Travel Blog: News and Briefs
“Defending the Tourists”
by Jim Benning | 11.09.05 | 2:37 PM ET
Ron Mader at Planeta.com has posted an interesting take on the uneasy relationship between travelers and the places they visit. (And I’m not just mentioning it because he quotes me.)
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Yahoo! BuzzKabul’s New Five-Star Hotel
by Jim Benning | 11.09.05 | 1:30 PM ET
We just noted the new luxury hotel planned for Baghdad. Not to be outdone, Kabul hosted the opening of a five-star hotel this week, complete with a swimming pool, health club and pastry shop. It’s apparently just the latest sign of progress in Afghanistan. An AP story about the hotel also notes the opening of a fancy Kabul shopping mall this year with the nation’s only escalators. Remarked Ahmad Jan, a 23-year-old tailor visiting from out of town, “I am amazed by these moving stairs.”
Fighting Pirates With a ‘Nonlethal Acoustic Weapon’
by Jim Benning | 11.09.05 | 12:30 PM ET
You no doubt heard about the cruise ship that fought off a pirate attack Saturday. Today’s San Diego Union-Tribune has an interesting story about the “nonlethal acoustic weapon” the cruise ship employed to fend off the pirates. It’s called the Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) and was developed by a San Diego-area company for military use.
Iraq: Danger Zone or Ideal Spot for a “Seven and a Half Star” Tourist Hotel?
by Michael Yessis | 11.08.05 | 4:29 AM ET
Should Robert Young Pelton revise his list of no-go travel zones? Central Iraq, which he recently cited as the top spot on the planet to avoid visiting, has actually seen a rise in travelers, according to Kim Sengupta’s story in The Independent.
Does Cruising Plus Rock ‘n’ Roll Equal “Cruisapalooza”?
by Jim Benning | 11.07.05 | 2:39 PM ET
Spud Hilton suggests so. He writes in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle about rock-themed cruises, and particularly about two cruises Royal Caribbean has scheduled for February featuring a dozen groups, among them Dave Matthews and Ozomatli. (Groan-inducing headline: “Artists find rocking the boat a good thing.”) Writes Hilton: “If you’re concerned about Royal Caribbean ships taking on 4,500, um, nontraditional passengers, take comfort that Majesty and Sovereign are two of the company’s oldest vessels. At the pace of this trend, however, how long will it be before a Holland America ship hosts Burning Man? Hmmm.”
Cruise Ship Outruns Pirates Off Somalia
by Jim Benning | 11.05.05 | 8:16 PM ET
The cruise industry has been taking great pains to offer more action-oriented trips lately, but not even the wave pools that Royal Caribbean has planned for its ships could top the action on a cruise off Somalia today [Saturday]. Pirates carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a Seabourn Cruise Line luxury ship carrying 140 passengers. According to CNN, the cruise liner managed to outrun the pirates, which were in two small boats. “There’s some minor damage done to the ship, ” one passenger told a CNN radio affiliate. “There’s no water right now, for instance, in some places, and I believe one of the grenades actually went off in one of the cabins, but everyone on board is fine.”
“Suicide Tourism” Web Sites Close
by Michael Yessis | 11.04.05 | 10:41 AM ET
Roger Graham’s Web sites offered to help people make arrangements to kill themselves in Cambodia, and the expat American shut them down voluntarily today in an effort to avoid a confrontation with local authorities. According to an AP report, one of the now-unavailable sites offered a rationale for suicide and links to purchase books on the subject. “You are going to die anyway,” Graham apparently wrote, “so why not in Cambodia?”
Ranan Lurie Unveils a Painting Designed to Travel
by Michael Yessis | 11.03.05 | 5:30 AM ET
It’s called the Uniting Painting, and it debuted Tuesday in the lobby of U.N. headquarters in New York. But the man behind the painting, political cartoonist Ranan Lurie, envisions an ever-changing work of art that will extend out the U.N.‘s doors, across the East River and througout the world. “I do not have one single country where it was offered that has turned it down,” Lurie told the Voice of America’s Barbara Schoetzau. “Right now we have South Africa’s Ministry of Culture. We have South Korea wanting to do it with the purpose of spreading the painting to North Korea. And that will be the tendency, to spread it around and in different phases, slowly but surely bringing a uniting painting that lives up to its title.”
L.A. Times Launches Travel News Weblog
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 12:32 PM ET
A Travel Writer’s Campaign to Impeach President Bush
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 7:45 AM ET
Travel writer Brad Newsham, author of the fine travel memoir Take Me With You, has launched an effort to impeach President Bush. No joke. At his Web site, where he outlines the campaign, he notes that he initially believed the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq. Now, he writes, “The number of people who still believe we were not consciously manipulated into an illegal, discretionary war is now roughly the same as the number of people who still believe in O.J.”
Oxford Atlas of the World: Geography Resource, Workout Tool
by Jim Benning | 10.31.05 | 9:32 PM ET
I love my copy of the Oxford “Atlas of the World.” It was given to me as a gift last year, and it’s the first place I go when I have a geography question. It’s also the first place I go when I can’t find a dumbbell, because it’s the heaviest book I own. Atlases don’t get much press, so I was happy to hear an interview with the editor of the Oxford Atlas, Ben Keene, on the public radio show Marketplace today. It turns out that the new edition of the book weighs in at a hefty 12 pounds, and it hits stores Tuesday.
Travel From an Academic Point of View
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.05 | 4:27 AM ET
A lot of people ask vagabond Rolf Potts questions about the art of travel, many of which he answers in a column for World Hum. Sometimes he’s asked by academics and graduate students to talk about travel from another perspective, and he’s decided to start featuring some of those exchanges on his Vagabonding site.
Backpackers’ Killer Arrested in Cambodia
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.05 | 11:14 PM ET
Chhouk Rin, a former Khmer Rouge commander who was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1994 murder of three backpackers, was arrested yesterday in Anlong Veng, Cambodia. Rin and his accomplices had abducted Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet from a Cambodian train traveling between Phnom Penh and the southern city of Sihanoukville, held the trio hostage for two months, then killed them. The travelers’ bodies were found in a shallow grave. Philip Gourevitch wrote about the events in the September 1995 issue of Outside magazine, and his story is still available online. It’s such a vivid piece of writing that when I read the news of Rin’s arrest today, Gourevitch’s story immediately came to mind, even though I read it 10 years ago.
Indie Rockers The Walkmen Are Writing a Road Novel
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.05 | 5:50 AM ET
I know The Walkmen can write a hell of a rock song. And after seeing them open for Modest Mouse last year, I know they can make L.A. hipsters bob their heads. But can they write a novel anyone would want to read? Time will tell. The members of the band hope to release their collective literary effort by the time their third album comes out early next year. The book’s title: John’s Journey.
The World Takes on Malaria
by Jim Benning | 10.26.05 | 8:51 AM ET
Unless you visit the tropics, it’s easy to forget that malaria kills more than a million people every year and sickens more than a few travelers. This week, the public radio show The World is broadcasting a five-part series on malaria. It’s wide-ranging and worth a listen.
