Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Francis Fukuyama vs. Bernard Henri-Lévy: Battling Over Las Vegas
by Michael Yessis | 03.28.06 | 12:29 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzWashington Residents Just Saying No to “SayWA”
by Michael Yessis | 03.27.06 | 12:26 PM ET
Writers of tourism slogans are having a bad month. This time it’s the folks in Washington who are getting grief for their SayWA campaign. It’s not that some people find it offensive, like Australia’s latest slogan. It’s that people simply don’t get it. “Thirty-five years ago I smoked dope and probably could have come up with something like that,” Darrell Bryan, general manager of Victoria Clipper, the largest tour operator in the Northwest, told the Seattle Times. “To me, it’s better to have no slogan than to come up with something like that. There’s too much scratching the head about ‘What does that mean?’”
‘Snakes on a Plane’: A Brief Hisssstory
by Michael Yessis | 03.27.06 | 12:18 PM ET
As Jim wrote last week, few travel-themed films capture the spirit of travel as we see it here at World Hum. “Snakes on a Plane” likely will not be one of those movies. But if you haven’t heard about it yet, prepare yourself. You probably will not be able to avoid it for the next few months. “Snakes,” which stars Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI agent dealing with, um, snakes on a plane, has already become one of the oddest entertainment stories of the year, spawning, among other things, Web sites, song-writing contests, groan-inducing headlines (see above), dialogue suggestions (“Ever play Roulette? Always bet on Black Mamba”), an NPR segment and a page translating the title into various languages, including Esperanto (“Serpentoj en Aeroplano”). All this, and the movie doesn’t even open until Aug. 18.
“Americano”: A Backpacker Travel Movie Worth Seeing?
by Jim Benning | 03.24.06 | 11:42 AM ET
Too few travel-themed movies capture the spirit of travel as we see it at World Hum. “Before Sunrise” did. So, too, did “The Motorcycle Diaries.” This new film in limited release, Americano, sounds like it has potential. It focuses on a recent college graduate played by Joshua Jackson who is contemplating his future as his trip to Europe winds down during Pamplona’s San Fermin festival. Interestingly, actors in the movie were filmed as they participated in the actual Running of the Bulls. In a three-paragraph review in today’s Los Angeles Times, critic Kevin Crust praises the film: “Writer-director Kevin Noland effectively utilizes his fine young cast and the natural beauty and rich culture of northern Spain in amiably posing timeless questions of youth.”
The Australia Tourism Ad Controversy: ‘Has the World Gone Mad?’
by Michael Yessis | 03.24.06 | 11:04 AM ET
Now that the Canadians have joined the Brits in objecting to Tourism Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign, and the U.S.-based American Family Association is poised to make its concerns known, Australians are asking themselves, “Is the ‘bloody hell’ ad campaign a growing embarrassment for Australia? Or is it the greatest marketing ploy of all time?” The comments are flowing on both sides at the Sydney Morning Herald news blog.
Travelers’ Tales “The Best Travel Writing 2006”
by Jim Benning | 03.23.06 | 11:58 PM ET
If you read Bill Belleville’s story A Million Years of Memory about the Galapagos on World Hum, you read some of the very best travel writing of late, according to the editors at Travelers’ Tales. We’re delighted they included the story in their new release, The Best Travel Writing 2006. Launched in 2004, the annual collection aims to “celebrate the world’s best travel writing—from Nobel Prize winners to emerging writers.” This edition features 33 stories, including pieces by Thomas Swick, Phil Cousineau and Pamela Logan.
Elvis, Robert Goulet and a Shot-Out 25-Inch RCA Television
by Michael Yessis | 03.23.06 | 12:36 PM ET
I always thought the stories about Elvis Presley using his guns to shoot holes in televisions were apocryphal. I guess I was wrong. An exhibit featuring “the only surviving television or appliance that Elvis shot out” went on display at Graceland this week. “As the story goes,” the AP’s Woody Baird writes, “entertainer Robert Goulet was performing on TV when Presley blasted the 25-inch RCA that’s part of the exhibit called ‘Elvis After Dark.’”
Chick Lit Around the World
by Michael Yessis | 03.22.06 | 10:30 AM ET
Rachel Donadio has a great piece in the New York Times Sunday Book Review this week chronicling the popularity of the oft-derided genre known as chick lit in countries around the world. It’s taken hold in India and throughout Eastern Europe. In Scandinavia, it’s marked by a “certain existential angst.” In Indonesia, it has inspired a related genre known as “fragrant literature.”
Germany’s Ostfriesland Hotel to Charge Guests By the Kilo
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.06 | 10:58 PM ET
The cost: half a euro per kilogram. At current exchange rates, that’s about $.60 for every 2.2 pounds. A bargain if you’re tiny. Not so much if you’re jumbo sized. And that’s hotel proprietor Juergen Heckrodt’s point. “I had many guests who were really huge, and I told them to slim down,” the owner of the three-star establishment in Norden told Reuters. “When they came back the year after and had lost a lot of weight they asked me, what are you going to do for me now?” Heckrodt hopes his gimmick will help inspire Germans to become healthier.
Flight 187 in the Hizzouse!
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.06 | 9:54 AM ET
Jet Blue, you and your seat-back satellite televisions are no longer on the cutting edge of in-flight entertainment. Pilots at Miami International Airport have told FAA officials that their communications are being disrupted by hip-hop music being broadcast from a pirate radio station called Da Streetz.
Carnival Cruise Ship Rescues 28 Cuban Migrants
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.06 | 5:52 AM ET
According to the Houston Chronicle’s Cynthia Leonor Garza, the Cubans—25 men and three women—were found off the coast of Jamaica last Wednesday and brought on board Carnival’s Conquest cruise liner. The migrants, she writes, soon will be taken into custody on a U.S. Coast Guard boat so that immigration officials can interview the migrants and hear asylum claims. It’s the second time in a month that the Conquest has picked up Cuban migrants on the open seas.
Great Barrier Reef Takes 30-Mile Hit From Cyclone Larry
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 11:46 PM ET
Experts say the damage inflicted on the Great Barrier Reef by Cyclone Larry on Monday may last for 20 years. “[T]he worst damage is limited to a fraction of the sprawling, Japan-sized reef network—and it’s far from the places where nearly two million tourists a year gaze in awe at the coral’s vibrant colors and fish life,” according to an AP report. Northeast Australia may not be out of harm’s way just yet. According to another AP report, a new storm, Cyclone Wati (pictured), is brewing in the Coral Sea.
John Cusack’s Next Role: Travel Writer
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 12:57 PM ET
The short news item isn’t online, but Entertainment Weekly reports that he will play an “inquisitive travel writer who investigates a notoriously creepy hotel room.” It’s adapted from notoriously creepy writer Stephen King’s short story “1408.” Let’s hope it’s a return to form for Cusack, who hasn’t been in a movie I’ve cared about since the excellent adaptation of Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity.”
Sunday Newspaper Travel Highlights
by Jim Benning | 03.20.06 | 12:42 PM ET
In the Washington Post, T. R. Reid, author of the terrific Confucius Lives Next Door, visits a spa in India.
Australian Residents, Tourists Brave Cyclone Larry
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 12:19 AM ET
The storm reached Category 5 status just before making landfall Monday near Innisfail, Australia, a popular jumping-off point for travelers heading to the Great Barrier Reef. Meteorologists say that Larry’s winds reached up to 290 kilometers per hour (about 180 miles per hour), making it one of the most savage storms ever recorded. Preliminary reports indicate a lot of property damage but no fatalities. CNN, among others, has details. It’s too soon, however, to tell how the Great Barrier Reef fared.
