Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Remembering the Tourist Court Journal
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.03 | 9:07 PM ET
In 1932, Bob Gresham published the first issue of the Tourist Court Journal. “Although Gresham knew little about either tourist courts or trade chronicles, he jumped in with gusto and fashioned a bible for mom-and-pop motel owners,” writes Anne Dingus in Texas Monthly’s October issue. Gresham’s magazine covered the Tourist Court industry for 32 years. Dingus recently studied one of the two remaining sets of the now-defunct publication, and she reports that the magazine offers a unique look at travel during America’s auto-tourism boom years. It didn’t cover one thing, though: Sex. A 1949 editorial opined that the “Tourist Court Journal does not now, nor has it ever, nor will it in the future shut its eyes to catering to the ‘hot pillow’ business.” (Registration required to access the article.)
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Yahoo! BuzzBaseball Cap Fever. Catch it From Euro Kids.
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.03 | 9:06 PM ET
It used to be that Americans who wished to fit in while traveling in Europe were told to leave their baseball caps at home. That advice might not fly anymore. According to Erik Lundegaard, New York Yankees headwear is the height of fashion on the continent. Why? “Is it because of some rock star?” Lundegaard asks in a piece for the Los Angeles Times. A Dutch teen excitedly replies, “Limp Bizkit!” (Registration required to access the article.)
Update: Dracula Park Back on Track
by Michael Yessis | 10.15.03 | 9:08 PM ET
The on again, off again project to build a Dracula theme park in Romania is on again. The park’s original site—near Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, inspiration for the fictional Dracula—was withdrawn when UNESCO protested that the development would ruin the 13th century town, which is a World Heritage Site. The new location, according to a Reuters report, is outside Transylvania. However, lest Dracula fans worry, it will still feature pale-skinned men lurking in the shadows with capes and sharp fangs.
The Color of Money
by Michael Yessis | 10.14.03 | 9:11 PM ET
On his weblog this week, Rolf Potts offers a traveler’s take on the new multi-colored U.S. currency issued by the U.S. Treasury. “The move is meant to confound counterfeiters, but—given the worldwide popularity of U.S. dollars—I can’t help but think it will also confound travelers trying to spend the new notes outside of America,” he writes.
Happy Birthday Lonely Planet
by Jim Benning | 10.07.03 | 9:16 PM ET
The venerated guidebook publisher celebrates its 30th anniversary this month. It’s hard to overstate the impact Lonely Planet has had on world travel. But how, exactly, have the guidebooks changed over the last 30 years? “We used to put in things like, ‘If you get to this island in Indonesia, walk down the main street to the docks, turn left, there’s a house there and a man called Wayan, and he’ll take you…’” co-founder Maureen Wheeler says in an anniversary interview on LonelyPlanet.com. “We can’t put that in now, because there might be 20,000 people coming through, all looking for Wayan.” Yikes! I hope Wayan appreciates Lonely Planet’s editorial restraint.
Chronicling Horatio’s Drive
by Michael Yessis | 10.06.03 | 9:19 PM ET
Ken Burns’ documentary Horatio’s Drive airs this evening on most PBS stations. The two-hour film focuses on “America’s first road trip,” a 1903 cross-country drive by Dr. Horatio Nelson.
Khao San Road on Terrorist Target List. Pass the Banana Pancakes.
by Jim Benning | 09.30.03 | 9:22 PM ET
It’s hard to believe, but the hostel-lined road in Bangkok, a symbol of global backpacker culture, was among those places targeted for bombing during an APEC meeting next month, according to published reports. Four suspects arrested in connection with the plot are scheduled to go on trial in November. Nevertheless, according to a story in the Bangkok Post last week, Khao San’s backpackers are unfazed. “Music plays at full blast, food carts pass by, and ice-cold beer is still the hottest menu item,” the paper reports. The article even quotes a British guy named Stuart who said he didn’t plan to go anywhere. And for further proof that backpacker culture on Khao San is alive and, uh, well, Khao San Road the Web site features a story about the latest T-shirts for sale on the road touting “Khao Sarn Syndrome.” The shirts list the vows that backpackers with the syndrome apparently must take, including, “I shall wear as big a backpack as possible to bear proud witness of my creed” and “I shall not leave Khao Sarn Road without a Lonely Planet guide.” Nope, Khao San Road hasn’t changed a bit.
