Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Bourdain: ‘What Right Minded Person Would NOT Travel the World if…Given the Chance?’
by Jim Benning | 07.30.07 | 4:20 PM ET
Long before World Hum was acquired by the Travel Channel, we were fans of Anthony Bourdain and his show No Reservations. We wrote about his experience in Beirut and his Graham Greene worldview. We even went so far as to call him a street-thug-poet-chef. Gadling just posted an interview with Bourdain, whose new season starts tonight. “What right minded person would NOT travel the world if and when given the chance?” Bourdain told the site—quite reasonably, we think—via e-mail. “I began to travel seriously as soon as I COULD. It took a successful book—and an indulgent network to allow me the opportunity—and I’m making the most of it.” Right on, Anthony. Let’s hear it for travel and indulgent networks.
Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Wiki
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Yahoo! BuzzAP Editor: Kids on Planes More Controversial Than Hillary Clinton
by Jim Benning | 07.30.07 | 3:13 PM ET
Earlier this month, AP travel editor Beth Harpaz wrote a column suggesting there might be a growing backlash against traveling families, and specifically, kids on planes. She pointed to recent news reports of a nursing mother ordered off a plane and a mother and boy booted off a flight after the boy repeatedly said, “Bye, bye plane.” Wrote Harpaz: “Sure, I have heard kids babbling, singing songs and playing games on airplanes. Yes, I have heard them complaining or crying when their ears hurt or they are bored. But that’s OK. I don’t mind. A world without children and their sounds is not a world I want to live in.”
R.I.P. Clem Lindenmayer, Travel Writer
by Jim Benning | 07.30.07 | 1:34 PM ET
We’d been following the search for Clem Lindenmayer since early June, when news spread that the Australian travel writer disappeared while hiking near Minya Konka in western China. Now, news media are reporting that the 47-year-old died on the mountain. His body was discovered by villagers July 19, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Few other details are available.
Slim Planes Now in it for the Long-Haul
by Terry Ward | 07.30.07 | 12:03 PM ET
There’s more bad news for those of us who like to stretch our legs on transatlantic flights. New York Times Practical Traveler writer Michelle Higgins notes that Delta Airlines is among the latest carriers to start using narrow Boeing 757s for flights between the U.S. and Europe.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From the Fringe of Edinburgh
by Michael Yessis | 07.27.07 | 2:58 PM ET
The Scottish capital made a move toward the top of travelers’ minds this week—the famed Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival begin soon—along with China, the Sierra Nevada and some purveyors of hotel porn. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Edinburgh Travel Guide
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Not the Hamptons. Yet.
* 36 Hours in Edinburgh also makes the most e-mailed list, currently at No. 3.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Got a Free Weekend? Escape to the Sierra Nevada
Most Read Feature
World Hum (posted this week)
Ask Rolf: I’m in my Mid-40s. Am I Too Old to Stay in Hostels?
* It’s all about spirit, says Rolf.
Most Read Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Marriott Blasted for Hotel Porn
* Morality in Media is making a stir, and Kitty Bean Yancey’s Hotel Hotsheet blog has a raucous discussion going on.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
‘Into the Wild’: Sean Penn Adapts Jon Krakauer’s Book for the Big Screen
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Beautiful Chinese Travel and Vacation
Dikembe Mutombo on Travel: ‘It Can…be a Lesson That Will Change Your Life’
by Michael Yessis | 07.27.07 | 1:03 PM ET
Former NBA basketball star Dikembe Mutombo has turned to humanitarian endeavors in his retirement, particularly to projects in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo. He donated $15 million to build a hospital in Kinshasa, and Conde Nast Traveler’s Dorinda Elliot recently interviewed him about “the celebrity do-gooder thing” and how travel has influenced his life. “I went to South Africa in 1992 and learned about apartheid. Nelson Mandela had just been released, and we met with him in a secret place and visited the prison where he had lived,” Mutombo says. “There were people who didn’t want him to come to power, and his supporters were moving him every night to different safe places. From that trip, I learned a lot about struggle and freedom. We take so much for granted. People think of travel for work or play, but it can also be a lesson that will change your life.”
High-Tech Taxis: New Yorkers, Drivers Brace for Showdown Over New Systems
by Ben Keene | 07.27.07 | 10:44 AM ET
When they went green, nobody complained. But the announcement that New York City’s taxis are going high-tech hasn’t been met with quite the same enthusiasm. Especially among cabbies. In particular, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents several thousand drivers, objects to new rules mandating pricey equipment in each of the 13,000 vehicles in the city’s fleet. Passed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) following several public hearings this spring, the regulations require medallion taxicabs to install an entertainment-cum-global positioning system before January 2008.
A ‘Dry Run’ by Terrorists or TSA Confusion?
by Jim Benning | 07.26.07 | 2:48 PM ET
The threat of more terrorist attacks involving planes in the United States couldn’t be more real. Public trust in the Transportation Security Administration is obviously critical. Which is why new conflicting reports about those so-called possible “dry runs” noted in a recent a TSA bulletin are so troubling.
Out: Mile-High Club. In: Mile-Below Club.
by Michael Yessis | 07.26.07 | 12:13 PM ET
The Mile-High Club may be dead, but amorous, thrill-seeking travelers have a new frontier: 5,280 feet underwater. According to a London Times report, mini-submarines are the new airplane bathrooms. Tony Allen-Mills writes: “Manufacturers of some of the world’s most exclusive underwater conveyances are boasting of the sexual possibilities of submersible cabins equipped with ‘large panoramic viewports’ that allow exhibitionists to indulge their fantasies in front of an audience of dolphins and lobsters.”
Smoker’s International Airways: From Germany to Japan in a Carcinogenic Haze
by Michael Yessis | 07.26.07 | 11:47 AM ET
Sounds like hell to me. Or an Onion story. However, German entrepreneur Alexander W. Schoppmann (pictured) says he’s bringing glamour back to air travel with Smoker’s International Airways, aka Smintair, a start-up airline that plans to cater to smokers.
New Travel Book: ‘Led Zeppelin Crashed Here’
by Jim Benning | 07.25.07 | 2:47 PM ET
Full title: “Led Zeppelin Crashed Here: The Rock and Roll Landmarks of North America”
Author: Chris Epting, author of numerous pop-culture guidebooks, including Elvis Presley Passed Here: Even More Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks
Released: May 1, 2007
Travel genre: Quirky guidebook
Territory covered: North America, including the New York City buildings featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti.”
Promo copy: “Pop culture historian Chris Epting takes you on a journey across North America to the exact locations where rock and roll history was made. Epting has compiled nearly 600 rock and roll landmarks, combining historical information with trivia, photos, and backstage lore, all with the enthusiasm of a true rock and roll devotee. No other book delivers such an extensive list of rock and roll landmarks—from beginnings (the site where Elvis got his first guitar), to endings (the hotel where Janis Joplin died), and everything in between.”
Most Endangered Historic Places in the U.S. Named
by Ben Keene | 07.25.07 | 2:24 PM ET
The Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group the National Trust for Historic Preservation recently released its 20th annual list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in the U.S. They are:
Turkmenistan to World: Welcome Tourists!
by Michael Yessis | 07.25.07 | 10:27 AM ET
After approximately two decades under the bizarre and repressive rule of the late Saparmurat Niyazov—among other things, he famously had a golden statue of himself built that followed the sun—Turkmenistan announced this week that it wants to become a player in global tourism. President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said his government will spend $1 billion on a Caspian Sea resort “with dozens of hotels, spas, seaside restaurants and glimmering spaceship-like skyscrapers,” according to the BBC’s Natalia Antelava.
Tabloid Travel Headline of the Day: ‘My 5-Star, High-Tech Hotel Hell’
by Michael Yessis | 07.24.07 | 2:54 PM ET
Egad! What could the problem possibly be? Bed bugs? An unearthly scent not masked by the sweet scent of ‘unattended service’? No HBO on the tube? Nope. New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams just cannot handle the universal light switch in her plush hotel room. “Activate it and everything goes off,” she writes. “Everything. Ev-er-y-thingggg!”
The U.S. Taxicab Capital is…Bethel, Alaska?
by Michael Yessis | 07.24.07 | 10:23 AM ET
Likely so. Bethel, a city of 5,900 located about 400 miles west of Anchorage, has one cab for every 84 people, according to the AP. New York City has one cab for every 149 people. Bethel owes its cab-happy status to its geography: It’s ringed by thousands of ponds and you can’t drive in or out of town.
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