Travel Blog: News and Briefs
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Beer in the U.S.
by David Farley | 12.22.08 | 6:52 PM ET
Hhmm…beer. It’s hard to believe now, but in 1873, there were 4,000 breweries in the United States. Brooklyn alone boasted 50. But Prohibition followed by industrialization wiped out nearly all the breweries. And by 1965 there were only a couple megalithic beer factories serving watered-down suds and just one craft beer maker in the country (Anchor Steam). This info comes to us from a recently published New Yorker piece by Burkhard Bilger on Dogfish Brewery.
Coincidentally, Czech beer buff and author of The Good Beer Guide Prague & The Czech Republic, Evan Rail, recently wrote about the numerous (and long-gone) breweries in 19th-century Prague. But let’s not start weeping in our pints of PBR just yet. According to Bilger there are now 1,500 breweries in the United States, and when I checked in with Evan Rail, he had this to say about brewing in the country that consumes more beer per capita than anywhere in the world: “When my book was published, there were about 102 (plus or minus) total breweries in the Czech Republic, counting brewpubs, micros and industrial brewers. Now it’s 122. That’s a gain of just under 20% in 18 months.”
We’ll most certainly toast to that.
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Yahoo! BuzzR.I.P. Cafe Royal
by Eva Holland | 12.22.08 | 4:19 PM ET
The iconic London cafe closed this weekend after 143 years. Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Graham Greene were among its many fans. (Via The Book Bench)
Goodbye ‘White Christmas’?
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.22.08 | 3:56 PM ET
Do you want to spend the winter holidays in an idyllic, snow-fringed place just like the one Irving Berlin used to know? Berlin wrote “White Christmas” 68 years ago, when the concept still made sense in the German city of Berlin as well as the rest of the northern hemisphere. In what has become an annual reality check during the increasingly warm winter holidays, climate scientists and meteorologists are again warning that global warming is the Grinch that’s stealing snowy landscapes around the world. Reuters reports that the odds of Berlin seeing snow in 2100 will decrease to 5 percent from 20 percent a century ago. Even frigid Oslo, Norway, will see a precipitous decline in snow days, scientists told Reuters.
D.C.’s Obama Souvenir Trail: Good, Bad and Ugly
by Julia Ross | 12.22.08 | 1:35 PM ET
Photo by Julia Ross. There’s nothing like a presidential inauguration to stoke Washington’s entrepreneurial spirit. With the big event less than a month away, Obama souvenirs are multiplying like “real Americans” at a Sarah Palin rally. I’m keeping an eye out for particularly egregious examples, but here’s a snapshot of what I’ve seen around town thus far:
Morning Links: Wynn’s Encore, a ‘Sadistic’ Geography Quiz and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.22.08 | 8:18 AM ET
- Continental Flight 1404 crashed in Denver Saturday night. Thirty-eight passengers were injured. There were no casualties. Investigators are on the scene.
- The first news about the crash apparently came via Twitter—from a guy on board the plane. Here’s his colorful tweet.
- “60 Minutes” examines the state of TSA screening. It’s “security theater,” says one expert.
- Steve Wynn’s Encore opens today in Las Vegas. When asked if he’s worried about opening a new resort In this economic climate, Wynn said, “Are you nuts?” He added: “If I didn’t say yes, you would walk out of here thinking I was crazy.”
- Southwest may begin service to New York City in 2009.
- Matt Gross hit seven airports in four days in search of good eats. He talked a little about it on All Things Considered.
- Thomas Friedman “had no idea that many of those oil paintings that hang in hotel rooms and starter homes across America are actually produced by just one Chinese village.”
- Concierge’s It List 2009 is out.
- The Passports With Purpose fundraiser enters its final week. The raffle was organized by four travel bloggers, including World Hum contributor Pam Mandel.
- The latest in the Washington Post’s excellent Time Zones series: The boom in used car auctions in Johannesburg.
- John Flinn unleashes his “most sadistic geography quiz ever.” No matter how you score, just remember: When it comes to geography, you’re no Sarah Palin.
World Hum’s Most Read: Dec. 13-19
by World Hum | 12.19.08 | 5:40 PM ET
iStockphoto Our five most popular features and blog posts for the week:
1) World Hum’s Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time
2) Can ‘The Moses Project’ Stop the Tides in Venice?
3) Berlin’s DDR Museum: ‘There Must Be a Microphone Around Here Someplace’
4) Subcontinental Homesick Blues
5) Eight Best Cities for Street Food (pictured)
What We Loved This Week: Christmas in Germany, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and More
by World Hum | 12.19.08 | 4:33 PM ET
Photo by Terry Ward Bollywood Comes to Miami
by Eva Holland | 12.19.08 | 11:44 AM ET
Well here’s a new twist on an old theme. Instead of a Hollywood movie exposing American travelers to new and exotic locations (say, New Zealand, Colombia, or… Wyoming), it looks like Bollywood is set to launch some of its legions of fans towards a domestic tourism hotspot: Miami. The newest Indian blockbuster, Dostana, was shot entirely in South Florida, and the Greater Miami tourism bureau is calling it “one big postcard” for the city.
