Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Chasing Authenticity
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.05 | 3:13 PM ET
The travel essay returns to the pages of the New York Times today, with Matt Gross writing about the search for authentic travel experiences. Sure, it’s been done before, but Gross frames the quest against a recent wave of ironic and inventive books about travel: Joel Henry’s Guide to Experimental Travel, Dave Eggers’s novel You Shall Know Our Velocity and the guidebook to a non-existent nation, Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring. It’s an interesting read.
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Yahoo! BuzzArmed Indonesian Soldiers Seize Tiny Island with Tasty Waves
by Jim Benning | 12.16.05 | 3:08 PM ET
They took over the island of Mengkudu in the Indonesian archipelago after villagers on a neighboring island claimed the Australian running a surf camp there wouldn’t allow them to visit. According to a news report, David Wylie, 54, had obtained permits to run the camp, which has been open since 2001. But an army colonel involved in the operation said Wylie had yet to obtain other necessary permits. “My troops raised the Indonesian flag when they arrived on Mengkudu,” the colonel said. “It is ours.” The camp’s future wasn’t clear, but the colonel said of Wylie, “[W]e do not want to kick him off the island.”
European Tourists Murdered Near Tulum, Mexico
by Michael Yessis | 12.16.05 | 12:47 PM ET
Two travelers, Martha Taults of Barcelona, Spain, and Matias Mazzeti of Italy, were hacked to death last week by machete-wielding attackers and left near a road outside of Tulum, according to a Reuters report. Mexican police are looking for clues. They say violent crime is rare in the area, even among the luxury resorts in Cancun, 80 miles up the coast.
Ernest Hemingway Sofas, Frida Kahlo Tequila, Renoir Mineral Water, and Now Lady Chatterley Thongs?
by Jim Benning | 12.16.05 | 12:35 PM ET
Oh yes, and those are just the beginning. There’s also Jane Austen writing paper and the Virginia Woolf Burger bar. The Times of London today offers an amusing overview of the products bearing the names of artists and novels of yore, as well as the controversies that surround them.
Esquire Names Roadtrip Nation “Best and Brightest” of 2005
by Frank Bures | 12.16.05 | 9:06 AM ET
The road trip may be a time-honored American tradition, but the guys from Roadtrip Nation, who were just chosen by Esquire as three of the “Best and Brightest” of 2005, have found a way to make it more than that.
Final Score: United States 5, Burma 5
by Jim Benning | 12.15.05 | 1:51 PM ET
Five journalists, that is. The Committee to Protect Journalists has issued a report on nations detaining correspondents. The news isn’t pretty: The United States and Burma (perhaps the most Orwellian nation on the planet) tied for sixth place for most held, with each nation detaining five journalists. None of the five journalists being held by the U.S. in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been charged with a crime. China is holding 32 reporters, more than any other nation. The New York Times has the gory details.
Paul Theroux to Bono: Stop Hectoring Us About Africa Development
by Jim Benning | 12.15.05 | 12:52 PM ET
The Hawaii-based writer, who has traveled extensively in Africa, doesn’t believe the continent will be saved by the kinds of solutions proposed by Bono and other celebrities. “If Christmas, season of sob stories, has turned me into Scrooge,” Theroux writes in an op-ed piece today’s New York Times, “I recognize the Dickensian counterpart of Paul Hewson - who calls himself ‘Bono’ - as Mrs. Jellyby in ‘Bleak House.’ Harping incessantly on her adopted village of Borrioboola-Gha ‘on the left bank of the River Niger,’ Mrs. Jellyby tries to save the Africans by financing them in coffee growing and encouraging schemes ‘to turn pianoforte legs and establish an export trade,’ all the while badgering people for money.”
Attention Everyone in Groups A, B and C, and Rows 42 Through 1: Get on the Plane! Now!
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.05 | 12:38 PM ET
A mad boarding scramble by passengers may be a more efficient way to seat an airplane than having them load into the back rows first, according to a team of scientists and mathmeticians at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University. Eitan Bachmat and his colleagues arrived at their conclusion using concepts more commonly applied to the theory of relativity and prime number theory, writes Philip Ball in Nature.
Gilmore v. Gonzales: Should U.S. Airline Passengers Have to Show ID?
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.05 | 1:08 AM ET
Last week the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments in the Gilmore v. Gonzales case, in which San Francisco resident John Gilmore is challenging the requirement for air passengers to show identification before boarding a flight within the United States.
Bradley Murdoch Found Guilty of Murdering British Backpacker
by Michael Yessis | 12.13.05 | 10:43 PM ET
Peter Falconio was killed four years ago in Australia’s Northern Territory, near the end of an around-the-world trip, during a drive from Alice Springs to Darwin. A jury concluded Tuesday that Bradley Murdoch, a mechanic from Broome, was guilty of the crime. The Australian, among many news outlets covering the events, has a report about Murdoch’s conviction and a detailed story recapping the crime.
The Importance of Branding Nations
by Michael Yessis | 12.12.05 | 7:46 AM ET
It’s an idea that’s been popular at least since World Hum launched in 2001, but it has gained new currency in 2005. In its annual Year in Ideas issue, the New York Times Magazine salutes Simon Anholt, who “foresees a day when the most important part of foreign policy isn’t defense or trade but image—and when countries would protect and promote their images through coordinated branding departments.”
Playboy Cyber Girls Busted for In-Flight Antics
by Michael Yessis | 12.12.05 | 1:31 AM ET
Danielle Gamba and Carrie Minter, two Playboy Cyber Girls of the Month, were “yelling and cussing” and were “intoxicated to the point that they were a threat” to everyone on a Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to San Antonio last week. In an effort to avoid potential criminal charges, Gamba allegedly greeted police officers in San Antonio with “sexual advances.”
More Bad Sex Writing from Travel Writers
by Frank Bures | 12.09.05 | 12:37 PM ET
We recently noted that Paul Theroux was on this year’s list of nominees in the “Bad Sex in Fiction Awards.” But it turns out he wasn’t the only travel writer implicated. Both Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie, who have dabbled in the genre for Granta, made this year’s short list. The Guardian has provided a number of choice passages, so you can judge for yourself whose bad sex writing was the worst.
Greg Lindsay on In-Flight Magazines and ‘Airworld’
by Michael Yessis | 12.08.05 | 10:28 AM ET
Advertising Age editor-at-large Greg Lindsay analyzed the current state of in-flight magazine publishing earlier this week on Mediabistro. His main conclusion isn’t too surprising: The magazines are “sans edge in an era that prizes knowingness and snarkiness above all.” The path he took to arrive at that conclusion, however, kept me rapt for a good part of yesterday afternoon.
Shameless Plug: Intro to Travel Writing in San Diego
by Jim Benning | 12.07.05 | 10:42 PM ET
I’ll be teaching an introductory course on travel writing at UC San Diego Extension beginning Jan. 11. It’s a nine-week hybrid course that includes five classroom meetings. Students will post their work online.
I’ve taught a number of travel writing courses at UCSD and they’re always a lot of fun. Travel writing is a tough way to make money, much less a living, so I make no promises of fame and fortune. But I do promise a solid introduction to the business and craft of travel writing, some great discussions and critical feedback on writing.
For those interested in the business of travel writing, as well as the pleasure of the work, I think Lonely Planet global travel editor Don George got it about right when he spoke with me earlier this year. His book is recommended reading in the course.
