.23.09 | 9:59 AM ET
Until recently, Cantonese dominated the conversation in Chinatowns around North America. Now “Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart,” writes Kirk Semple. He writes:
The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as China’s influence grows in the world.
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Yahoo! BuzzVideo: Above the Clouds
by Eva Holland | 10.22.09 | 4:57 PM ET
Up in the Air director Jason Reitman just posted this short clip from cruising altitude. It’s lovely.
Is This a New Golden Age for Train Travel?
by Eva Holland | 10.22.09 | 3:43 PM ET
Tony Naylor doesn’t think so. In this piece in the Guardian, he argues that rail travel isn’t the comfortable, scenic, low-carbon alternative to to air travel that it’s cracked up to be. Here’s a taste:
Four years ago, I decided to limit the number of times I would fly each year to one transatlantic flight, or two within Europe… The idea of the train as a far more authentic and civilised—not to mention non-lethal—mode of travel was seductive.
The reality, however, is more complex. You see more of the world, for sure, but that is a mixed blessing.
The Man in Seat 61 responds here.
Video: Travel Experts Weigh in on Window vs. Aisle
by Eva Holland | 10.22.09 | 1:16 PM ET
The latest episode of Robert Reid’s 76-second Travel Show tackles the dilemma that’s as old as commercial air travel: Window or aisle? Our own Jim Benning is among the experts being polled.
Endless Travel Writing Ethics Debate Gets Gawkerized*
by Eva Holland | 10.22.09 | 12:12 PM ET
And here I thought only our little corner of the writing community cared about the ongoing press trip debate. Apparently not. Yesterday, Daily Finance outed New York Times contributor Mike Albo as a taker of press trips, describing Albo’s recent Jamaica junket as a “swag orgy.” Now Gawker’s gotten involved, too, pointing out to the Times’ higher-ups that one of their freelancers was in violation of their no-freebies policy. The Times has acknowledged that the paper has “concerns” about the trip.
As for Mike Albo? Here’s his latest tweet: “do you ever feel like you are a guppy who is being eaten by his mother?”
*Update 12:59 p.m. ET: We’re debating the issue on Twitter at #twethics.
London’s Heathrow: The Worst Airport in the World?
by Eva Holland | 10.21.09 | 2:02 PM ET
Poor Heathrow. It’s taken the title in a passenger poll for the second year in a row. Charles de Gaulle, LAX, Frankfurt and Miami rounded out the bottom five.
Montreal vs. New York City: The Hotdog Showdown
by Eva Holland | 10.21.09 | 12:36 PM ET
Last year we blogged the great bagel debate. Now, Gadling weighs in on another staple.
‘But if You’re Worried About Bombs, Why are You Letting me Keep my Laptop Batteries?’
by Eva Holland | 10.20.09 | 4:31 PM ET
Webcomic XKCD tackles the absurdity of the airport security rigmarole. It’s funny because it’s true. (Via Boing Boing)
LIFE Magazine Opens up the Archives
by Eva Holland | 10.20.09 | 3:08 PM ET
Good news for all the travel photography junkies out there: Every issue from the very first in 1936 through to the end of 1972 is now freely accessible online. (Via Kottke)
The Case Against Bad Music in Public Spaces
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.09 | 2:05 PM ET
Peter Jon Lindberg makes a strong one in Travel + Leisure:
It would be revealing to compile an alternative history of Western music, focused solely on Songs Played in Hotel Lobbies and Cruise-Ship Corridors Through the Ages. You’d document a bizarro parallel universe, one where Michael McDonald is more popular than Led Zeppelin and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons trumps everything by Mozart. The Eagles would be more revered than Dylan; Jamiroquai bigger than Springsteen. And at the top of the pyramid, with her Nagel-print cheekbones, would sit Sade.
Lindberg also hammers resorts that “pump their newage right into the pool via underwater speakers.”
I’ll come clean here: The first and only time I heard music underwater in a hotel pool—Three Little Birds, Bob Marley—I liked it. Overwhelmingly, though, I’m with Lindberg: Keep Jamiroquai to yourself, world.
Arthur Frommer on Mexico, Travel and ‘Irrational Fear’
by Eva Holland | 10.20.09 | 10:51 AM ET
Here’s some more good news for Mexico’s embattled tourism industry: Arthur Frommer has added his voice to the “No really, Mexico is safe for travelers” contingent. In a recent blog post, Frommer admits that hearing about his daughter’s planned trip to Mexico gave him a moment of fear and worry—but he goes on to explain why that fear was largely irrational, noting that she “returned singing the praises of Mexican vacationing and stressing the relative calm of the country.”
Of course, there could be more at work here than just knee-jerk concern about Mexico. After all, don’t parents—even guidebook-publishing parents of grown children—always worry when their kids travel overseas? As Rick Steves noted in our interview with him awhile back, “It’s natural for a parent to be nervous ... I just have to always reason with myself and think, I was 18 and my parents were freaking out and I was capable at the time.”
Seth Stevenson: Innocents Aboard
by Eva Holland | 10.19.09 | 2:46 PM ET
Slate’s latest Well-Traveled series follows writer Seth Stevenson and three other novice sailors as they join the annual herd of “clueless” American boaters who “fly down to Tortola, rent enormous catamarans, float them out into the middle of the channel, and for the next seven days proceed to endanger every seaborne object they encounter.” It’s a good read so far.
‘Venice Doesn’t Smell’ and Other Things You Should Know
by Eva Holland | 10.19.09 | 1:54 PM ET
Over at WhyGo Italy, Jessica Spiegel offers some blunt myth-busting and advice about Venice. That infamously mediocre, overpriced food, for instance? It’s real but avoidable.
Fallows: ‘How I Survived China’
by Michael Yessis | 10.19.09 | 9:58 AM ET
The Atlantic’s former China correspondent reflects on the health issues he faced as an expat amid the “ochre skies and suspect sanitation of China.” The air quality there can be so bad, one doctor told Fallows, “I encourage people with children not to consider extended tours in China. Those little lungs.”
What will future air quality be like in China? In Beijing, at least, it’s already improving.
What We Loved This Week: The High Line, Kogi Tacos and a Ball of Twine
by World Hum | 10.16.09 | 4:43 PM ET
Photo by Frank Bures Eva Holland
I finally checked out the High Line, New York’s new(ish) elevated park, and I loved it. The creative-by-necessity use of space in this city, and the effort to sneak some greenery into any available corner, is one of my favorite things about it.
