Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Thou, Yosemite, Art His Goddess
by Jim Benning | 05.15.07 | 11:35 AM ET
Gary Kamiya recently returned from a visit to Yosemite, where he found spring turning in a typically brilliant performance. His eloquent essay in Salon today celebrates all places wild and California’s grandest national park, in particular. Kamiya draws heavily on the writings of John Muir. He also sprinkles in quotes from Melville, Camus, Shelley and even Edmund from “King Lear.” “The planet is putting on its most spectacular show right now in Yosemite,” he begins. “Over an ancient sun-soaked cliff, a river that moments ago was as staid and obedient as you and me is hurling itself over the edge like a runaway roller coaster, turning into a hundred-headed shower of white downward-streaking comets, twisting and turning and dissolving and embracing and vanishing and reappearing, falling 500, a thousand, 1,500 feet before it collides with the rocks and disappears into a maelstrom of foam and mist.” For the uninitiated, that’s Yosemite Falls.
Related on World Hum:
* Celebrating California’s Highway 395
* Gary Snyder: ‘Our Western Thoreau’
* Can Slow Travel Save the Planet?
Photo by i_r_e_n_e via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Brava Gondoliera! Brava!’: Venice Gets its First Female Gondolier
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 2:22 PM ET
Meet Alexandra Hai, Venice’s first female gondolier. Ever. She’s 40 years old. She’s of German and Algerian descent. A court ruling says she’s allowed to paddle only for guests at a particular Venice hotel. And she’s stirred up the ire of many of her male counterparts. “To gondoliers,” Peter Keifer writes in the New York Times, “the job is fit only for a man, since it involves strength, ability to navigate currents and paddle in reverse, and even the aesthetics of the gondoliers of yore in their black-and-white striped shirts.” Sounds like something from 1,000 years ago, which is almost how long women had been on the outside looking in until Hai came along.
What Happened to the ‘Lovable Aussie’ Traveler?
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 9:30 AM ET
Ben Groundwater says being an Australian abroad used to be “awesome.” “You’d find yourself the token conversation piece at get-togethers, where you could persuade people that you wrestled kangaroos for a living,” he writes on The Backpacker, a Sydney Morning Herald blog. “Doors magically opened, hassles were incredibly smoothed over, with the help of an Australian accent. But it’s all gone wrong…” In short, Groundwater says, Australian travelers are now often greeted with disdain. Among the possible reasons: Overexposure, “blokes on buck’s weekends,” politics and jealousy. He concludes: “The bottom line, however, is that anyone who’s travelled knows there are a lot of Australians out there acting like dickheads, and it’s giving the rest of us a bad name.” As you might expect, the post has stimulated some heated—and interesting—conversation.
R.I.P. William Becker, Co-Founder of Motel 6
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 9:23 AM ET
Photo by independentman via Flickr (Creative Commons).
The “6” in Motel 6 famously represents the $6 William Becker and his co-founder, Paul Greene, charged travelers per night when the budget chain opened its first property in Santa Barbara, California in 1962. According to an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Becker “had been inspired by a monthlong, cross-country car trip from Santa Barbara to his family’s farm in Greenwich, N.Y., in the summer of 1960.” The two founders leveraged their background in building low-cost tract homes, and turned out rooms with no-iron sheets, coin-operated televisions and “shower stalls with rounded edges rather than corners to reduce cleaning time.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Naked and the Red
by Michael Yessis | 05.11.07 | 3:45 PM ET
From Sin City to St. Petersburg, Russia, we’re not worried about traveling with too many clothes this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in St. Petersburg, Russia
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Sin City Uncovered: Vegas Strips Down to Embrace its Naughty Side
* It’s an $8 billion embrace.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph (current)
The Perfect Break: Jersey
* The island, not the home of Bon Jovi.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Brisbane Times (current)
Gang Violence Marring NZ’s Image
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
A Mass-Transit Trek Through Portland’s Singular Sites
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* It’s been so many weeks now we’ve stopped counting.
Are You a Member of the ‘Backpack Lunatic Fringe’?
by Jim Benning | 05.11.07 | 9:29 AM ET
If the idea of flying a low-cost European airline with “spotty brand identity” from the U.S. to Europe this summer appeals to you, then aviation consult Michael Boyd would say you qualify. Boyd’s rather bizarre remark appears in a noteworthy USA Today story about European discount carriers entering the U.S. market. Airlines such as Marinair, Eurofly, FlyGlobespan and Condor are now offering budget travelers trans-Atlantic alternatives to the major carriers. They offer cheap flights but have a few drawbacks. “Because these airlines target European leisure travelers, they fly to a limited number of U.S. cities (most notably Orlando, Las Vegas and New York),” the paper reports. “Some flights are seasonal (usually May through October), and frequency varies.”
Photo by pj mac via Flickr (Creative Commons).
‘Work Your Way Around the World’: Interview with Susan Griffith
by Michael Yessis | 05.10.07 | 8:14 AM ET
On the eve of the publication of the 13th edition of Work Your Way Around the World, Gadling’s Justin Glow sat with author Susan Griffith to talk about how—and why—travelers might want to put in some hours on the clock while they’re on the road. “[I]n the Swat Valley of northern Pakistan I stumbled across a film being shot with the Himalayas as a backdrop,” Griffith says. “They asked me if I would like a bit part as the Colonel’s daughter, but their faces fell when I had to confess I was no horsewoman. I began to see that if you were a free and unfettered traveler, you could take advantage of all these things and stay on the road, maybe indefinitely, which got me excited about writing a book to guide and encourage people.”
Chiang Mai Under Siege: The Struggle to Save Classic Thai Architecture
by Michael Yessis | 05.09.07 | 2:25 PM ET
The temples of Chiang Mai are coming apart, and more than half of its historic buildings “have come under the wrecking ball,” according to a story in the International Herald Tribune. Preservationists are taking steps to save structures dating back to the Lanna kingdom, but precisely what they can accomplish—and how they can accomplish it—remains to be seen.
Federal Passengers’ Bill of Rights One Step Closer to Law
by Michael Yessis | 05.09.07 | 10:11 AM ET
Remember all those passengers stranded on Jet Blue planes for double-digit hours? The February incidents spurred members of the United States Congress to propose a Passengers’ Bill of Rights, and last week language written by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was included in the upcoming Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill.
Air Travel in Africa: Exhilarating, Otherworldly and Perilous
by Michael Yessis | 05.09.07 | 6:34 AM ET
In the wake of the Kenya Airways crash in Cameroon, the AP has taken a look at the state of air travel in Africa. It’s not the first time the media have addressed the safety of flying within the continent post-crash—a quick search turned up a BBC article from 2005 after two crashes in Nigeria, and an International Herald Tribune story covered the safety issue in 2006—and it likely won’t be the last. Is the scrutiny of Africa merited?
Nicolas Sarkozy, You Were Just Elected President of France. How Are You Celebrating?
by Jim Benning | 05.08.07 | 5:12 PM ET
I’m going to Malta to hang out on a luxury yacht!
U.S. Issues New Nepal Travel Warning
by Jim Benning | 05.08.07 | 3:54 PM ET
Nepal travel fans were hoping a peace agreement between Maoist insurgents and the Nepalese government in November would put an end to the violence and robberies that have plagued the Himalayan nation in recent years. No such luck, apparently. As a result of ongoing acts of violence and threats by Maoist insurgents, the State Department has issued a fresh warning to travelers considering a Nepal visit to stay abreast of security information and be ready to change plans.
Venice to Tourists: Keep Your Shirt On!
by Michael Yessis | 05.08.07 | 8:19 AM ET
And don’t take a nap in Piazza San Marco. And, for the love of Ronald McDonald, throw away your Big Mac wrappers. Reuters reports that officials in Venice, Italy plan to crack down on unbecoming behavior in Piazza San Marco. “Six stewards, men and women, will explain to tourists that it is not a good idea to eat, camp out, lay down or walk around the city bare-chested,” said the deputy mayor, Michele Vianello. Stewards won’t hand out fines. Maybe they should, though, and put the funds toward solutions for Venice’s biggest problem: Figuring out how not to sink.
What Happens When a Plane Passenger Vomits Bags of Suspected Heroin?
by Jim Benning | 05.07.07 | 4:53 PM ET
If it’s a guy on a plane heading to Australia from Vietnam, as was the case Saturday, the plane turns around, the cops are called in and the man is taken to the hospital. The Reuters story about the incident ominously notes: “Several Australians of Vietnamese descent have been arrested for trafficking heroin to Australia from Vietnam in recent years and at least four were sentenced to death.”
Bhutan Opens Up to Tourists, Globalization and Matt Lauer
by Michael Yessis | 05.07.07 | 4:15 PM ET
Only seven years ago satellite television was banned in Bhutan. Since then, the landlocked kingdom squeezed between India and Tibet has opened itself to waves of outside influence. “Today, globalization is officially sanctioned,” Somini Sengupta writes in the New York Times, “and it is rushing in fast.” The Today Show’s Matt Lauer dropped in last week with cameras rolling during his “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” jaunt, and Hollywood types such as Uma Thurman and Cameron Diaz are reportedly frequent visitors. Non A-listers are making their way to Bhutan, too, and Thuji Dorji Nadik, joint director in the Department of Tourism, told Reuters reporter Simon Denyer that the arrival of the masses has put the country in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.
