Travel Blog: News and Briefs
The Decline of International Travel Coverage
by Jim Benning | 09.11.03 | 1:39 AM ET
Editor & Publisher featured a story recently about Sunday newspapers that included a look at how U.S. travel sections have changed since September 11, 2001. As E&P writer Mark Fitzgerald put it, sadly, “[S]ay goodbye to the glories of weeklong treks into the jungles of Java.” And say hello—my words here—to the glories of, uh, the same cities you’ve been saying hello to all your life: Dallas, Miami, New York, Honolulu. Meanwhile, on a brighter note, the Los Angeles Times launched a new weekly section Tuesday, Outdoors, which focuses on adventure and recreation.
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Yahoo! Buzz“Hey Hippie! Get a Wash!”
by Michael Yessis | 09.10.03 | 1:49 AM ET
That coverline—accompanying a photo of a scruffy backpacker with dreadlocks and an unruly beard—graced the first issue of Farang, the two-year-old monthly travel magazine targeted at backpackers in Southeast Asia. Such irreverence has remained Farang’s trademark, according to Dan Eldridge, who profiles the magazine and its editor, Cameron Cooper, at MediaBistro.com. He writes: “Biting the hand that feeds seems to be an almost constant M.O. for Farang’s team of writers; recent features have poked fun at backpacker novels like Alex Garland’s “The Beach” and William Sutcliffe’s “Are You Experienced?,” and the hordes of travelers who descend on Ko Pha-Ngan for its monthly Full Moon Party seem to be skewered in nearly issue.”
Update: German Tourists, Italian Insults
by Michael Yessis | 08.06.03 | 12:26 AM ET
The Baltimore Sun’s Todd Richissin recently visited Pesaro, Italy, the place German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had planned to spend his summer vacation until Italian tourism minister Stefano Stefani referred to Germans as hypernationalistic, beer-swilling, competitive belchers. What did he find there? Not many tourists, of course. Says Hemil Simoncelli, a waiter in Pesaro: “Everything about tourism is about being nice, so you can’t insult people and expect them to come to your home and give you money.”
The W.P.A. Travel Guide Series: ‘One of the Noblest and Most Absurd Undertakings Ever Attempted’
by Michael Yessis | 08.05.03 | 12:31 AM ET
Eudora Welty served as a photographer for the Mississippi guide. Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” features references to people he met while reporting in the South. And John Steinbeck called the collective Depression-era works “the most comprehensive account of the United States ever got together.” Now, according to a story in Saturday’s New York Times, the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) American Guide Series and the Federal Writers Project that spawned it are garnering new attention as scholars and historians discover a relatively untapped source of information about the U.S. and its most celebrated writers. “[M]any of the printing plates for the guides were smashed in the wake of a late-1930’s witchhunt by Representative Martin Dies Jr., Democrat of Texas, who insisted that the W.P.A. was a Communist plot,” writes University of New Orleans professor of history Douglas Brinkley. “But the Library of Congress has hundreds of boxes of the guides’ raw material…It is one of the most underused and untapped historical collections in America.” Almost 3,000 oral histories regarding the projects can be heard at the Library of Congress.
R.I.P. Bob Hope
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.03 | 1:05 AM ET
The man who paired with Bing Crosby in some of the most famous road movies ever made passed away yesterday. He was 100.
Land Rover: The Most Obnoxious Car Commercials on Earth
by Jim Benning | 07.23.03 | 9:50 PM ET
I was jazzed to see what appeared to be a Southeast Asian village on my TV last night during a series of commercials. Images of a colorful foot procession down a narrow street and locals in ornate headdresses filled the screen. The pictures took me right back to my trip to the region a couple of years ago. At the center of the procession was a woman being carried on a pedestal, her face obscured behind silky curtains. But the woman and the villagers weren’t the stars of the commercial. A shiny new Range Rover SUV suddenly appeared, rolling into the middle of the procession, then stopping in its tracks. The camera studied the locals, then the truck’s plush leather interior. The natives, who undoubtedly wouldn’t make enough money in an entire lifetime to buy one of the gas-guzzling trucks, stared at it in awe. Finally, the woman on the pedestal waved the car through with a roll of her fingers. The kicker? “Respect. Range Rover. Land Rover. The most well-traveled vehicles on earth.” The entire commercial is featured here. Am I the only one disgusted by this?
When Travel Really Stinks
by Jim Benning | 07.22.03 | 9:59 PM ET
Anyone who has traveled in Southeast Asia has undoubtedly encountered the durian, perhaps the worst-smelling fruit on Earth. It smells so bad that it is often banned on trains. Writer Zona Sage noticed the stench shortly after the plane took off from Paris, but she couldn’t identify it. Flight attendants and passengers were baffled, scouring the plane for the source. Bad cheese, perhaps? Then they realized a Vietnamese nun had brought on board medicine made from the dreaded fruit. “The nun turned over the contraband that she had succeeded in carrying through innumerable security checks—a large plastic container of the King of Fruit, as its fans call it,” Sage writes in an entertaining story in Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “The flight attendant held it out ahead of her as she went forward with it.”
