Travel Blog: News and Briefs
How to Make a Great Road Movie
by Michael Yessis | 11.14.07 | 6:35 AM ET
Who better than Walter Salles to define what makes a stellar road movie? The Brazilian director of the best road movie in recent years, The Motorcycle Diaries, and the upcoming adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, wrote an excellent essay in the New York Times Magazine outlining his “theory of the road movie.” Salles gets the influences out of the way in short order—all road movies, he believes, owe a debt to “The Odyssey”—then dives into an insightful analysis of the ingredients of a great road movie. It should resonate with anyone who looks at travel as an immersive, life-altering experience.
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Yahoo! BuzzWhat’s Your Dream Airline?
by Eva Holland | 11.13.07 | 3:40 PM ET
That’s the question posed by USA Today to three travel experts, asking them to pick a winning airline for each of 10 categories, including food, flight attendants, baggage handling and online booking. The verdict is in, and Singapore Airlines dominated the competition, getting votes from at least one expert for best flight attendants, best in-flight entertainment, best food, best coach class, best first class, best customer service, and best baggage handling. JetBlue got a couple of nods for best in-flight entertainment and best coach class, while United was picked by one panelist for best frequent-flier program. And which airline won for best Web site?
R.I.P. New Frontier, Las Vegas Strip’s Second Hotel
by Jim Benning | 11.13.07 | 12:01 PM ET
Photo: AP
Las Vegas lost a piece of history early this morning. The New Frontier hotel-casino, which opened in 1942 and hosted Elvis Presley’s first performance in the city, was imploded to make way for a new megaresort scheduled to debut in 2011. The hotel’s destruction, along with that of the Stardust earlier this year, is part of a “dramatic, and expensive, facelift for the northern Strip,” writes the AP’s Ryan Nakashima. Real estate prices nearby have skyrocketed and several billion-dollar condo and resort developments—including one backed by Dubai World—are scheduled to open in the next several years.
Observing Istanbul’s Evolving Skyline
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.13.07 | 11:30 AM ET
Centuries of rich architecture define this city straddling two continents. But to understand how the new constantly challenges the old in Istanbul, the Boston Globe’s Tom Haines considered its architecture piece by piece: its minarets and mosques, its skyscrapers and soccer stadiums, even its bathrooms. For example, the public restroom in Kadikoy Park, designed by architect Gokhan Avcioglu, has “historical identity, looks nice and does its job,” he writes.
From Mao to Morrison: Why Are Travelers Drawn to Controversial Tombs and Celebrity Graves?
by Eva Holland | 11.13.07 | 10:42 AM ET
Call it an odd sub-category of dark travel or the grief tourism twist on celebrity obsession. Either way mausoleum tourism is a force to be reckoned with. From Ho Chi Minh’s final resting place in Hanoi to Lenin’s tomb in Moscow, and of course Chairman Mao’s “mao-soleum” in Beijing, travelers line up every day to see the graves of powerful, controversial people. A monument to another much-loved and much-hated figure was just unveiled: a mausoleum for Yasser Arafat, on the grounds of his Ramallah compound.
Can’t Afford Europe? Take the A Train Instead.
by Julia Ross | 11.12.07 | 4:42 PM ET
If you’re a New Yorker pining for a week in Tuscany or Paris—but can’t face the prospect of an $8 soda—don’t despair: Cara O’Flynn has some tips for getting your Euro fix at home, all within steps of your nearest subway stop. While waiting for the dollar to rebound against the Euro, O’Flynn, a World Hum contributor writing in the New York Post, advises checking out the Alliance Francaise’s Cinema Tuesday series or the weekly flamenco theater Alegrias en la Nacional.
Columnist on Airbus A380 Invitation: ‘I’m Blacklisted’
by Jim Benning | 11.12.07 | 12:51 PM ET
Salon.com pilot-columnist Patrick Smith has called the new Airbus A380 superjumbo jet, which debuted last month, “the most hideous airliner ever conceived.” He was hoping for a media invitation to ride on an early flight, along with hundreds of other writers. It never came, and now he has a theory about that. “Granted I am not well known among the aviation media corps, but I’ve got another, more exciting theory to account for being so coldly snubbed: I’m blacklisted,” he writes. “Thanks to my relentless criticism of the A380’s aesthetic failings, I am aviator non grata at any and all Airbus-related events.”
Top 10 Foreign Cities for Americans to Get Arrested
by Jim Benning | 11.12.07 | 12:07 PM ET
Photo by DavidDennis via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Where do Americans go to cut loose, have a good time and, oh, break a few foreign laws? Or, put another way, what foreign cities boast the most number of Americans taken into custody in 2006? Tijuana tops the list, with a whopping 520 Americans detained last year. Not surprisingly, many of them were young and drunk, according to Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, which published the list. Guadalajara ranked second with 416 arrests, and Nuevo Laredo ranked third, with 359. London and Mexico City followed, ranking fourth and fifth respectively. Only one Asian city made the list: Hong Kong ranked 10th, with 90 arrests.
