Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Eating Like a Viking in Minneapolis
by David Farley | 12.29.08 | 6:45 PM ET
The first indication I knew I was in trouble was when the waitress told me I was the youngest person to order the dish since they put it on the menu a month ago. And I’m 37. The second—and the worst part—occurred when the dish actually arrived. Staring at me from a plus-sized plate was a variation on the theme of pale: diced boiled potatoes, golf ball-sized pearl onions, lefse (a flatbread not unlike lavash or tortilla), a thimble of butter, and, the plate’s tour de force, a three-inch quivering gelatinous beast. Otherwise known as lutefisk.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzCuban Exiles Recall Flights to U.S.
by Julia Ross | 12.29.08 | 3:32 PM ET
For the 265,000 Cubans who fled their homeland on U.S.-sponsored “Freedom Flights” from 1965 to 1973, the emotional 45-minute flight to a new life remains etched in memory. Now, a Miami Herald series on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution has given Cuban-Americans a chance to share photos and memories of their “Freedom Flight” experience, in conjunction with a database that makes names and arrival dates of refugees available to the public for the first time.
In reading through the online recollections submitted by exiles who were children at the time, I was struck by how many remember their first taste of the U.S.—a coke, a ham sandwich, a pack of Wrigley’s gum, many handed out in box lunches at Miami’s airport. Others recall the tense days leading up to their departure, and the clothes, jewelry, and dolls left behind.
With the recent publication of Rachel Kushner’s novel, Telex from Cuba, and Tom Gjelten’s Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, along with the much-anticipated release of Steven Soderbergh’s Che next month, it seems Cuban history remains a hot topic in the U.S. Kudos to the Herald for rounding out that history with an important public record.
Stockholm and San Francisco: Two Capitals of Eco-Cool?
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.29.08 | 1:23 PM ET
Stockholm has organic jeans, eco-guidebooks and Michelin-starred chefs specializing in natural cuisine. San Francisco has eco-boutiques, enviro-warriors and dating sites for “eco-sexuals.”
The no-bad-news folks at The Optimist lavished praise on Stockholm, which has been shortlisted as a European green capital for 2010 and 2011 and even has its own eco-focused blog. The pub calls the city “eco-cool.”
Meanwhile, a Qantas blogger obsessed with the evils of plastic bags gave some love to plastic-bag-banning San Francisco.
I don’t know exactly what eco-cool means. If we’re talking style and sustainability, then I’d also give a shout out to Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Vancouver, Sydney, Copenhagen, Portland, Oregon and Boulder, Colorado.
Who would you nominate?
Colombia On Film (Again)
by Eva Holland | 12.29.08 | 1:17 PM ET
Sure, 2007’s Love in the Time of Cholera may never have become the big Colombian movie-tourism ticket that we were expecting (the film adaptation of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez classic tanked, critically and at the box office), but Cartagena—the city where “Cholera” was set—isn’t done yet.
There’s a new Cartagena-set movie in the works (called, appropriately enough, Cartagena) that will star Clive Owen as “an undercover agent at the center of the world’s cocaine trade,” as Get The Big Picture blogger Colin Boyd puts it.
Morning Links: Post-War Comics, Notorious Airport Restrooms, Year-End Round-Ups and More
by Valerie Conners | 12.29.08 | 10:42 AM ET
- World Hum contributor Eric Weiner writes in a Washington Post op-ed about the recession and the pervasive negative media coverage that may just be making it worse.
- The Travel Hall of Infamy Awards have been announced, and yes, arm-sucking train toilets and scary pilots top the list.
- And the year-end round-ups continue: The San Francisco Chronicle highlights the year’s oddest travel stories.
- The hotel room of the future: straight lines and corners were so 20th century.
- The Tintin movie is in the works, and The Economist explains the popularity of the comic strip character—who grew to be a European cultural icon—through “the prism of post-war Europe.”
- The FBI has begun investigating the disappearance of a Norwegian Cruise Line passenger, reported missing on Friday and believed to have fallen overboard near the coast of Cancun.
- The airport restroom that gained notoriety following the Sen. Larry Craig “toe-tapping” scandal has become less of a tourist destination, said an airport official. He added, “I think we’ll all be glad when there’s no special interest in that restroom.”
- As the year’s end creeps closer, frequent flier mileage runs are in full swing. One traveler details the highs, lows and mad dashes of being a “frequent flier addict.”
World Hum’s Most Read: Dec. 20-26
by World Hum | 12.26.08 | 4:03 PM ET
Our five most popular features for the week:
1) Plato Was a Backpacker
2) Subcontinental Homesick Blues
3) World Hum’s Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time
4) What Every Traveler Should Know About Disposable Underwear
5) World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books (pictured)
Nine Travel Movies to Watch For in 2009
by Eva Holland | 12.26.08 | 12:41 PM ET
If there’s one December fixture that I enjoy almost as much as the ubiquitous “Best of the Past Year” list, it’s the “Trends to Watch Next Year” list. What’s new and hot? What’s old but hot again? And what never goes out of style? (Trends to Watch lists, that’s what.)
So, with that in mind, here are nine travel-esque movies hitting theaters in 2009.
The Descent 2: Looks like one of our favorite travel horror movies has spawned a sequel. In the second round, the lone survivor of a caving trip gone horrifically wrong heads back below the surface—local sheriff in tow—to confirm the fate of her companions. Predictably, things don’t quite go as planned.