The Joys of Post-Cold War Missile Silo Tourism
by Jim Benning | 09.30.03 | 11:59 AM ET
It sounds frightening at first: The U.S. Air Force is turning over control of a Minuteman II missile silo and control facility to the National Park Service, which usually oversees things no more technical than hiking trails. But in this case, the silo is no longer operational and the mission is peaceful, according to a report on CNN. The underground facility on the edge of South Dakota’s Badlands National Park, which once could send a missile to the former Soviet Union in less than 30 minutes, will become The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. “This site will be the first national park in the world whose primary purpose is to commemorate the events of the Cold War,” a park official told the Associated Press.
Stoppelenburg: “I’m Finished Traveling”
by Michael Yessis | 09.29.03 | 9:26 PM ET
After more than two years on the road, Ramon Stoppelenburg of LetMeStayForADay.com fame—the Internet’s first travel celebrity, as we called him in a 2002 interview—is calling it quits. Ramon dropped us a note to let us know why he’s staying home. “I don’t want more,” he writes. “I have experienced how it is to be famous. It was fantastic, because this project was fantastic. But I don’t enjoy it anymore. The project got blown over by its own success.” The rest of his farewell note can be read at his Web site.
Savvy Traveler Goes Behind the Scenes
by Michael Yessis | 09.29.03 | 9:24 PM ET
Public Radio’s Savvy Traveler program continues its “Traveler Behind the Scenes” series with a segment about the travel industry group that truly knows and sees all: the hotel housekeeping staff. Also in this week’s program, Savvy Traveler host Diana Nyad talks with “The Art of Travel” writer Alain de Botton. His book has been out for well over a year now, but we’re still suckers for de Botton’s take on travel.
The Art of Airline Safety Cards
by Jim Benning | 09.22.03 | 9:31 PM ET
Who among us has not taken our seat aboard an airplane, searched the small pocket in front of us for reading material and found ourselves engrossed, if only for a moment or two, in the odd, utilitarian illustrations and minimalist text of the airline safety card? For too many years we have taken it for granted. We have tossed it aside too quickly, failing to properly appreciate the sketch explaining how to use the oxygen mask or how to brace for a crash landing, so that we might search for an entertaining story in the in-flight magazine. But no longer. Finally, the airline safety card is getting its due. Eric Ericson and Johan Phil have put together a book, “Design for Impact: Fifty Years of Airline Safety Cards,” that honors the cards, in all their diverse forms, and their history in aviation. Joe Queenan liked the book. As he writes in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, in an article available online only to subscribers: “For too long, those of us who delight in the aesthetic purity and terseness of airline safety cards have awaited a treasure such as this. Now at long last we have our Baedeker, our Guide Michelin.” The book’s Web site is well worth a visit, if for no other reason that to admire its design.
Excerpt: Chasing the Sea
by Michael Yessis | 09.19.03 | 9:32 PM ET
Salon features an excerpt of World Hum contributor Tom Bissell’s new travel memoir, “Chasing the Sea.” Publishers Weekly raves, “The humor and poignancy in this blend of memoir, reportage and history mark the author as a front-runner in the next generation of travel writers.” The book will be available in stores next Tuesday.
Welcome to Khmer Rouge Land!
by Jim Benning | 09.18.03 | 9:34 PM ET
Backpackers who have visited Cambodia in recent years already know about some of the country’s odd attempts to exploit its genocide past for tourist dollars—“Hey, wanna fire an automatic rifle just like we did in Pol Pot times?”—but the country is going even further now. The BBC is reporting a new plan to cash in on the ugly history that calls for rebuilding some of Pol Pot’s old homes. Doing so shouldn’t be too tough, the article notes, because the original carpenters are still around. I can already imagine the backpackers lining up for admission tickets. For more on Cambodia’s weird tourism scene, stay tuned to World Hum. A dispatch from Cambodia is in the works.
Betrayal in Santorini
by Jim Benning | 09.17.03 | 1:30 AM ET
Photographs can lie. Especially travel-related photographs. Thomas Swick recently visited the Greek island of Santorini, one of the world’s most photographed places. Walking among the whitewashed buildings, among legions of other visitors, it hit him: [I]n all those pictures there are never any people. And, not seeing a human presence, we imagine it: the old sea captain fingering his beads, the whiskered widow draped in black. People as picturesque as their surroundings,” the South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor writes in his latest dead-on column. “And in Santorini, in summer, they don’t exist. It’s not just that the streets are crammed with tourists, they are depleted of locals. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a place so completely given over to tourism.”
Two Years Later, How Has Air Travel Changed?
by Jim Benning | 09.12.03 | 1:33 AM ET
In big and small ways, the New York Times reports: “Frequent fliers offer a few lessons. Do not drink coffee and/or water before boarding the New York-Washington shuttle; federal law requires passengers to stay in their seats within 30 minutes of the nation’s capital, or the length of a shuttle flight, so a trip to bathroom could result in a $10,000 fine.”