The movie follows the story of two men who pretend to be a gay couple so they can move in with their landlady’s (predictably stunning) niece. Singing, dancing, juicy beach shots, and plenty of intense gazes ensue. (And yes, we’ve got video after the jump.)
Morning Links: GlobalPost, 3 a.m. Dining and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.08 | 9:54 AM ET
- Behind the scenes at GlobalPost, a new venture that, in the face of the crumbling newspaper industry, will attempt “to create a new model for overseas reporting.”
- A great interactive graphic shows the rise of megacities.
- Christopher Elliott asks: “Is the U.S. travel industry on the verge of a ‘collapse’?”
- Patrick Smith asks: Will the airlines follow Detroit to the government trough?
- Sarah Hepola interviews Brian Raftery, author of Don’t Stop Believin’: How Karaoke Conquered the World and Changed My Life.
- Restaurants across the U.S. are catering to 3 a.m. diners.
- TravelBlogs rounds up some travel bloggers to reveal the books and movies that inspired them to travel.
- IgoUgo picks 10 intriguing New Year’s celebrations.
- National Geographic serves up an interactive graphic of hangover cures from around the world. Tripe soup, anyone?
Pigging Out
by David Farley | 12.18.08 | 2:55 PM ET
David Sedaris put it best in Me Talk Pretty One Day when he recalled meeting his boyfriend and eventually settling in France: “I wound up in Normandy the same way my mother wound up in North Carolina: you meet a guy, relinquish a tiny bit of control, and the next thing you know, you’re eating a different part of the pig.”
It’s true—at least about the pig part: I once watched a sow get slaughtered in the Czech hinterlands and the first offerings turned out to be the beast’s brains, followed by its heart, its blood (as soup), and, finally, fried nuggets of pig fat. But I’d never encountered such parts on the menus of restaurants in the United States. That is, until now.
China-Taiwan Flights Go Daily
by Julia Ross | 12.18.08 | 10:03 AM ET
Travel between rivals China and Taiwan got a whole lot easier this week. Airlines launched more than 100 daily weekly flights between the two sides, stepping up a historic opening in travel kicked off last summer with weekend charter flights. Two travelers set to take advantage of the new policy: “Tuan Tuan” and “Yuan Yuan,” giant pandas expected to arrive in Taipei Dec. 23 as a gift from the mainland. Their names linked together—“tuanyuan”—mean “reunion” in Mandarin, a not-so-subtle hint that the Chinese government would like to see Taiwan return to the fold.
Morning Links: Idlewild Books, Disaster Tourism and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.08 | 9:44 AM ET
- The latest clerk in New York Magazine’s “Ask a Shop Clerk” series: David Del Vecchio, owner of New York City’s Idlewild Books. He says mystery novels are underrated as travel books.
- Mexico City looks to go green.
- Here’s The Year in Google Maps.
- The New York Public Library adds some great old New York photos to its Flickr stream.
- Ian Stevenson creates a video showing the waves of immigration to the United States from 1820 until last year.
- Tim Leffel stresses the importance of being spontaneous while traveling.
- In the wake of Hurricane Ike, Galveston, Texas is the latest place to confront disaster tourism.
- Awesome Tapes from Africa show off awesome cassette tapes from Africa. This recommended track from “The Best of Sagbohan Danialou” is brightening my morning.
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Just How Skillful Are Kidnappers in Mexico?
by Jim Benning | 12.17.08 | 4:39 PM ET
They reportedly kidnapped an anti-kidnapping expert from the United States who was in northern Mexico conducting security seminars. “I do a lot of security consulting, and the last thing I think of is being a victim in the process,” a fellow expert told the New York Times. “Talk about turning the tables.” Kidnappings in Mexico are at an all-time high this year.
Movie Tourism: ‘An Obsessively Ridiculous, Embarrassing, Empty, and Needy Exercise’?
by Eva Holland | 12.17.08 | 3:52 PM ET
I’ve been thinking lately about the motivations behind movie tourism—not the “Wow, New Zealand sure looked beautiful in that elf movie” variety, but the literal, “X was filmed here” brand of movie-related travel. What is it that prompts people to run up the steps, Rocky-style, in Philadelphia, or to slide into a booth at New York’s Katz’s Deli and gigglingly declare, “I’ll have what she’s having”?
Dirt Candy, Anyone?
by David Farley | 12.17.08 | 12:44 PM ET
Hi there. I’m David Farley, World Hum’s resident food blogger. World Hum asked me to cover dining and food after recently watching me consume food and drink with eyebrow-raising fury at a New York restaurant. When I was young—we’re talking five and six years old—I received constant accolades from my mom for my eating prowess. And while I’m not necessarily in the same league with, say, Andrew Zimmern, I’ll still try just about anything at least once. Which means I’ve eaten everything from insects to the innards of large mammals. But when it comes to food, I can be quite the fancy boy (I love foie gras) and completely unfussy (I also love burgers and fried chicken).
With that behind me, Dirt Candy, anyone?
You can’t judge a book by its cover, so should you judge a restaurant by its name? Probably not. But would you want to eat at a vegetarian restaurant called Dirt Candy? Metromix recently named the worst-named new restaurants in New York.
