Travel Blog: News and Briefs
‘Gopher Tourism’: Free Room, Board and Ammo for Willing Exterminators
by Michael Yessis | 07.11.07 | 12:02 PM ET
Wanted near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada: Tourists with guns and good aim to help combat gopher infestation. It’s not my idea of a pleasant trip, but, according to a CBC News story, for some it has a certain Ted Nugent-y appeal.
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Yahoo! BuzzTravel Books for Kids: A ‘Passport to Imagination Land’
by Michael Yessis | 07.11.07 | 9:27 AM ET
If you want to instill wanderlust in very young kids by traveling with them, read this. If you want to instill wanderlust in kids without taking them on the road, World Hum contributor and Washington Post travel book critic Jerry V. Haines has some books for you. He reviewed six travel books for kids in Sunday’s Post. In the books, Haines writes, “children can go to other lands and other centuries, unrestrained by logic, laws of physics or other unfortunate realities.” Among those he recommends: Angelina’s Island by Jeanette Winter and Hugo and Miles in I’ve Painted Everything! by Scott Magoon.
Paris Mayor to Parisians: Be Nice to Tourists, S’il Vous Plait
by Michael Yessis | 07.11.07 | 8:38 AM ET
Is their reputation for rudeness catching up to Parisians? Oui, mayor Bertrand Delanoe apparently believes. Earlier this week, Paris launched a campaign to make the City of Light more tourist friendly with initiatives that include “Paris Tourist Day” and the “Charter for the Parisian and Visitor.” The AP and the Agence France-Presse, among others, have the story of the Paris “charm offensive” and the charter, which asks Parisians to “take the time to give information to visitors” and “make use of foreign language skills to reply to them in their language.” It’s probably a good thing for a country that’s seeing its most-favored nation status among tourists rapidly eroded by China.
What Happens at JFK Doesn’t Stay at JFK
by Michael Yessis | 07.10.07 | 12:10 PM ET
Delayed in London? Blame JFK. Stuck on the tarmac in Dallas? Blame JFK. Eat a tasteless, overpriced sandwich in Orlando? Blame JFK. Maybe not everything miserable about air travel is JFK’s fault, but a lot of it seems to be. “JFK, one of the nation’s most storied airports—and the most popular for flights into and out of this country—is choking on delays, creating a ripple effect throughout the U.S. aviation system,” writes USA Today’s Alan Levin, who takes a long look at the “vexing problems” surrounding New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Ecuadorian Airline Unveils In-Flight Lingerie Shows
by Michael Yessis | 07.10.07 | 11:43 AM ET
And they say the glamour is gone from air travel. In the tradition of the Singapore Girls and Hooters Air, Ecuador’s Icaro Airlines has been parading beautiful women as in-flight entertainment via 10-minute lingerie shows on selected flights. “It was a surprise, really. A very nice surprise,” one passenger on a flight from Quito to Guayaquil told Reuters. “Before the trip was short, now it feels really short.” Reuters has the original video that features, among other things, leering men and at least one visibly uncomfortable woman. Not surprisingly, the video has multiplied across the Internet. (Via The Perrin Post.)
Related on World Hum:
* Singapore Girl: Icon, Anachronism, Winged Geisha and Pretty Young Thing
* The New Hot Job in India: Flight Attendant
* Lesson No. 1 of Hooters Air: It Is Awfully Difficult to Make Buffalo Wings at 33,000 Feet
Photo by abogada samoana, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
UNESCO Adds Three Sites to Danger List, Names Next World Book Capital
by Michael Yessis | 07.10.07 | 11:14 AM ET
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has had a busy few weeks. Not only was it busy issuing a press release claiming no affiliation with the new seven wonders, during meetings in Christchurch, New Zealand, the group added the Galapagos and their surrounding marine reserve; Samarra, Iraq; and Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park to its list of endangered World Heritage sites. Two more sites—the Royal Palaces of Abomey, Benin and Kathmandu Valley, Nepal—were removed from the Danger List.
When Are Children Old Enough to Travel Abroad?
by Jim Benning | 07.09.07 | 4:35 PM ET
I’m a new father, and as I suspected, my wanderlust didn’t subside with the birth of my daughter. So I pored over Beth J. Harpaz’s recent AP story exploring whether children can be too young to travel abroad—Harpaz put the question to a number of well-traveled women and mothers, including Pauline Frommer and Maureen Wheeler. The general consensus: Children under 3 or 4 don’t get much out of it, although at some deep level it might instill in them a sense of adventure and curiosity. Wheeler, who co-founded Lonely Planet, told Harpaz, “I started traveling with my children when they were babies and that’s just stupid. It was exhausting.” But she added, “I honestly think that it gave them an attitude for life, because they learned to be very flexible.”
The ‘Shrinking Planet’: Not Just Part of a Web Site Tagline
by Michael Yessis | 07.09.07 | 4:06 PM ET
It’s not actually shrinking, but the planet is smaller than previously thought. How much smaller? According to scientists at the University of Bonn, about 2.5 millimeters, or .1 inches. “Although the change is tiny,” writes National Geographic’s Kate Ravilious, “experts say it could have implications for predicting sea-level rise and the effects of global warming.”
2007 Book Passage Travel Writers Conference
by Jim Benning | 07.09.07 | 12:24 PM ET
The annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California gets rave reviews. This year, it takes place Aug. 16-19 at its usual locale, Book Passage bookstore north of San Francisco. I’ll be on the faculty, along with a number of writers and editors whose names often appear on World Hum. Among them: Rolf Potts, Jeff Greenwald, Thomas Swick, John Flinn, Don George, Larry Bleiberg, Jen Leo, Larry Habegger and Michael Shapiro, who guest-blogged from the conference last year. The schedule is available online.
Boeing Unveils 787 Dreamliner
by Michael Yessis | 07.09.07 | 10:47 AM ET
The Airbus A380 had its media moment earlier this year. Yesterday, Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner took its turn. On the numerologically favorable day—07.08.07—15,000 people gathered in Everett, Washington and many others around the world looked on via satellite links as Boeing rolled out a production model of the revolutionary new aircraft.
The Pleasure of an All-American Hamburger—In Egypt
by Julia Ross | 07.09.07 | 8:55 AM ET
I just spent my first Fourth of July outside the U.S., and I found myself craving something hot off the backyard grill, slathered with all the fixins. Oh, to have access to a place like Lucille’s, which, according to Time’s Cairo Bureau Chief, serves the best all-American burger this side of, well, anywhere. In a Postcard from Cairo, Scott MacLeod pays homage to his favorite greasy spoon, located in the city’s Maadi district and run by an up-by-her-bootstraps American woman—Lucille—who he likens to Erin Brockovich. Lucille’s draws its share of U.S. expats hungry for a taste of home (she even serves a little Tex-Mex), but its no-alcohol and halal meat-only policies have been a big hit with locals; 70 percent of the diner’s customers are Egyptian.
New Seven Wonders of the World Named
by Michael Yessis | 07.09.07 | 7:51 AM ET
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From Beantown to Big Sky Country
by Michael Yessis | 07.06.07 | 1:21 PM ET
This week, we’re looking to Boston, Montana, Manchester, Dominica, Sochi and, sadly, over the balcony of cruise ships for our travel thrills. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Top World City
Yahoo! (this week)
Boston
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Man Overboard
* More than 30 passengers have disappeared from cruise ships during the last four years. Yikes. More here.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Into the Big Sky
* Cruising the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana’s Glacier National Park.
Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
The Horse Spirits of Big Sky Country
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
New, True Grit: Manchester’s Cultural Evolution
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
The Old Ways Still Dominate in Dominica
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
National Geographic’s Atmosphere
* Current podcast: Panda-monium.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Airline Columnist on Dirty Planes: ‘I’ve Got More Horror Stories Than Edgar Allan Poe’
* This note sums up travelers’ frustrations.
Antarctic Scientist-Rockers Nunatak to Perform at Live Earth
by Jim Benning | 07.06.07 | 1:15 PM ET
As Rolling Stone points out, the house band of the British Antarctic Survey is—literally—the coolest band lined up to play tomorrow’s Live Earth concerts “for a climate in crisis.” They’re gettings loads of press. “By day,” reports NPR, “the band members research evolutionary biology and climate change. By night, they are the house band at Rothera Research Station on Adelaide Island, located near the middle of the Antarctic peninsula that stretches toward Chile.”
‘Man Overboard’: A Look at Cruise Ship Disappearances
by Michael Yessis | 07.06.07 | 12:20 PM ET
Carl Hiaasen’s novel Skinny Dip opens with this line: “At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V. Sun Duchess.” Perrone was tossed overboard by her husband. She survived the impact and clung to a “bale of grass,” then, with the help of a sympathetic ex-investigator, embarked on 300-plus pages of detective work and glorious revenge. When I read the book, it felt fresh. I hadn’t heard much about cruise ship crime drama or disappearances. My, how that has changed.
