Travel Blog: News and Briefs
“Can I Exchange My Round-Trip Ticket for a Rectangular One?
by Michael Yessis | 07.08.03 | 12:03 AM ET
Air travel humor, as every traveler knows, peaked in 1980 with the release of the movie Airplane! Since then, it’s mostly been a blur of second-rate comedians making jokes about airline food. (Since most of today’s airlines don’t even serve meals any more, however, we can declare that wave over). The next wave of air travel humor arrives courtesy of The University of Dayton’s Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, which has just completed a national flight humor contest. First-place awards were given in three categories—true passenger story, true pilot story and original joke. Are the honorees funny? They don’t meet the standard kneepad-wearing NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar set in Airplane!, but several offer a few chuckles. Read the winning jokes and assorted other entries like the one above at flighthumor.com.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Pleasures and Challenges of Long-Term Travel
by Jim Benning | 07.02.03 | 12:17 AM ET
Shameless self-promotion: A story I wrote about my five-month trip to Asia appeared in Sunday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune. Why did I go? “Nearly a decade earlier in Europe, I’d fallen in love with long-term travel. Two years out of college, I had quit my job, bought a couple of rail passes and spent five months backpacking my savings away, from Istanbul, Turkey, to Belfast, Northern Ireland. The journey was a revelation. With so much time, my entire approach to travel changed. Instead of rushing from one landmark to the next, as I’d once done on a three-week trip to Europe, I improvised my way across the continent like a street-corner jazz saxophonist riffing through a standard, adhering to only the most basic framework, digressing often.”
“Cultural Ignorance Leads to Cultural Disdain”
by Jim Benning | 07.02.03 | 12:11 AM ET
Terror and Travel in Morocco
by Jim Benning | 07.01.03 | 12:21 AM ET
Terry Ward had just arrived in Morocco for a six-week Arabic course when she heard about the previous night’s terrorist bombings in Casablanca, 230 miles away. “Four explosions in Casa. Suicide bombers,” the receptionist at her Tangier hotel told her. “Many, many people dead.” Ward spent the coming days trying to make sense of the attack and how it might affect her stay in the country, which she chose to visit because she thought it would be safe. Her evocative account appears in Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Fall Books Preview
by Jim Benning | 06.25.03 | 12:41 AM ET
Publishers Weekly has just printed an overview of the travel-related books due to hit stores this fall. It’s a mile long. Among the highlights: “The World: Travels 1950-2000,” a collection of stories by Jan Morris, expected to be Morris’ last book; Travelers Tales’ “Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why:
The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure,” featuring stories by Davy Barry and Anne Lamott, among others; and “A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania with a Maverick Travel Editor,” a collection of stories by South Florida Sun-Sentinel Travel Editor Thomas Swick. Also, Ian Frazier is the guest editor of the upcoming “The Best American Travel Writing 2003” anthology. And car camping fans might want to check out “Ready to Roll: A
Celebration of the Classic American Travel Trailer” by Arrol Gellner and Douglas Keister.
If You Show it On Television, They Will Come (As Long as It Gets High Nielsen Ratings)
by Michael Yessis | 06.24.03 | 12:46 AM ET
Kansas tourism officials were worried when they heard about the ABC network’s upcoming sitcom “Back to Kansas,” which focuses on a New York writer and his wife who move to the state to be near her large family. “[It has] urban-sophisticate-suffers-heartland-hayseeds written all over it,” writes USA Today’s Jayne Clark. After the initial thoughts that the show would make Kansans look like bumpkins, though, the state’s tourism director Scott Allegrucci took a wait-and-see attitude. Why? As Clark points out, successful television shows boost tourism. Cases in point: The “Cheers” bar is one of Boston’s top tourist attractions, the Southfork Ranch of “Dallas” fame draws 400,000 visitors annually and “Sopranos” tours are currently all the rage in New Jersey.
The State of the Lonely Planet
by Michael Yessis | 06.21.03 | 12:51 AM ET
Guidebook publisher Lonely Planet announced last week that it was cutting 45 positions worldwide. Publishers Weekly writer Steven Zeitchik follows up with an overview of the company’s plans in what are difficult times for the travel publishing industry. “Travel is always evolving,” Lonely Planet USA president Todd Sotkiewicz told Zeitchik. “Just like when it started, Lonely Planet figured out where travel was headed, it’s exciting to figure out where travel is going to be.” Among the plans LP has for the future: A TV deal in Europe, a guide to scenic California drives and “The Kindness of Strangers,” a collection of moments from the road edited by “the affable former Salon travel editor Don George.” The book will have a preface from, of all people, the Dalai Lama.
Disney Family Vacation Ruined by Walt Disney Company
by Michael Yessis | 06.19.03 | 11:11 PM ET
Those poor Mahaffeys. All the magic of their family vacation to Walt Disney World was extinguished by the oppressive policies of the Walt Disney Company. “They call Disney World ‘The Happiest Place On Earth,’ but being there was oddly stressful and upsetting,” Delaware insurance-claims adjuster David Mahaffey told the Onion. “Why did Disney have to ruin the Disney magic for everyone?”