Air Couriers: A Dying Breed
by Julia Ross | 11.12.07 | 10:45 AM ET
Veteran air couriers have no doubt been painfully aware of this for some time, but it seems the once-attractive budget travel option has all but disappeared. A story on MSNBC.com —and co-authored by World Hum contributor Alexander Basek —reports that air courier services are struggling to stay afloat, largely as a result of post-9/11 security restrictions and the growing availability of budget air fares. “Today, documents route seamlessly via the Internet, while physical cargo (and travelers with one-way tickets) are scrutinized more closely than ever,” the authors write. “Both these facts of modern-day life make for tough times at courier companies.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Art of Travel
by Michael Yessis | 11.09.07 | 12:33 PM ET
Travelers leave no doubt this week that travel is a beautiful thing. Here’s the Zeitgeist:
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Flight Patterns
* The site creates artful visualizations of flight patterns (pictured) based on Federal Aviation Administration data.
Most Read Blog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
See ‘The Last Supper’ as Leonardo Never Imagined
* View the masterpiece 16 billion pixels strong online.
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
Beautiful Places With Tony Farley
* This week: Point Reyes National Seashore.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
The Complexities of Keeping It Small and Simple
Most Read Feature Story
World Hum (posted this week)
Can I Have Meaningful Experiences Abroad if I Don’t Speak the Language?
The World’s Most Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotels: From the Amsterdam Hilton to the Chateau Marmont
by Michael Yessis | 11.09.07 | 11:23 AM ET
The Guardian’s Sean Dodson picks 10 sleeping giants of rock, including the spot where John Lennon and Yoko One had their “Bed-in for Peace” (Amsterdam Hilton), the hotel where Led Zeppelin chucked TVs out windows (the now de-balconied Hyatt Riot House, pictured, on West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip) and the place where David Bowie lived in Berlin while recording “Low” and “Heroes” (Hotel Ellington). One obvious clunker: The Hotel Rival in Sweden, which is owned by Benny Anderson of ABBA fame. I’ve heard “Dancing Queen.” I’ve seen “Mamma Mia.” ABBA ain’t rock.
Air Traffic Controller to United Pilot: ‘Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!’
by Jim Benning | 11.09.07 | 11:10 AM ET
This animated video released yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board illustrating two near-collisions on U.S. runways this year should convince any skeptic that more needs to be done to prevent runway accidents. Most disturbing: audio of an air traffic controller yelling “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” at a United Airlines pilot about to taxi onto a San Francisco runway—right into the path of a landing Delta jet. Fortunately, an accident was avoided this time. The NTSB called on the Federal Aviation Administration to step up safety procedures: “Until there is a system in place to positively control ground movements of all aircraft, with direct warning to pilots, the potential for this type of disaster will continue to be high.”
Pod Hotels: Not Just For Japanese Salarymen Anymore
by Eva Holland | 11.09.07 | 7:57 AM ET
In Japan, pod hotels are old news. The first one, Capsule Inn Osaka, opened in 1977. Writes Karen Burshstein in a National Post story: “With more than a passing resemblance to the drawers in a morgue, it was a weird but nifty addition to Japan’s space-starved cityscapes.” Now, though, the concept has spread, and mini-hotel rooms are popping up in London, New York, Amsterdam, Vancouver and elsewhere. They range from the garish yet economical (the low-cost and bright orange easyHotels,) for instance, to trendy and high-tech (like Dutch company Qbic‘s LCD TV screens and changeable color schemes that match your mood, pictured) and many are available for only a few hours at a time, neatly filling the gap between a red-eye landing and the start of a long day of museum or gallery hopping.
More American Familes Taking Year-Long Global Trips
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.08.07 | 5:07 PM ET
Photo by babasteve via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Well-traveled children often turn out to be more empathetic, open-minded and creative adults. We’ve written about how parents are increasingly taking their infants and toddlers on trips abroad and how parents are lighting a spark of wanderlust through imaginative travel books. Now more families are taking a year off work, school and soccer practice to travel the globe and learn about new cultures firsthand, writes Caren Osten Gerszberg in The New York Times.
King Tut Mummy Moved to Climate-Controlled Luxor Digs
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.08.07 | 2:30 PM ET
We’ve apparently been loving our favorite Egyptian boy-king to disintegration. Archaeologists in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings removed King Tutankhamun from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb last weekend and placed a climate-controlled glass box in his underground tomb, according to the AP. “The humidity and heat caused by…people entering the tomb and their breathing will change the mummy to a powder,” said Egypt’s antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass. “The only good thing (remaining) in this mummy is the face. We need to preserve the face.”
