Travel Blog: News and Briefs
The Critics: The Grand Canyon Skywalk
by Michael Yessis | 05.21.07 | 7:20 AM ET
First came the hype. Now comes the big-league critical eye. New York Times cultural critic Edward Rothstein shuffled in his yellow surgical booties along the see-through glass of the Grand Canyon Skywalk, and he wasn’t too impressed. Seeing the Canyon from its natural edge, he suggests, transcends any man-made perch.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From Chocolate to Kaiseki
by Michael Yessis | 05.18.07 | 5:09 PM ET
Or, in other words, travelers’ interests this week range from Hershey, Pennsylvania to the streets of Japan. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Magnificient Trees of the World
* The Lone Cypress in Pebble Beach, California (pictured) makes the list.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
A Tour of Japanese Cuisine With Spago Chef Lee Hefter
* From the same writers: A look at kaiseki
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Japan’s Latest Budget Accommodation: Internet Cafes
* The nation that brought us the capsule hotel has done it again.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hershey Honors its Past, Looks to the Future
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph (current)
Amsterdam: Telegraph Travel Guides
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Farecast
Most Read Feature Story
World Hum (this week)
Mark Ellingham: Rough Guides and the Ethics of Travel
“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Playa del Carmen
Beijing Park: ‘Disney Is Too Far, So Please Come to Shijingshan’
by Jim Benning | 05.18.07 | 1:57 PM ET
I’ll never forget slurping spicy noodles in a mom-and-pop restaurant in Chengdu, China and studying the meticulously painted Disney characters covering the walls. Why would anyone running a noodle joint want to decorate with Mickey Mouse and friends? Is it really good for business? Examples of piracy and copyright infringements are famously easy to find in China, and many couldn’t be more out of place or inappropriate.
Long-Distance Travel: ‘The Catch-22 of Nature-Based Tourism’
by Jim Benning | 05.18.07 | 12:57 PM ET
So says one man in the eco-tourism biz in a story about the Global Ecotourism Conference, which took place earlier this week in Oslo. Among other things, participants discussed the environmental impact of all those long flights to green places. A Norwegian environment official told attendees: “The tourist industry should give priority to developing ecotourism in markets closer to home and to promoting environmentally friendly forms of transport.”
Related on World Hum:
* Q&A with Mark Ellingham: Rough Guides and the Ethics of Travel
* Carbon Offsets for Travelers: What Are You Really Paying For?
* Are Cheap Flights a Blessing or a Horror? Or Both?
For the Love of Maps: ‘So Many Riches, So Much Color, and So Many Worlds Within Worlds’
by Michael Yessis | 05.18.07 | 10:12 AM ET
Here’s one guy Thomas Swick was not talking about in his great story about why geography matters. Robert Klose loves maps, so much so that his idea of a “perfect evening” is this: “I pour a mug of hot chocolate, adjust the pillows on the sofa, turn on the reading lamp, curl up in my quiet corner, and open an atlas,” he writes in The Christian Science Monitor. “Where shall I commence my journey this time? Australia? The American South? Myanmar? It really doesn’t matter, for despite my chosen trajectory, I always get diverted into interesting byways, backwaters, and vest-pocket principalities.”
Trains Cross Between North Korea and South Korea For First Time in 56 Years*
by Michael Yessis | 05.17.07 | 5:30 PM ET
The test run of two five-car trains today was met with “jubilation and pride,” according to the Washington Post. One train ran from Munsan, South Korea to Gaesong, North Korea, and the other linked the Diamond Mountain resort in the North to the town of Jejin in the South, and both journeys were covered live by South Korean television networks. Each train carried 150 people from North and South and “new hopes of peace and unification,” writes Joohee Cho in the Post.
The Hot New Trend in Japanese Cuisine: 500-Year-Old Kaiseki
by Jim Benning | 05.17.07 | 2:20 PM ET
We’re talking seriously old school—and expensive. Kaiseki, the Japanese cuisine that began in Kyoto more than 500 years ago, is suddenly all the rage these days, according to the L.A. Times. With its extreme focus on presentation and seasonal ingredients, it’s captivating trend-setting Western chefs from Spain to the U.S. (Okay guys, you’re a little late, no?) “The dining experience is intimate, more like going to someone’s home than to a restaurant,” the paper reports. “Most traditionally, the meal is served in your own room at a ryokan—as most in Kyoto still do—while you are wearing a kimono and reclining on a tatami mat. It feels much that way in a kaiseki restaurant like Kikunoi, where you dine in a private room, often with a view of a serene garden, sculptured to be viewed from tatami level.”
