Travel Blog: News and Briefs
‘Yoga’ Takes People’s Prize
by Michael Yessis | 04.14.04 | 8:37 PM ET
Readers selected Geoff Dyer’s Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It as the year’s best travel book in the WH Smith People’s Choice Book Awards. About 148,000 readers cast votes via book stores, the Internet and libraries throughout the UK, according to the BBC.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzMolvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry
by Jim Benning | 04.08.04 | 8:43 PM ET
If you haven’t heard of the European nation of Molvania, birthplace of whooping cough, among other claims to fame, you’re not alone. The country doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, a recently published guidebook has all the visitor’s information you’ll need, including tips on understanding local customs.
The guidebook, “Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry,” is a spoof of travel guidebooks. It’s a brilliant idea. According to a story on BBC.com, co-author Tom Gleisner said the idea for the book was hatched while backpacking in Portugal. He raves about Molvania. “It’s a very beautiful country now that radiation levels have dropped to acceptable standards,” he reportedly told BBC TV.
The book’s Web site is terrific, offering all sorts of insight into the country’s history and culture, including this item: “Molvanian is a difficult language to speak, let alone master. There are four genders: male, female, neutral, and the collective noun for cheeses, which occupies a nominative sub-section of its very own.” The site’s front page features Bill Bryson’s enthusiastic blurb: “Brilliantly original and very, very funny. If you buy only one guidebook to Molvania this year, let it be this one.” You can’t argue with that.
R.I.P. The Savvy Traveler
by Jim Benning | 04.08.04 | 8:40 PM ET
I was saddened to return from a couple of weeks of travel to learn that the public radio show The Savvy Traveler recently aired its final show. The show often featured thoughtful reports and essays from travelers around the world—something all too rare on radio. The Savvy Traveler’s Web site offers this explanation: “Despite the sincere and constant effort of our committed production staff, after nearly seven years of trying, The Savvy Traveler failed to attract sufficient underwriting support to continue. This was due to the economy in general, and the travel economy in particular—especially in the post 9/11 period.” That’s a shame.
Do You Like the Way My Fanny Pack Goes With My Traditional Burmese Lungi?
by Jim Benning | 03.19.04 | 7:44 PM ET
While traveling through Burma a couple of years ago, Rolf Potts found himself purchasing and donning a lungi—a skirt-like garment worn by Burmese men. By the time he got to Thailand, an Australian observed of Potts’ outfit: “Look at ya, mate. You’ve got it all mixed up.” In a thoughtful story in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Potts writes: “I looked down at my outfit. In addition to my lungi, I sported a nylon fanny pack (which made up for my lack of pockets) and a North Face dry-wick shirt (which had kept the sun off while biking). This ensemble didn’t strike me as particularly strange, but—according to the Aussie—wearing a fanny pack (stereotypically favored by middle-aged tourists) and a boutique safari shirt (which, while functional, is the modern fashion equivalent of a pith helmet) effectively canceled the lungi out.”
Travel Blogs in the News
by Jim Benning | 03.15.04 | 8:49 PM ET
USA Today recently offered an overview of travel-related weblogs, from World Hum and Vagablogging to the Bali Blog and ThereGoesJohn.com. The newspaper observed of World Hum: “[I]ts blog summarizes and links to an eclectic mix of don’t miss items.”
I Went to Capri and I Scored 100,000 Bonus Points!
by Michael Yessis | 03.15.04 | 8:47 PM ET
Is the world ready for travel-themed video games? Got Game Entertainment thinks so. It has just released A Quiet Weekend in Capri in which “the player assumes the role of a tourist visiting Capri for the first time.” We’re intrigued, but not enough fork over the $30 to buy it. Anyone out there played it? If so, let us know what it’s like.
Terrorists Attack Spanish Trains
by Jim Benning | 03.11.04 | 8:50 PM ET
At least 186 people were killed and 1,000 people injured in bomb attacks on commuter trains in Madrid today. The Spanish government blames Basque separatists. CNN has details. So does the BBC.