Travel Like Beckham!
by Michael Yessis | 06.17.03 | 11:28 PM ET
This David Beckham-themed item may seem like a shameless ploy to gain some readers from his legions of fans. We’re not above that sort of thing. Apparently, neither is the New York Times, which took some time away from legitimate issues of the day (the Middle East conflict, the elusive weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, etc.) to run an editorial about his rumored transfer from Manchester United to Barcelona. However, in this instance, we’ve got a legitimate reason to drop Beckham’s name. He is the subject of one of the more unlikely travel stories we’ve seen recently, a piece called “The David Beckham heritage trail,” which appeared in last Friday’s Guardian. Ed Vallance and Paul Hamilos have compiled a destination guide to 12 spots with Beckham ties, including the Walthamstow greyhound track east London (where he had his first-ever job collecting glasses), the Met Fair bar in Mayfair (where he met his wife) and Brooklyn, New York (where he and his wife conceived their first child). The piece has one serious omission: Where do we find the stylist who gives him those lovely hairdos?
“It Appears Our Readers Aren’t Really Cruisers”
by Jim Benning | 06.17.03 | 11:24 PM ET
The poor New Republic magazine. Hoping to join the seafaring ranks of The Nation and the National Review, which both offer occasional cruises with lecturing writers and editors, the New Republic planned its first-ever Caribbean cruise for October. It advertised the holiday, which was to be aboard a deluxe Holland America ship, as an enticing mix of ideas and old-fashioned fun. Trouble is, few people were interested. “It appears our readers aren’t really cruisers,” publisher Stephanie Sandberg told Washington City Paper. So the cruise is off. Erik Wemple’s entertaining article about the cancellation includes a short, detailed history of magazine-sponsored cruises.
Travel in a Warming World (and Another Reason the U.S. Should Rethink its Kyoto Protocol Position)
by Jim Benning | 06.16.03 | 11:42 PM ET
Global warming could soon ruin vacations, according to a recent story in the scientific journal Nature. Europe’s Mediterranean region, for example, is well on its way to becoming uncomfortably hot, scientists say. Other areas have already been affected. “The Alps are less snowy than they were 50 years ago—the snowline is rising, snow is coming later, and cover is less reliable,” the journal reports.
“If You Have Time, Stick Your Head in the Freezer. Ahhh.”
by Michael Yessis | 06.13.03 | 11:57 PM ET
We’ve noticed a lot of hubbub about the state of travel in America, much of it revolving around the notion that, in this time of turmoil, people are cutting out long-distance travel in favor of destinations nearer to home. Los Angeles Times writer Paul Brownfield has noticed this trend, too, and he’s formulated a brilliant response. He’s written a hilarious travel-guide spoof, which appeared in Thursday’s paper. It reveals the insider scoop on going to, among other places, the ATM and the kitchen. “Visitors to the kitchen tend to flock to the refrigerator, so your best bet is to get there early in the day or later in the evening,” he writes. “Admire the array of refrigerator magnets on display, including an original Baja Fresh takeout magnet and the whimsically shaped Action Propane magnet all the way from Leandor, Texas. The tile on the walls and countertops is original and believed to date to the 1930s. The kitchen is cleaned every other Wednesday and is closed to the public. Call ahead. Tours are self-guided.”
Wanderlust in the Age of GPS: ‘This Gives You a Purpose’
by Jim Benning | 06.13.03 | 11:52 PM ET
Why would a Vermont computer programmer wade into a leech-riddled swamp out in the middle of nowhere in Malaysia? To find the confluence of the 4th degree of latitude north and the 102nd meridian of longitude east, of course! If you’re confused, you’ve never heard of the Degree Confluence Project, the subject of a feature story in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times. (And you haven’t been dutifully clicking on our “Offbeat Sites” links; we posted a link to the project’s site ages ago.) Project devotees, many of whom are of a certain scientific persuasion, pack their hand-held global positioning satellite devices and wander off to find and photograph the intersection of whole number latitude and longitude points all over the planet, even in the middle of the ocean. Sure, David Lawrence, the programmer in question, could have simply opted for a tour of a Malaysian tea plantation. But what would be the point of that? “I have a wanderlust,” he says. “Yet traveling without a destination seems so random. This gives you a purpose.”
Americans in Paris, Like, MTV-Style
by Michael Yessis | 06.04.03 | 3:01 PM ET
The new season of The Real World debuted last night on MTV, featuring the crazy, young, always dramatic and frequently intoxicated American kids living abroad—in Paris. Tuesday’s show included a couple of cast members arriving at a Paris airport, hollering in English at passing Parisians, asking for directions to a train into the city. They were, of course, largely ignored. (They’ve obviously been taking travel lessons from those Americans on “The Amazing Race” who scream at people, regardless of the country in which they find themselves, only in English.) Tuesday night’s show also featured obscure references to the job that cast members would be assigned while living in Paris: writing a new series of travel guides. God knows what this is about. But if you ever see any of these guides in a bookstore in future years, run. Or at the very least, skip the train directions.
Talking Ethics in the Ethosphere
by Jim Benning | 06.03.03 | 3:04 PM ET
Should Americans abroad always come clean about their nationality, or, fearing ill will, is it okay for them to lie and claim to be Canadian? Are some cruise ships more environmentally friendly than others? Those and other issues are now being debated on the newly created Ethical Traveler message board, Ethosphere. It promises to be a thought-provoking forum. “We hope that our many members—from 17 countries—will use this discussion board to share tales about travel
in these skittish times, and to focus attention on situations that might impact our decisions about where to travel,” founder Jeff Greenwald wrote in a recent e-mail. The message board is but one component of Ethical Traveler’s mission. As the veteran travel writer told World Hum in a recent interview, “I’d like [Ethical Traveler] to be a community of like-minded travelers that uses its collective power to address and improve environmental and human rights issues around the world.”
