Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Machu Picchu: ‘A Must-See for the Jet Set’?
by Jim Benning | 12.12.07 | 2:22 PM ET
Close followers of Celebrity Travel Watch will recall Cameron Diaz’s visit to Machu Picchu earlier this year, when her backpacker-commie-chic look—the shoulder bag pictured here says “Serve the People” in Chinese—was seen by some in Peru as too commie and not enough chic. (Turns out Maoist propaganda doesn’t always go over so well in a country that’s been terrorized by Maoist insurgents.) Well, now the Los Angeles Times is declaring Machu Picchu a “must-see for the jet set”—and not just celebs with Mao-inspired totes from China. Bill Gates made the trek this year, and in the last week or so Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson landed in Cuzco with plans to visit Machu Picchu, although they apparently scrapped the trip to the Incan ruins after “a run-in with several local journalists.” Officials have taken steps to limit Inca Trail traffic. What’s next? Limits on celebrity visitors?
Related on World Hum:
* Celebrity Travel Watch
* Peru: It’s no Nepal
Photo: AP.
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Yahoo! BuzzFlying ‘Business Elite’ With David Sedaris
by Michael Yessis | 12.12.07 | 2:16 PM ET
And with the traveler sitting next to him, a 40-something Polish man who, as Sedaris learns soon after takeoff on a transatlantic flight, is flying to his mother’s funeral. In a recounting of the flight for the New Yorker, Sedaris and his row mate barely speak a word, but somehow with Sedaris’s empathy, a few funny riffs about flying business class and some mining of his own family’s foibles, he delivers one of the more powerful pieces of his I’ve read in a while.
Related on World Hum:
* Inside David Sedaris’s Paris: An Audio Tour
* Why Did David Sedaris Just Spend Three Months in Tokyo?
About That Canadian Flag on my Backpack
by Eva Holland | 12.12.07 | 5:03 AM ET
I have a confession to make: There is a Canadian flag on my backpack. It’s not one of those postage stamp or business card-sized ones, either. As you can see in the photo, it’s closer to a large index card, or even a compact paperback. I super-glued it into place on my new pack when I was 20 years old, for no greater reason than that everyone else was doing it, and until recently I’ve never thought twice about it. Now, though, the times—and travel trends—are a-changing.
‘If a Barefoot Man Can’t Walk Into Stuckey’s, Why Can he Sit Next to me All the Way to Sydney?’
by Michael Yessis | 12.11.07 | 12:17 PM ET
Great question, Steve Rushin. He poses it in a hilarious column in Time, in which he offers his own “modest proposals to return air travel to its original upright position.” Among them: “Prison time to the passenger who stands in the aisle fastidiously folding his blazer.”
Death of a Guidebook
by Jim Benning | 12.11.07 | 11:27 AM ET
Over 28 years and eight editions, Moon’s South Pacific Handbook has helped guide travelers to the region’s many scattered islands, from Easter Island to Tahiti. But in a blog post entitled South Pacific Handbook RIP, the guidebook’s author, David Stanley, laments that Avalon will not be publishing a ninth edition.
It’s Official: China Bans Lonely Planet Guidebook
by Julia Ross | 12.11.07 | 9:13 AM ET
Having recently lived in Taiwan, I’ve been watching with dismay as tensions across the Taiwan Strait have heated up over issues as varied as the Olympic torch route and Taiwan’s plan to hold a referendum on United Nations membership early next year. Now comes word that Lonely Planet has been ensnared in the China-Taiwan standoff. A story in The Age carries the first public confirmation from the Chinese government of rumors that have been swirling for years: that China has banned LP’s China guidebook over a map marking Taiwan and China in different colors, making them appear as separate countries.
Talking Antarctica Live and Online
by Jim Benning | 12.10.07 | 4:48 PM ET
Susan Fox Rogers, editor of the new Travelers’ Tales collection “Antarctica: Life on the Ice” and the subject of a recent World Hum interview, will offer a “live teleseminar” Thursday, I’m told. Viewers can register here.