Point Break: Indo: Twenty years later, there’s a new band of surfing bandits on the loose—this time in Bali—and a new surfing cop on their trail, too. The producers are being coy about possible cameos from Patrick Swayze or Keanu Reeves, but hey, Swayze turned up in a Dirty Dancing re-hashing a few years back, so why not Point Break, too?
Morning Links: Roman Gladiators, Michelin Guides, Prehistoric Airports and More
by Jim Benning | 12.26.08 | 11:58 AM ET
- Air travelers will soon be able to buy carbon offsets from self-service kiosks inside San Francisco Airport.
- A British tourist volunteering at an archaeological dig in Jerusalem discovered hundreds of gold coins dating from the 7th century.
- More trouble in Venice: All that water is causing the Campanile on St. Marks Square to tilt.
- The French edition of Michelin restaurant guide gets a new editor and—gasp—she’s not French.
- Thailand’s tourism economy is enduring its worst slump in decades.
- World Hum contributor Doug Lansky put together an audio slideshow about a new hostel in Stockholm—it’s set inside a jumbo jet.
- A three part series on NPR looks at the rise of earthquake tourism in Sichuan.
- Gladiators could soon return to Rome’s Colloseum. Now that’s ultimate fighting.
- Thomas Friedman just flew from Hong Kong’s state-of-the-art airport to New York’s aging Kennedy. His conclusion: It’s time for the U.S. to reboot. Funny, I had the same feeling not long ago, only I was flying from London’s Heathrow to LAX.
Happy Holidays, Safe Travels
by Jim Benning | 12.24.08 | 1:11 PM ET
We’ll be taking off Christmas day and posting lightly through the end of the week. If you’re traveling, good luck out there.
The Year in Eating
by David Farley | 12.23.08 | 4:44 PM ET
Food experts are rolling out their predictions for 2009 and they’re really going out on a limb forecasting, for example, that recession specials are going to be huge. Here’s what we think about eating in 2009: there will be no food because there will be no restaurants because no one will have much money to eat anything. Which will then make things that were previously unappetizing, very edible. (Yes, we’re looking at you dog!) Really, though, rather than look forward—after all, the future of eating doesn’t look so pink in the middle right now—let’s take a breather from all this fortunetelling and glance backwards to better times. This was the year of both Greek yogurt and mixologists. It was the year that Korean cuisine pissed all over Chinese food (Chinese will make a huge comeback in 2010, we think). And it was another great year for David Chang. But here are a few things we’d like to dwell on:
R.I.P. World Hum’s Old Globe
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.08 | 4:20 PM ET
Jim’s right. It was time for a change. We needed a new look, and our designer Joe Rivera developed a great one, all the way down to the new World Hum globe. I love it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the old one. I do. It had been a constant on the site—the only constant element, I believe—since the beginning. Now, after more than seven years anchoring World Hum, it’s retired.
It deserves a small tribute.
Treatment for Plane Crash Victims Improving
by Eva Holland | 12.23.08 | 2:08 PM ET
In the wake of Saturday’s dramatic Denver plane crash, the AP has a story on the ways in which post-crash treatment—both for survivors, and for the families of victims—has improved over the last decade.
In the old days, Joshua Freed writes, “little care was taken to return personal possessions of crash victims or, in some cases, even their remains. Families tried in vain to reach airlines to find out whether their loved one was on board the plane, and whether they lived or died.” But following the TWA flight 800 crash in 1996, new measures were put in place, and—says a representative of a crash survivors’ group—“there have been some huge improvements.”
Ethical Travel for the Mindful Tourist
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.23.08 | 1:25 PM ET
Photo by joiseyshowaa (Creative Commons).
Argentina, Bolivia and Bulgaria top the 2008 list of the top ten ethical travel destinations, according to Ethical Traveler, a project of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Earth Island Institute. Researchers studied 70 developing countries “from Albania to Zimbabwe” to see which are actively improving their natural environment and the lives of their people through tourism. Half of the countries on the list are in Latin America but none in Asia, where runaway development has wreaked havoc on the land and human rights abuses continue to worsen.
Stocking Stuffers for Budget Travelers: The Christmas ‘Unlist’
by Eva Holland | 12.23.08 | 11:12 AM ET
In an unusual move at this time of year, Europestring‘s Christine Gilbert offers up the Christmas Unlist: 10 gifts not to buy for the European budget traveler in your life. There’s a lot of truth to her picks—and don’t worry, gift-list-lovers: she also offers thoughtful alternatives to her slate of no-nos.
Morning Links: Goa Beach Parties, Kim Jong Il’s Childhood Home and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.08 | 9:37 AM ET
- Arab women are finding new freedoms as flight attendants.
- In the U.S., a former T.W.A. flight attendant looks back on the days “when there were three dinner options on flights from Boston to Los Angeles—in coach.”
- Kim Jong Il’s childhood home in South Korea is open to travelers.
- The economic crisis hits the glass blowers of Murano.
- There will be no Goa beach parties in the coming weeks. Indian authorities are worried about security after the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
- Recce posted its Best Stories of 2008.
- Christopher Elliott offers some travel strategies for 2009.
- William Langewiesche reconstructs the collision of two planes over Brazil in 2006. Joe Sharkey has a few harsh words for the story.
- Airport security in Birmingham, England strip searched a clown. PC Konk the Clown said, “I’ve never had this problem before when I’ve been to international clown conventions abroad.” My favorite part is the groan-inducing headline: “Clown Finds Airport Security no Laughing Matter.”
