Travel Blog: News and Briefs
National Geographic Traveler: World Hum is “Click-Worthy”
by Michael Yessis | 10.25.05 | 1:31 PM ET
The October issue of National Geographic Traveler features a complimentary blurb about World Hum’s “more user-friendly look for its growing number of travel-lit-loving fans.” Thanks, NGT. I’m happy to return the compliment and recommend the whole October issue.
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Yahoo! BuzzNYPD Hearts Rachael Ray
by Michael Yessis | 10.25.05 | 9:24 AM ET
Everyone seems to have an opinion about travel-show host, celebrity chef and future magazine mogul Rachael Ray. I know this because ever since I posted a note a few weeks ago about the love-hate relationship viewers have with Ray, people have been sharing a lot of love and a lot of hate on World Hum. Now it looks like Ray’s fans have some burly new support: the NYPD. World Hum reader Cincy points out this gossip item (scroll to bottom) in Monday’s New York Daily News:
R.I.P. Rosa Parks
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.05 | 9:39 PM ET
The world’s most famous bus passenger passed away today. Parks, whose refusal in 1955 to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, was 92.
‘I Survived Hurricane Wilma’ T-Shirts Selling For $10 in Cancun Shelter
by Michael Yessis | 10.21.05 | 12:43 AM ET
What’s it like to be a tourist in a resort city when a potentially catastrophic hurricane is bearing down on you? The latest AP dispatch from Cancun regarding Hurricane Wilma recently hit the wires, and it paints a surreal scene of the area where approximately 30,000 vacationers have been stranded.
World Tourism Organization Warns of Avian Flu “Scaremongering”
by Jim Benning | 10.20.05 | 5:32 PM ET
Watching CNN’s coverage of the spread of avian flu is enough to make you want to crawl under the sheets and hide. Now, the World Tourism Organization is warning media and government officials to “act responsibly” in reporting on the avian flu, noting that “unnecessary scaremongering can cause a sharp drop in tourism that squeezes the economies, especially those of developing nations and the incomes of millions of workers in this industry.”
British Tabloid Travel Headline of the Day: ‘Fatties to the Front, Says Airline’
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.05 | 4:31 AM ET
From the Daily Mail: “A holiday airline is investigating an incident in which passengers reported how cabin staff asked ‘fat people’ to move to the front of the aircraft to help with weight distribution. A stewardess said she needed ‘eight fat people’ to sit nearer the front because the captain of a half-full London-bound Thomsonfly flight was unhappy about the weight distribution, according to reports.”
“I Don’t Hate Southwest Anymore”
by Jim Benning | 10.19.05 | 12:52 PM ET
We can all rest a little easier now. Business traveler David Grossman has changed his mind about Southwest Airlines. (The lesson for all of us? Don’t be a no-frills-discount-airline-that-offers-32-to-33-inch-seat-pitch playa hata.)
‘Survivor Guatemala’: Reality TV With Roots in Antebellum Travel Writing?
by Jim Benning | 10.19.05 | 12:02 PM ET
How we love academic perspectives on American pop culture, especially when they relate to travel and travel writing. This interesting article, written by University of Pennsylvania associate history professor Amy S. Greenberg, argues that Survivor Guatemala: The Maya Empire has more to do with American empire than anything. She traces America’s fascination with the tropics back through history—back, in fact, to antebellum travel writing. “Survivor was a sequel from the start,” she writes. “The appeal of the tropics as idealized location for the triumph of American enterprise and individualism is nothing new and, in fact, is a reoccurring theme in periods of American imperial expansionism.”
Kerouac’s “On the Road” Makes Time Magazine’s All-Time 100 Top Novels List
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.05 | 1:52 PM ET
Time has a funny way of defining “all-time.” The list only reaches back to 1923. Among the other World Hum favorites on the list: Don Delillo’s White Noise, George Orwell’s 1984 and, of course, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Special Offer From T-Shirt Hell: ‘Free Speech or Free Travel’
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.05 | 11:47 AM ET
The ripples from the Lorrie Heasley “Fockers” incident aboard a Southwest Airlines jet a couple weeks back continue to spread. Gridskipper reports that T-Shirt Hell—“vendors of fine frat-wear and gentle social conscience of a generation”—will provide alternate transportation to any travelers kicked off a Southwest flight while wearing one of the company’s T-shirts.
Flight Attendant Wants Day Off, Calls in Bomb Threat
by Michael Yessis | 10.17.05 | 11:45 PM ET
Oh, for the days when this kind of thing would only be done by college students on test days. It was a SriLankan Airlines employee, the Associated Press reports.
The Return Flight: A Snapshot
by Michael Yessis | 10.17.05 | 7:50 AM ET
Thomas Swick has another gem of a column in Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel, spending 721 well-chosen words on something not too many travel writers write about: the flight home. It’s terrific you-are-there writing.
Hurricane Stan and Guatemala, We Hardly Heard About Ya
by Jim Benning | 10.14.05 | 12:24 PM ET
In his essay Why We Travel, Pico Iyer writes that we travel, in part, to “learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.” I was reminded of that recently while traveling in Mexico. Aside from migration-related news, we in the U.S. see little coverage of life south of the border. But it seems that our newspapers don’t accommodate much news about Central America even when it involves a major disaster. That was brought into relief for some recently after Hurricane Stan hit Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Not-So-Glamorous Life of a Flight Attendant
by Jim Benning | 10.14.05 | 12:12 PM ET
A USA Today reporter recently shadowed United Airlines flight attendant Laura Brandle for a day. Today’s story about it shows how the work of flight attendants has changed since 9/11/01—and not in a good way. Says Brandle, who has worked at United for more than three decades: “There’s a lot on flight attendants’ minds today. There have been pay cuts. Our duties are more. We are struggling to hold on to what we’ve worked for so many years to attain. And we are the watchdogs: We must suspect everybody and everything and keep our antennae up.”
Avian Flu Begins to Affect Travel Plans
by Jim Benning | 10.13.05 | 5:35 PM ET
I’d been wondering when we’d start hearing about avian flu fears affecting travel. USA Today offers an account today, noting that some travelers are reconsidering visits to outdoor bazaars and rural areas of Southeast Asia. “It’s just not necessary for me to put myself in a possible situation with this illness,” said traveler Mark Fridkin, who now plans to skip a visit to the Thai countryside. There’s nothing earth-shaking in the story, just a post-SARS here-we-go-again feeling. Among other anecdotes: “The Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Palo Alto, Calif. has seen an uptick in requests for Tamiflu, which might be effective against the avian flu, from travelers bound for Southeast Asia.”