This American Life Goes to the Island of Nauru
by Jim Benning | 12.10.07 | 1:45 PM ET
Public radio’s This American Life rebroadcast its 2003 Middle of Nowhere episode over the weekend. It features a 30-minute piece on Nauru, the world’s smallest and perhaps most obscure island nation, and “its involvement in the bankrupting of the Russian economy, global terrorism, North Korean defectors, the end of the world, and the late 1980s theatrical flop of a London musical based on the life of Leonardo da Vinci called ‘Leonardo, A Portrait of Love.’” The CIA makes a terrific cameo, too. For my money, it’s public radio at its best.
Dear Mexican, Why the Yellow Cheese on Tex-Mex Food?
by Jim Benning | 12.10.07 | 11:47 AM ET
Anyone who’s traveled much in Mexico knows you just don’t see much yellow cheese on authentic Mexican food. You’re far more likely to encounter a lighter white cheese. So why are so many Tex-Mex and California-Mex dishes north of the border—heck, throughout the world—smothered in yellow cheese? Gustavo Arellano, who writes the terrific Ask a Mexican column, explains.
Related on World Hum:
* All Hail ‘The Burrito King of Argentina’
* ‘On the Road’ Sites, Including a Mexico City Sanborns, Then and Now
* Eating Fajitas in France
Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Anthony Bourdain: Highlights From Mexico
Photo by HeatherW via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Snow Days
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.07 | 2:27 PM ET
Travelers have turned their attention to hitting the slopes—and making their money go far when they get there. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Top Ranked Travel Story
Propeller (this week)
Top 10 Budget Ski Resorts
* This list originated from The Guardian. Cervinia, Italy (pictured) rates No. 3.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Best Budget Ski Resorts
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Under Early Quebec Snow, a Jewel for Skiers
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Countries Where Dollars go the Distance
* Vietnam, Morocco and Bolivia are among the countries that make the cut.
Most Read Travel Story
USA Today (current)
New Passport Rules are About to Get Even Stricter
Most Blogged Travel News Story
Buzz Tracker
Continental Airlines Testing Cellphone Boarding Passes
World Hum Contributors Elsewhere in the World
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.07 | 11:19 AM ET
Some link love today for recent stories by World Hum contributors: Abbie Kozolchyk, whose Requiem for a Little Red Ship, is our featured dispatch at the moment, looked into the state of space travel for Forbes Traveler. Full disclosure: I make a cameo, dropping James Bond’s name.
JetBlue Set to Debut In-Flight Wi-Fi; Other U.S. Airlines to Follow Soon
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.07 | 9:11 AM ET
Only one JetBlue plane will offer access to e-mail and instant messaging beginning Tuesday, Dec. 11, but it looks like the start of a wave of in-flight Internet service to come to U.S. carriers in 2008. The New York Times reports that American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to roll out more expansive Internet service in 2008.
Blog to Watch: Jet Lagged
by Michael Yessis | 12.06.07 | 9:59 AM ET
The New York Times has just launched Jet Lagged: Navigating the Unfriendly Skies, a group-written blog boasting some contributors familiar to World Hum readers. Among them: Wayne Curtis, Elliot Hester, Patrick Smith and Pico Iyer. Iyer kicked off the proceedings yesterday with a contrarian idea: “Air travel is in fact as comfortable and reasonable today as it’s ever been.”
On the Pineapple Express*
by Jim Benning | 12.05.07 | 1:43 PM ET
It sounds more like a train name than a weather event, but the Pineapple Express is, in one paper’s words, “a strong jet stream of subtropical air originating in Hawaii.” The same Pineapple Express storm that wreaked travel havoc on the Pacific Northwest is now delivering giant waves to California. One big-wave surfer drowned yesterday off Pebble Beach. Moments ago I took this shot off Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, where gawking locals were causing traffic jams and a number of surfers were dropping into double overhead waves—the wave breaking in the distance here has a solid 10-foot face.
Update, 1:05 p.m. PT: Big-wave tow-in surfers in Ireland on Saturday rode waves the size of houses. Um, the Shamrock Express?
A ‘Gastronaut’ Goes to San Sebastián
by Michael Yessis | 12.05.07 | 1:21 PM ET