Out: Provence. In: Tuscany.
by Jim Benning | 03.05.04 | 8:56 PM ET
Travel Writing: A “Quintessentially Gay Genre”
by Michael Yessis | 03.02.04 | 9:02 PM ET
So says Raphael Kadushin, editor of the new anthology Wonderlands: Good Gay Travel Writing. According to an article by Judith Davidoff in Wisconsin’s Capital Times, Kadushin says most gay children and youth, regardless of where they live, grow up with a sense of isolation and detachment: “It’s great training for a travel writer where you’re going to a culture and trying to size it up and get some sense of it as an outsider.” Troy Petenbrink of the Houston Voice writes: “The gay subtext of some of the articles in ‘Wonderlands’ might not always be readily apparent. But the writing is generally captivating and certain to satisfy one’s quest for discovery of the world and one’s place in it.”
The Oscar for a Film That Inpired a Life-Sized Margarine Statue of One of its Characters Goes to…
by Michael Yessis | 03.02.04 | 8:58 PM ET
What movie of the past year best captures the experience of travel? The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Flynn says Lost in Translation. “Its depiction of the jaggy, fuzzy-buzzy sensation of jetlag, of being a stranger in an exceedingly strange land and of the fleeting and surprisingly intimate connections one makes with fellow travelers is simply the best I’ve ever seen on film.”
The New Queen Mary 2: Just Too Much?
by Jim Benning | 02.26.04 | 9:05 PM ET
While some travel writers are complaining that the new $800 million Cunard ocean liner doesn’t offer passengers enough glamour—see the recent Los Angeles Times review below—others wonder whether the ship offers too much of everything. Boston Globe Staff Writer Tom Haines was on board for the maiden voyage, amid the champagne and foie gras, and the passengers paying up to $37,499 each for luxury cabins. “On its own, the QM2 would be but a ship of dreams, offering passengers the renovated past while taking them to nice places,” he writes. “But as the biggest, most expensive of all pleasure ships on the sea, the Queen Mary 2 becomes the loudest champion of a particular philosophy: that the world is to be consumed by the relative well-to-do, sheltered in comfort. In the words spoken by a silver-haired man from England as he enjoys a smoke in the ship’s cigar lounge and ponders a trip aboard QM2 to Rio de Janeiro: ‘I’ve always wanted to go to South America. But it’s just so dangerous.’”
Adventures in the Post-Recession Lifestyle
by Michael Yessis | 02.25.04 | 9:07 PM ET
Travel Writing and the History of Conquest
by Jim Benning | 02.23.04 | 9:09 PM ET
Ian Wright Live
by Michael Yessis | 02.17.04 | 9:16 PM ET
After 10 years hosting the popular Pilot Guides television series (formerly known as Globe Trekker and, before that, Lonely Planet), Ian Wright has a new spin-off show for the Outdoor Life Network: Ian Wright Live. It’s “a mishmash of anecdotes, outtakes from Pilot Guides, comic bits where Wright dresses up as his favourite obnoxious traveller, audience questions, and a bizarre cooking segment,” according to a story by Catherine Dawson March in the Globe and Mail. The show premieres Feb. 22. In the meantime, Canadian readers can catch Wright live Feb. 21 in Toronto and Feb. 25 in Waterloo, Ontario, for “An evening of travel and humour.”
It’s an 18-Hour, 42-Minute Flight, or About as Long as it Now Takes to Pass Through LAX Security
by Michael Yessis | 02.17.04 | 9:13 PM ET
Salon’s Ask the Pilot has more colorful info in his latest column about the world’s longest non-stop flight recently established by Singapore Airlines. Among the topics covered: deep vein thrombosis, the in-flight buffet and the post-flight garbage count. “Veteran fliers will know what I’m talking about,” Patrick Smith writes. “By the time most intercontinental flights are docking at the gate, the aisles, floors and seats have come to resemble the scene of a dumpster explosion, the volume of refuse (cups, wrappers, bottles, bodily fluids and food) increasing proportionally with time spent aloft. For 18 hours, I’ll venture the passenger-to-trash weight ratio is about 1-to-1.”