Falling for Justine Shapiro
by Michael Yessis | 07.21.03 | 10:02 PM ET
A couple weeks ago, Salon’s “Ask the Pilot” columnist Patrick Smith revealed his crush on Justine Shapiro, a host on TV’s Globe Trekker show. “I have been secretly in love with Justine for some time now,” he proclaims. Turns out, he’s not the only traveler smitten with Shapiro. In Smith’s most recent column, he writes: “I’ve been introduced to the murky workings of stalker etiquette, having received no fewer than five letters from men claiming exclusive rights on Justine’s affections. One guy challenged me to a duel. ‘Just don’t tell my wife,’ he says.” A quick Google search reveals these guys are not alone. Shapiro’s charms have even inspired fan pages, including this one by a guy in France. (Beware: It’s got pop-up ads galore.) As far as travel crushes go, these guys could pick a lot worse. Shapiro’s a confident, thoughtful host and traveler, a documentary filmmaker and she survived a DC-10 crash.
Cuban Cigars? $18. Fine for Visiting Cuba? $10,000. Fighting Fine With Trip to DC? Priceless.
by Jim Benning | 07.17.03 | 10:09 PM ET
When Californian Joan Slote signed up for the bicycle tour of Cuba, the Canadian company operating the tour assured her that she would not be violating the U.S. ban. But after returning home three years ago, the 75-year-old traveler was fined $7,600 for violating the ban. With penalties that have since accrued, the fine has reached nearly $10,000. But Slote is fighting back. She just made a trip to Washington to speak in opposition to the ban. Her response has borne fruit. A spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan called prosecution of Slote “an absurd use of resources by the Department of Treasury,” according to an Associated Press report on The San Diego Channel. “At a time when they should be tracking terrorist funding and the movement of terrorists around the world, they are spending resources tracking little old ladies riding bicycles in Cuba.”
Can’t Find Prince Edward Island on the Map? That’s Because Fodor’s Forgot to Put It On. Oops.
by Michael Yessis | 07.17.03 | 10:05 PM ET
Canadian Tourism officials are steamed—and Fodor’s officials are embarrassed—after the guidebook giant’s “shoddy work” on maps it produced for the Canadian Tourism publication, PureCanada, has come to light. Fodor’s, which was paid $600,000 to develop editorial for the publication, left Prince Edward Island completely off the map, spelled Nunavut as “Nunavit” and forgot the cities of Fredericton and Halifax, too. “This is not our finest hour,” Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for the publisher of the popular guides, told Canada’s National Post newspaper. “We’re very sorry about the errors and we’re making every effort to correct them as quickly as possible.” Said Prince Edward Island’s Minister of Tourism, Jeff Lantz: “We’re a little surprised and disappointed that something like that could happen with a very well-respected company.”
Who Can Change Your Future Travel Decisions? The WHO, That’s Who.
by Jim Benning | 07.16.03 | 10:09 PM ET
That’s WHO as in the World Health Organization. As a compelling Los Angeles Times article on Sunday explains, the organization has undergone big changes in recent years that have made it a major player on the world travel scene. Its response to the recent SARS outbreak had a dramatic effect on global travel. Reporter Charles Piller explains just how that came to be, and how the organization operates these days. “The doctors and scientists begin at 9 a.m. sharp, filing into room M405 at the World Health Organization’s headquarters,” he writes. “They crowd around a conference table surrounded by computers churning the latest data on diseases from every corner of the globe. This is the daily outbreak meeting, and the first case for discussion is an unknown fever in South Asia that has killed 34 children with severe diarrhea and convulsions.”
Back to Iraq?
by Michael Yessis | 07.15.03 | 11:34 PM ET
Are people ready to travel to Iraq? Absolutely. Travel + Leisure reports that some adventure travel tour companies are already taking reservations for future trips. “A bunch of people have already signed up for a tour that doesn’t even exist yet,” Geographic Expeditions spokesman John Sugnet told T+L’s Bonnie Tsui. This September, the company will make an exploratory trip to gauge the situation. They hope to begin tours in spring 2004.
UPDATE: The U.S. State Department today lifted its 12-year-old restriction on visits to Iraq, according to USA Today. “[W]e still don’t think it’s a good idea to go to Iraq right now,” one official said. Duh.
Travel Magazine Targeting Women Debuts
by Michael Yessis | 07.14.03 | 11:37 PM ET
That In-Flight Movie Could Be Hazardous to Your Health
by Jim Benning | 07.10.03 | 11:49 PM ET
According to a troubling report in USA Today, wiring problems related to the installation of in-flight entertainment systems are causing all sorts of problems on board planes, including smoke and fires. A wiring problem may have led to the 1998 Swissair crash over Nova Scotia that killed 229 people. That particular system was built by a company now out of the business. “Other systems, though, have had problems since the Swissair accident,” USA Today reports. “Safety experts say the number of service difficulty reports about entertainment system problems endangering passenger safety during the past two years could far exceed the 60 received by the FAA.” According to one expert, the 60 problems reported since the Swissair crash are “just the tip of the iceberg.”
How Dare You Call German Tourists ‘Stereotyped Blondes With a Hyper-Nationalist Pride!’
by Jim Benning | 07.10.03 | 11:43 PM ET
That’s the message from German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He just canceled his planned vacation to Italy after Italy’s tourism minister refused to apologize for making the crack about Germans who flock to Italy on vacation. Germans account for about a quarter of all visitors to Italy, so this spat could really cut into Uffizi ticket sales. Question: Isn’t the tourism minister supposed to attract visitors, not offend them? Unbelievable. CNN.com has the latest.
