Travel Blog: News and Briefs
A Shocking Email From JetBlue
by Jim Benning | 07.31.08 | 11:27 AM ET
The note just landed in my inbox: “Thank you for jetting with JetBlue Airways on flight #185 from Kennedy on July 25, 2008. We apologize that the DIRECTV(r) was inoperable during your flight. As a gesture of apology and goodwill, we have issued each customer on your flight a $15 JetBlue electronic Voucher. ... JetBlue Vouchers are valid for one year and can be applied towards airfare on JetBlue Airways reservations.” Oh, JetBlue, I didn’t know you cared.
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Yahoo! BuzzMore Affairs To Remember: 10 Favorite Euro-Romance Movies
by Eva Holland | 07.31.08 | 10:55 AM ET
Countless single travelers hope to realize the romance of a foreign fling. Hollywood knows it, offering audiences a wide variety of flicks with a European affair for almost any taste. Eva Holland sifts through the classics, along with a few more recent releases, and offers up her favorites:
1) Before Sunrise
A young American backpacker meets a French girl on a train. Sparks fly, and they both hop off the train for one magical night in Vienna.
R.I.P. Papa Wendo, Father of Congolese Rumba
by Jim Benning | 07.30.08 | 6:03 PM ET
A recent Village Voice story called him “perhaps the most beloved musician that the Democratic Republic of Congo has ever known.” According to the BBC, he died in Kinshasa. He was 82. You can sample his music here—it’s good stuff.
Related on World Hum:
* The Sound of Sunshine
Parisians Improving Their Sharing Skills
by Elyse Franko | 07.30.08 | 12:23 PM ET
Though some may deem Paris a backwater, the City of Light is certainly progressive when it comes to implementing clean-energy transportation strategies. After seeing great success in 2007 with Velib, the citywide bikeshare program, the Parisian government is hoping that a new city-sponsored electric carshare program will be another hit.
Related on World Hum:
* Denali National Park Buses Going Hybrid?
Photo by frankh via Flickr. (Creative Commons)
Remembering ‘Flight’s First Fatal Trip’
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 11:03 AM ET
September 17 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first-ever death of an airplane passenger, Thomas E. Selfridge. Orville Wright piloted the plane, and Matthew L. Wald looks back at the tragic flight (pictured) and its legacy. Air travel, as we’ve noted, has become very safe.
Guns and Planes: Et Tu, Jerry Lewis?
by Michael Yessis | 07.30.08 | 10:47 AM ET
The 82-year-old actor, comedian and telethon host is the latest celebrity to have a firearm confiscated at the airport.
Related on World Hum:
* Has Your Favorite Celebrity Tried to Smuggle a Gun Onto a Plane?
* Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Still ‘Gun-Free Zone.’ For Now.
NASA Celebrates 50 Years In Space
by Eva Holland | 07.30.08 | 10:09 AM ET
As private outfits like Virgin Galactic look ahead this week to the future of commercial space travel, NASA looks back, and celebrates 50 years in existence. Wired has an in-depth essay about the space agency’s history, scientific achievements and cultural impact—most notably, the iconic Cape Canaveral liftoffs of the 1960s, when news anchor Walter Cronkite “made it clear to his audience that they were taking part in something momentous, something that not only represented the flowering of a great technological achievement but stirred the human soul as well.”
R.I.P. Bud Browne, ‘Father of Surf Films’
by Jim Benning | 07.29.08 | 12:25 PM ET
He was 96 years old, the Los Angeles Times reports, and his work inspired many surf filmmakers, including Bruce Brown, creator of the wanderlust-inducing surf-travel classic, “The Endless Summer.”
Registered Travelers Get a Break—Sort of
by Elyse Franko | 07.29.08 | 11:05 AM ET
The Transportation Security Administration says those signing up for the Registered Traveler (RT) program, which gives security lane benefits at select airports, will no longer need to fork over $28 for a security screening. Apparently, the RT screening “largely duplicates the watch list matching that is conducted on all travelers every time they fly,” the TSA says. As the Economist’s Gulliver blog pointed out, it’s very convenient that they’ve realized this now, after 135,000 people have paid the fee.
Related on World Hum:
*Blog to Watch: Evolution of Security
Virgin Galactic Unveils ‘WhiteKnightTwo’ Mothership
by Michael Yessis | 07.28.08 | 3:37 PM ET
It’s so hot Xeni Jardin wants to fondle it. Other reports from today’s unveiling of the high-altitude aircraft that will carry SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic’s commercial space ship, to the edge of the atmosphere were almost as breathless. Wired, the Los Angeles Times, Jaunted and others have reports from the scene in California’s Mojave Desert.
Extraterrestrial Tourism: The Truth Is Out There?
by Eva Holland | 07.28.08 | 10:23 AM ET
If, back in the spring, you had asked me to pick one summer blockbuster to spawn a travel spin-off this year, I would have bet on singing and dancing Mamma Mia! tours of the Greek Islands, or even criminal underworld-themed tours of Manhattan and Chicago, to coincide with the latest Batman flick. But X-Files tourism? I never would have guessed. Or maybe I just don’t want to believe?
Oxygen Tank Explosion May Have Caused Hole in Qantas 747
by Michael Yessis | 07.28.08 | 10:10 AM ET
That’s the leading theory, according to investigators. Fragments of a missing oxygen tank were apparently found on the jet.
Related on World Hum:
* Hole Opens in Qantas 747 During Flight
Remembering ‘Staycations’ Before They Were a Trend
by Julia Ross | 07.26.08 | 9:59 AM ET
NPR commentator Laura Lorson finds it curious that her childhood trips to places like Indianapolis and Knoxville would today be dubbed “staycations.” In the ‘70s, it was simply what families on a budget did during summer vacation. And while she sometimes felt inferior to classmates who jetted off to Paris, she had seen one thing they hadn’t: the Ponderosa Steakhouse.
World Hum’s Most Read: July 19-25
by World Hum | 07.25.08 | 3:17 PM ET
Our five most popular features and blog posts for the week:
1) Dan Bilefsky: Telling Counterintuitive Stories From the Edge of Europe
2) My Senegalese Cousin, the Rice-Loving Pig
3) Dave Barry in Costa Rica: ‘A Nation Located in South or Central America, or Possibly Europe’
4) Baggage: Check It or Ship It?
5) World Hum Travel Movie Club: National Lampoon’s ‘Vacation’ (pictured)
More on ‘Vacation,’ ‘Are We There Yet?’
by Michael Yessis | 07.25.08 | 2:12 PM ET
USA Today adds to the coverage of the 25th anniversary of the iconic travel comedy and Susan Sessions Rugh’s new book. The World Hum Travel Movie Club took on “Vacation” this week, and we posted our interview with Rugh last week.
