Travel Blog: News and Briefs
No James Brown Museum in Augusta? Get up Offa That Thing!
by Eva Holland | 03.10.08 | 12:08 PM ET
I rolled into Augusta, Georgia last week admittedly unprepared. I hadn’t done any research, hadn’t checked out the city’s Web site—I had simply assumed that James Brown’s hometown would have a museum dedicated to the hardest working man in show business. Silly me. Turns out there’s a statue in a plaza, and a street was re-named for him in 1993. But a museum?
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Are Americans Just Lazy About Keeping in Touch?’
by Jim Benning | 03.10.08 | 10:43 AM ET
Terry Ward wonders why so many people overseas complain they never hear from American guests after they leave: “Because we are so transient, do we have a more fleeting view of friendship than, say, Europeans, who tend to stick closer to home?”
Anti-Jet Lag ‘Concept Room’ Offers Blue Lights, Banana Smoothies
by Julia Ross | 03.07.08 | 9:19 AM ET
Photo by Madame Ming via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Those are just two of the remedies being tested in an anti-jet lag “concept room” at the Westin Chicago River North hotel. The Today Show’s Peter Greenberg reports the blue lights are meant to make travelers feel more alert, while the smoothies are considered calming.
Five-Passenger Transatlantic Flight Dubbed ‘Eco-Scandal’
by Julia Ross | 03.07.08 | 7:23 AM ET
American Airlines has taken a drubbing from environmentalists for flying only five passengers from Chicago to London aboard a Boeing 777 last month, reports the Telegraph. On Feb. 9, the airline cancelled one of four daily services on the route and rebooked all but five passengers, who wound up on a nearly empty plane, upgraded to business class. While swilling champagne, each passenger contributed an estimated 43 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. American says it had no choice; green groups call it “obscene.”
Photo by Cubbie_n_Vegas via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Report: Southwest Airlines Flew at Least 117 ‘Unsafe’ Planes
by Michael Yessis | 03.06.08 | 4:11 PM ET
Another headline I considered for this post: What I Didn’t Want to See Before I Fly Southwest Tomorrow. CNN’s Special Investigations Unit reported today:
Shrinking Planet Statistic of the Day: Chinese Restaurants
by Jim Benning | 03.06.08 | 3:15 PM ET
”[T]here are about 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., ‘more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined.’” Source: The Chicago Tribune quoting Jennifer 8. Lee in a review of her new book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. (Via aldaily.com)
Photo by pixeljones via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
R.I.P. Bookstore Tourism?
by Michael Yessis | 03.06.08 | 12:29 PM ET
Larry Portzline has shut down Bookstore Tourism indefinitely. “Unfortunately, despite a great deal of excitement and interest from supporters, the necessary funding was scarce,” he writes on his blog. “So, after five years of working on Bookstore Tourism without making a penny (and, in fact, virtually driving myself into bankruptcy), I had to make a very tough decision and pull the plug on the entire project.” He adds: “It may be permanent. I’m simply not sure.”
Las Vegas’ Hooters Hotel to go Boutique
by Jim Benning | 03.06.08 | 11:19 AM ET
Photo by thenestor via Flickr, (Creative Commons)
Yes, despite the oh-so-clever do-not-disturb signs—not to mention that fact that Hooters and Las Vegas would seem to be made for one another—redevelopers have come a knockin’. That’s the word from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which reports that Hooters Hotel is being purchased by a developer who plans to transform it into a “lifestyle, entertainment-driven boutique hotel and casino complex.”
Chuck Klosterman: ‘What is a Road Movie, Really?’
by Michael Yessis | 03.05.08 | 12:01 PM ET
More specifically, he asks, as the subhead of his rambling story in The Believer says, “What’s the difference between a road movie and a movie that just happens to have roads in it?” Klosterman’s attempt to get to the bottom of the question involves references to “non-dead author John Leland,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” It also includes equations, such as this:
A Traveler’s Open Letter to Airborne Supplements
by Jim Benning | 03.05.08 | 11:24 AM ET
Oh Airborne, you nickel-sized fruit-flavored tablets that dissolve in water and promised to keep me healthy on long flights; you shrewdly marketed vitamins developed by a school teacher who, you say, studied the benefits of herbal therapies used in Eastern Medicine. I saw you displayed near the other vitamins in Trader Joe’s, in your neon-hued boxes. You called out to me and my yearning to stay healthy. I purchased you and drank you up, looking the other way when you left an unappealing algae-like film on the inside of my glass.
Americans’ Most Favored Nations
by Michael Yessis | 03.05.08 | 9:41 AM ET
Heading…
Gallup surveyed Americans to find out which countries they liked best, with Canada taking the top spot. Ninety-two percent of respondents had a favorable view of their northern neighbors, with Great Britain (89 percent), Germany (82 percent) and Japan (80 percent) in the next three spots. Iran was the least favored nation, with only 8 percent of respondents giving it some love.
‘Sweeping Review of Airport Security Screening’ Underway
by Michael Yessis | 03.04.08 | 4:39 PM ET
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told USA Today that the Transportation Security Administration will review screening systems in the U.S. during the next month and a half.
Travelers’ Tales Announces Solas Awards Winners
by Jim Benning | 03.04.08 | 12:24 PM ET
The list of winning travel stories, which includes a couple of World Hum pieces, can be found here.
World Hum Travel Movie Club: ‘Into The Wild’
by Eli Ellison, Eva Holland | 03.04.08 | 11:44 AM ET
By now, you know the story. In 1990, a 22-year-old college grad named Christopher McCandless renounced his privileged upbringing, adopted the nom de drifter Alexander Supertramp, and turned to a new life of vagabonding. Two years later, Alaskan moose hunters found his corpse in an abandoned Fairbanks city bus outside Denali National Park. Jon Krakauer pieced together Chris’s odyssey and wrote the bestseller Into the Wild. Sean Penn‘s movie version of the book, which hit theaters last fall, arrives today on DVD. Eva Holland and Eli Ellison gave the disc a spin, exchanged e-mails and debated Hollywood’s adaptation of Into the Wild in the debut of the World Hum Travel Movie Club.
Video: Jet Attempts Landing During 150 MPH Winds
by Michael Yessis | 03.03.08 | 11:56 AM ET
Hurricane-force winds battered the Lufthansa flight as it attempted to land during in Hamburg, Germany this weekend, causing one wing of the Airbus A320 to scrape the runway. The pilot pulled up and eventually landed on his second effort, providing relief to the 137 people on board and an amazing and scary piece of video:
