Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Should Airlines Change the ‘Lap Child’ Policy?
by Eva Holland | 10.09.09 | 1:35 PM ET
Beth Blair of The Vacation Gals thinks so. Her call for a ban is pretty convincing.
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Yahoo! BuzzEU Aims to End Airline Liquid Ban
by Eva Holland | 10.09.09 | 10:44 AM ET
Good news, sort of, from across the pond: The European Union’s transport commissioner is “resolved to get rid of these awkward and very uncomfortable” security restrictions—just as soon as new screening technology becomes available. There’s no target date, but the thought counts for something, right?
Coming Soon: ‘Phantom of the Boardwalk’?
by Eva Holland | 10.08.09 | 4:13 PM ET
Andrew Lloyd Webber is hard at work on a sequel to his monster hit, “Phantom of the Opera”—and, the Globe and Mail reports, the second installment will be set at Coney Island. The new show is set to debut in London and New York next year, and the producers promise that it will be—wait for it—“a roller-coaster ride of obsession and intrigue.”
Chinatowns: A Reminder ‘You Don’t Have to go Far From Home to Really Take Off in America’
by Michael Yessis | 10.08.09 | 3:00 PM ET
After her interview with “American Chinatown” author Bonnie Tsui for World Hum, Jenna Schnuer reflects on the Chinatowns in her life and how they’ve shaped her. She writes: “[U]nlike Tsui, whose trips to Chinatown offered a chance to connect with her family and heritage, mine have always been a chance to experience something, well, other.”
George Saunders Goes to Tent City, U.S.A.
by Michael Yessis | 10.08.09 | 1:04 PM ET
It’s in Fresno, California, and he lived there this April. Saunders writes on his website:
It was a very moving, sort of scary experience, that had the effect of re-energizing certain tendencies in my fiction and in me as a person, I guess, among these: respect for the real; a distrust of the American capitalist juggernaut; suspicion of my own Pollyannaish tendencies; new enthusiasm for the variety and weirdness of the world.
His 12,000-word piece about it—and an audio slideshow—can be found at GQ.
Travel Movie Watch: Yet Another ‘Vacation’ Sequel
by Eva Holland | 10.08.09 | 11:48 AM ET
Dust off the Family Truckster: The Griswolds are back. Well, one of them at least—apparently, in the soon-to-be fifth installment of the “Vacation” series, Clark’s now-grown son Rusty will take his own young brood on the road. Get the Big Picture’s Colin Boyd speculates:
My hunch would be that they’d look to a well-established comedic actor for the role, and the more money they have, the bigger name they could attract. I also have a hunch that it won’t matter to a lot of you, since you may have already imposed a ban on this film out of principle.
Anyone who followed along when the World Hum Travel Movie Club tackled the original last summer knows that “Vacation” is not one of my personal sacred cows. Still, it’s hard not to be suspicious of the motives for making a sequel nearly 30 years later—this wouldn’t have anything to do with the publicity generated by the recent death of John Hughes, would it?
Mapped: The Cheeses of Britain and Ireland
by Eva Holland | 10.08.09 | 10:57 AM ET
Another tasty bite of geographical fun—and more proof that British food is worth defending. (Via @LPUSAstaff)
Manhandling Monet’s Water Lilies
by Michael Yessis | 10.08.09 | 10:03 AM ET
At the Onion’s version of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the paintings are fair game for touching. From its story about how the struggling museum now allows patrons get “up close and personal”:
“You can’t grasp the brilliance of a great painting just by looking at it,” said Phil Brehm, 32, who acknowledged that he hadn’t set foot inside a museum since a mandatory field trip in high school. “To truly appreciate fine art, you need to be able to run your fingers over its surface and explore its range of textures.”
“Or just rub your face all over it, like I do,” Brehm added.
The art for this one is fantastic.
The Titanic Memorial Cruise: Tasteless or Touching?
by Michael Yessis | 10.07.09 | 3:43 PM ET
Miles Morgan Travel, the company behind the Titanic Memorial Cruise, tells Reuters it has “come in for a little bit of criticism,” but stresses the upcoming trip is meant to be “a commemoration not a ghoulish recreation of the original journey.”
It may or may not be ghoulish, but it is a recreation. The cruise will depart Southampton, England on April 8, 2012, 100 years to the day after the original Titanic’s departure. On April 12, 2012, it will stop at the exact spot Titanic sank.
“I’ve had several people in tears on the phone,” Miles Morgan said. “I was reading the itinerary to one woman and she literally broke down.”
Capt. Sully: Mustached American of the Year?
by Eva Holland | 10.07.09 | 3:03 PM ET
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson More accolades could be on the way for the pilot whose heroic landing of a passenger jet on the Hudson made him a celebrity early this year. Yep, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is among the finalists for the Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year award, courtesy of the American Mustache Institute.
How Habitual Travel Sharpens the Intellect
by Michael Yessis | 10.07.09 | 1:12 PM ET
Travel can lead to disorientation, which can improve learning. Benedict Carey explains.
Oyster Hotel Reviews: Going Undercover?
by Eva Holland | 10.07.09 | 11:01 AM ET
The Star-Ledger has an interesting profile of Oyster Hotel Reviews, a newcomer on the online travel scene. The story emphasizes the site’s efforts to hire writers with investigative reporting experience for their undercover reviews, and while some of the cloak-and-dagger language seems a tad over the top, it still adds up to an intriguing point: Oyster is abandoning the trend of user-generated reviews in favor of hiring trained professionals, and aiming to rise to the top of the hotel-review heap by doing so. Maybe guidebook writing isn’t a doomed profession after all?
‘Warm Shots,’ ‘Vaseline’ and Other Movie Classics
by Eva Holland | 10.07.09 | 9:42 AM ET
The Huffington Post takes a look at the international variations of a few well-known movie titles. My favorite? China’s “Six Naked Pigs”—otherwise known as The Full Monty.
David Lynch: ‘Interview Project’
by Kevin Fay | 10.06.09 | 4:10 PM ET
David Lynch’s excellent travel web series, Interview Project, follows a team of filmmakers (led by Austin Lynch, David’s son, and Jason S.) as they take a 20,000-mile road trip across the States and back, talking with local folks. The resulting webisodes each feature one subject and function like intimate four-minute character studies.
We think a lot about how liberating a journey can be for the traveler, but often that liberation is contagious, and people we meet on the road open up to us in ways they normally wouldn’t. This project is a lovely example of the unique exchange between the traveler and the local. As Lynch puts it in his intro “it’s something that’s human, and you can’t stay away from it.”
Forbes Ranks World’s Billionaires Against National GDPs
by Eva Holland | 10.06.09 | 2:54 PM ET
And, for many nations, it’s not a flattering comparison. Bill Gates’ net worth, for instance, is higher than the gross domestic product of more than 140 different countries. Warren Buffett’s wealth ranks up there with North Korea’s, while George Lucas and Guyana are neck-and-neck further down the list. Hmm. I smell gimmicky rebranding potential—tropical vacation in Lucasland, anyone? (Via Kottke)