Yo-Yo Ma on Travel and the ‘Silk Road Project’
by Michael Yessis | 05.17.07 | 11:15 AM ET
IRS Beats Airlines in Customer Satisfaction Survey
by Michael Yessis | 05.16.07 | 1:00 PM ET
When this happens and this happens and this happens and this happens, it’s easy to understand why. The report comes from the University of Michigan’s annual American Customer Satisfaction index, which surveyed 80,000 consumers and ranked 19 industries in the United States. “If a company has a score close to the IRS’ score, something is awfully wrong,” Claes Fornell, the study director, told USA Today’s Roger Yu. Only the cable and satellite TV industry fared lower than the airline industry.
Photo by Ingorrr, via flickr. (Creative Commons).
Related on World Hum:
* Armrest Seating, Anyone?
* Want to Send a Message to the People Who Search Your Bags? Try Some Fourth Amendment Luggage Tape.
Travel Writer on Airport Stranding in Texas: ‘My Head Was in Burma’
by Jim Benning | 05.16.07 | 11:48 AM ET
Last month, in the latest in a string of widely reported passenger stranding ordeals, an American Airlines jet with 180 people on board sat on the tarmac in Midland, Texas for almost 10 hours. The flight was headed to Dallas when bad weather forced a detour to Midland, and there passengers sat, unable to leave the aircraft, growing ever more hungry and frustrated. We didn’t know it at the time, but Jeff Biggers, a World Hum contributor who was nearing the end a nationwide book tour, was among those on board. He’s quoted briefly in Joe Sharkey’s story about such incidents in yesterday’s New York Times. I wanted to learn the gory details straight from the passenger’s mouth, so I dialed up Jeff to chat about the experience, and to ask him what he thought of the proposed passengers’ bill of rights to help prevent such ordeals.
If You’re Rich, Influential or Arnold Schwarzenegger, Svalbard Would Like You to Visit
by Michael Yessis | 05.16.07 | 9:57 AM ET
You really don’t have to be any or all of those things, but if you are, Svalbard looks forward to seeing you and enlisting your help in solving the planet’s climate crisis. The Norwegian-run archipelago, situated in the Arctic Ocean between that country and the North Pole, is billing itself as a great place to see the effects of global warming first-hand. According to a Reuters story, local officials want to spur more help in the fight against global warming, and they believe that welcoming tourists—particularly rich and influential tourists—to see melting glaciers and the glory of the threatened polar bear-dominated ecosystem can stimulate action.
Does the United Nations Need a Secretary of Transport?
by Michael Yessis | 05.15.07 | 3:50 PM ET
Tyler Brûlé makes a plea for one in the International Herald Tribune, and he’s convincing. “It could be argued that the secretary general has better, more important things to be getting on with than worry about how people get from A to B and in what shape,” Brûlé writes. “I would argue that for a sector worth so much money, that is ultimately responsible for the patterns of human migration and is increasingly in the spotlight for the mistreatment of those it carries over land, sea and through the air, it’s not only necessary but urgent.”
Japan’s Latest Budget Accommodation: Internet Cafes
by Jim Benning | 05.15.07 | 3:14 PM ET
Photo by Jael via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Seriously. The nation that brought us the capsule hotel has done it again. The country’s working poor—and salarymen who don’t want to spring for a capsule after a night of drinking—are spending nights in Internet cafes, according to a Reuters story. For $12 to $20, they get a reclining chair in front of a computer, soft drinks, comics and, of course, Internet access. No word on how many low-budget travelers (also known as the backpack lunatic fringe) are spending nights in Internet cafes, but Wikitravel suggest Japanese cafes are an option, noting that some even provide a mat to sleep on and a shower.
Happy Birthday, Stewardesses
by Jim Benning | 05.15.07 | 2:29 PM ET
Yes, you in the fabulous oxygen mask. And your colleagues. On this day back in 1930, long before they became flight attendants, stewardesses had their big debut. The Today in History column notes that registered nurse Ellen Church started work as a stewardess for Boeing Air Transport on a flight from Oakland to Chicago. Slate, which suggests it was actualy a flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne, has a slide show to mark the occasion.
Related on World Hum:
* The New Hot Job in India: Flight Attendant
* ‘Has the Romance Gone Out of Travel?’
* Who Wears the Pants on Alitalia Flights?
* Singapore Girl: Icon, Anachronism, Winged Geisha and Pretty Young Thing
* Flight Attendants After 9/11
Photo by Mandroid via Flickr (Creative Commons).
You Can Find Your Bathroom in the Dark. Why Can’t You Find Namibia on a Map?
by Michael Yessis | 05.15.07 | 12:36 PM ET
Perhaps you can. If you can and you’re a resident of the United States, consider yourself part of an enlightened minority. As a whole, Americans seem to know little about where places are situated in the world. In a shrinking world, that’s a problem for a variety of reasons explored in a terrific essay by Thomas Swick in the latest issue of Westways. He writes: “[I]t is not enough to know one’s individual piece of Earth, one’s place, because today all places are lavishly linked.”
