Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Farewell to The Stardust, Castaways
by Michael Yessis | 01.12.06 | 1:58 AM ET
Las Vegas said goodbye to another of its old-time hotels today. Castaways, formerly known as The Showboat, endured for almost 50 years before succumbing to crippling debts after 9/11. The Las Vegas Review-Journal has the story—and the video of the implosion. Next up on the list of old Vegas hotels set for closure: The Stardust.
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Yahoo! BuzzOne Last Flight on Independence Air
by Michael Yessis | 01.11.06 | 2:30 PM ET
Independence Air went out of business last week, and Joe Sharkey bought a ticket on the low-fare carrier for one of its final flights. “As Flight 1217 descended into Dulles, [Flight Attendant Kari] Harris made the requisite announcements and added her thanks to the passengers for their company on her last flight,” Sharkey writes in the New York Times. “I watched how carefully she stowed the cans and replaced the napkins in their bins, as if someone would ever reach for them again. She removed her apron and folded it as neatly as if she were in her own kitchen….She dabbed at her eyes quickly with a tissue. ‘I almost made it without tears,’ she said.”
Perceptive Travel Debuts
by Jim Benning | 01.11.06 | 12:57 PM ET
The new year brings with it a promising new online travel magazine, Perceptive Travel, edited by Tim Leffel, author of “The World’s Cheapest Destinations.” The first issue features stories from Bruce Northam, Rolf Potts, Peter Moore and Jen Leo, as well as world music reviews. It’s “a web magazine written for independent travelers with open senses and open minds. Our articles are written by some of the best travel authors in the world. These stories of voyages and destinations are meant to entertain, to amuse, to challenge, and to provide a real window into the world.” That sounds good to us, and we’ll be reading.
Free Pizza Delivery…By Airplane
by Michael Yessis | 01.10.06 | 1:46 PM ET
More proof that Americans do love their pizza: A couple of Nome, Alaska entrepreneurs have started what could be the world’s first pizza parlor delivering its goods by airplane. Nome, a city of 3,500 so remote it’s the finish line for the Iditarod, had no take-out restaurants before Airport Pizza arrived on the scene in early August. Now Alaskans from hundreds of miles away are hooked on Airport Pizza’s pies, which are carried by Frontier Flying Service.
More Top Travel Books
by Jim Benning | 01.10.06 | 12:36 AM ET
New Zealand Herald travel editor Jim Eagles offers his top 10 list of recently published travel books. It includes Michael Palin’s Himalaya, as well as Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring, which Eagles writes is “a delightful mick-take of the traditional guidebook.” The book, he notes, is “not quite as good as its predecessor, ‘Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry.’” We blogged and blogged again about “Molvania” in 2004. (Note: You might be asked to register and pay to read the article.)
Disasters, Terrorism Don’t Deter Travelers
by Michael Yessis | 01.08.06 | 10:48 PM ET
As we pointed out here and here, and as Liz Sinclair wrote here, travelers are a hard bunch to keep down. In The New York Times today, Thomas Crampton adds to the list of recent stories about travelers’ determination and fearlessness, supporting his point with a prediction by the World Travel and Tourism Council that travel will increase by nearly five percent in 2006.
JT Leroy Unmasked: He’s a She
by Michael Yessis | 01.08.06 | 5:20 PM ET
He/she is Savannah Knoop, according to a story by Warren St. John posted this afternoon on The New York Times Web site. St. John reports that Knoop plays Leroy in public, but the author of the works attributed to him/her is still unknown. “A photograph of Ms. Knoop at a 2003 opening for a clothing store in San Francisco was discovered online,” St. John writes. “Five intimates of Mr. Leroy’s, including his literary agent, his business manager and the producer of a coming movie based on one of his books, were shown the photograph and identified Ms. Knoop as the person they have known as JT Leroy.”
Update: Farewell to L.A.‘s Ambassador Hotel
by Michael Yessis | 01.06.06 | 7:24 AM ET
Only a small portion of the famed hotel still remains, and The Ambassador’s Last Stand has the latest photos of the demolition. Readers have also sent in a couple photos of the pantry where Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy in 1968.
Space Travel: Beyond the ‘Dweebs, Geeks and Dorks’
by Michael Yessis | 01.05.06 | 8:57 AM ET
Last week, for probably the first time in my life, I got excited by the prospect of U.S. government bureaucracy. The Federal Aviation Administration took a step toward developing rules for space tourism, issuing more than 120 pages of proposed guidelines for “space flight participants.” The initial set of regulations is set to go into effect in June, and to me it’s a sort of tipping point, cementing the reality that in just a few years any one of us may be able to blast off into the cosmos the same way we can fly Jet Blue to Vegas for the weekend. That’s an awesome thing, in the true sense of the word.
Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm: “The UK’s Premier Creationist Attraction”
by Jim Benning | 01.04.06 | 11:40 PM ET
That’s how James Russell describes the zoo farm in Somerset village that he visited with his son’s nursery group. The Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm was started in 1999 by Anthony and Christina Bush, farmers for 40 years, he writes. They wanted to demonstrate where food comes from and teach creation science.
106-Year-Olds Set to Travel
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.06 | 1:39 AM ET
Kudos to the three Japanese travelers who are proving that you’re never too old to go somewhere. According to Thanh Nien News, the trio from Okinawa Island will embark on a four-day trip to Vietnam beginning this Sunday.
2006: The Year of the Long-Haul Airliner
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.06 | 1:36 AM ET
Superjumbo jets like the soon-to-debut Airbus A380 “will fundamentally change the experience of flying around the world,” writes Joe Sharkey in today’s New York Times. Besides making it easier for travelers to get from continent to continent, the planes also promise extra comfort. Airports around the world are beginning to modify their infrastructure to accommodate the 500 to 900 passenger behemoths, but some are lagging, including Los Angeles International Airport.
LAX Through Hotel Room Windows
by Jim Benning | 01.02.06 | 12:58 PM ET
Photographer Zoe Crosher embarked on an unusual and oddly compelling project in 2001: She decided to photograph planes coming in to land at Los Angeles International Airport, shooting them through the windows of 31 motels and hotels around LAX. “Crosher shoots in the morning, and the images (which often feature the plastic linings of cheap curtains) are in a sense second to the narrative thread of the series: transience, anonymity and the fleeting promise of Los Angeles,” writes Steffie Nelson in last Thursday’s L.A. Weekly. A book collection of the photos, “Out the Window (LAX),” is due to be published this spring, with an introduction by Pico Iyer.
Behind the Scenes of “Flight 93”
by Michael Yessis | 01.02.06 | 12:50 PM ET
The first major motion picture to focus on the September 11, 2001 attacks—specifically on the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field—will be released this spring, and Sunday’s New York Times has a detailed look at the production. All of the families of the flight’s passengers reportedly cooperated with director Paul Greengrass, not just those who had been able to reach their loved ones via cell phone.
We’re Back, and So is Farris Hassan
by Michael Yessis | 01.02.06 | 12:44 PM ET
Welcome back, Farris. The 16-year-old high school student, who had taken $1,800 his parents gave him to invest in the stock market and embarked on a solo trip to Iraq, returned home to Fort Lauderdale, Florida last night. It ended one of the most fascinating odysseys of 2005. Hassan took off for the Middle East on December 11, reportedly to research a school journalism project.
