Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Life’s a Beach in Mexico City
by Jim Benning | 04.05.07 | 2:33 PM ET
Sort of. Mexico’s landlocked capital now boasts a $200,000 fake beach, complete with real beach sand and palm trees. The inspiration? Not a real beach, but a faux beach that opened in Paris in 2001.
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Yahoo! BuzzFrench Train Clocks In At 357.2 MPH*
by Michael Yessis | 04.04.07 | 8:20 AM ET
That’s 547.8 kph, and it’s a record speed for rail travel. (A Japanese “non-conventional magnetically levitated” train hit 361 mph in 2003.) Ingrid Rousseau was on the 25,000-horsepower V150 in France yesterday, and she filed a report about the speed trial.
Selling Israel: A Land Rich in Holy Sites or Hot Babes in Tel Aviv?
by Jim Benning | 04.03.07 | 8:35 AM ET
That’s the question vexing those debating how to market the nation to tourists. Interestingly, an Israeli consular official recently invited a camera crew from Maxim magazine to photograph a bikini-clad model in Tel Aviv, arguing that the best way to improve the country’s image among young men was with “good-looking women,” the official told Newsweek. Others insist that Biblical sites set Israel apart and should be emphasized. Which raises the question: Can you sell Holy sites to would-be religious tourists and secular good times to Maxim readers at the same time?
Green Travel: ‘Who’s Scamming, Who’s Legit and How Do We Tell the Difference?’
by Michael Yessis | 04.03.07 | 8:07 AM ET
Alternet adds more to the ongoing debate about what exactly constitutes eco-friendly travel with a piece by Richard Hammond. “Ecotourism has no marketing utility because people just don’t believe it anymore,” a professor of responsible tourism management tells Hammond. Perhaps we can take solace, though, in the existence of professors of responsible tourism management. Via Brave New Traveler.
Related on World Hum:
* Can Slow Travel Save the Planet?
* Carbon Offsets for Travelers: What Are You Really Paying For?
* Should Travel Writers Discourage Flying to Reduce Global Warming?
* Panama Backpackers’ Hotel Doubles as “Noah’s Ark” for Endangered Frogs
Bring Your Tray Tables to the Upright Position and…Duck!
by Jim Benning | 04.03.07 | 7:35 AM ET
The pilot of a Lan airline jet reported seeing flaming debris fall past his plane as he prepared for a landing in Auckland. NASA officials suspect it was meteors. You want space tourism? Lan’s got your space tourism.
U.S. Issued 412,000 Passports Last Week
by Michael Yessis | 04.03.07 | 7:03 AM ET
That’s a record for a seven-day period. Good news for those worried about long waits for their little blue books, and perhaps for those who’d like to see Americans get out of the country more. According to the AP, about 74 million Americans have U.S. passports.
Norway Debuts Automated Customs Machines
by Michael Yessis | 04.02.07 | 7:19 AM ET
It’s a first, according to Norwegian officials, and no doubt more user-friendly than this country’s process.
The Library Hotel: A Leader in Dewey Decimal System Travel
by Michael Yessis | 04.02.07 | 7:14 AM ET
All the rooms at New York City’s Library Hotel are pegged to the Dewey Decimal System, meaning room numbers are long (1100.003 is the Philosophy Room, for instance) and the reading is eclectic. Think of the Library Hotel not as part of a trend, writes Carol McCabe in the Washington Post, “but as a counter-trend.” The hotel’s most requested room: 800.001, Erotic Literature.
World Hum’s Most Read: March 2007
by Michael Yessis | 04.01.07 | 9:07 PM ET
Our 10 most popular stories posted last month:
1) Grand Canyon Skywalk Opens to First Visitors
2) ‘Ernest Hemingway on Writing’
3) Stardust Blown to Dust
4) ‘SkyMaul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From a Plane’
5) Ask Rolf: I Don’t Want to Travel with a Guidebook. What Do You Think About Traveling With an Atlas?
6) Switzerland Invades Liechtenstein
7) July 7, 2007: The Magic Date
8) The Travel Writer as Airport Screener: ‘I Feel Ridiculous’
9) Travel Books Crack List of the Top 1,000 Books Owned By Libraries Around the World
10) A Very Long Way to the Hong Kong Cafe
David Farley on Travel and Travel Writing
by Jim Benning | 03.31.07 | 1:17 PM ET
World Hum contributor David Farley talks travel writing and his quest for Jesus’s foreskin—seriously—in a fine podcast interview with Gadling’s Erik Olsen.
Related on World Hum:
* Q&A with David Farley and Jessie Sholl: A Passion for Prague
An Anti-Travel Point of View: ‘It’s a Staple, Like Soymilk’
by Michael Yessis | 03.30.07 | 7:03 AM ET
We’re unabashed supporters of travel in its varied forms. Road trips. Heartbreaking trips. River trips. Surf trips. Naked trips. Virtual trips. Meta trips. We could go on. Even when a trip makes us sick. And we know why we travel. Now, some space for an opposing point of view: James Morris’s artful, funny take on why we shouldn’t travel in the Winter 2007 issue of the Wilson Quarterly.
Airline ‘Geeks’ Drop Everything for Inaugural Flights
by Michael Yessis | 03.30.07 | 6:36 AM ET
Andrew Gibbons admits flying from Washington, D.C. to Beijing just to fly back “doesn’t make a lot of sense.” But he did it this week because he enjoys flying on inaugural flights—United debuted the D.C.-Beijing route Wednesday—and he’s not alone. The Washington Post profiled Gibbons and other airline ‘geeks’ yesterday.
Think Twice Before Flying An Indonesian Airline
by Jim Benning | 03.29.07 | 1:30 PM ET
Including Garuda. But don’t take our word for it. An audit by Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry has found that “none of 20 major Indonesian passenger and cargo airlines fully met national safety regulations,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The audit follows two fatal crashes this year alone. Australian officials have warned citizens to consider the findings when planning trips.
Sports Bars Go Airborne: ‘We Definitely Sell a Lot More Liquor When Games Are On’
by Michael Yessis | 03.29.07 | 8:34 AM ET
Those are the words of Frontier Airlines flight attendant Natalie Ordakowski, one of many sources to tell the New York Times what anyone who has flown a Frontier or JetBlue flight during a big game already knows: Satellite TV has turned some airplanes into sports bars, complete with cheering fans—or, depending on your perspective, drunken yahoos. ESPN, the Times reports, is Frontier’s most watched channel “by far” and it’s one of JetBlue’s three most watched channels. This week, Setanta Sports announced it will join its JetBlue’s satellite TV lineup, so fans will be able to fly, drink and watch international rugby and soccer matches.
Photo by Jsendoorn (via Flickr). Rights: Creative Commons.
A Shrinking Planet Moment in Kerala
by Jim Benning | 03.28.07 | 11:36 AM ET
The first time he heard it, San Francisco Chronicle’s John Flinn thought he recognized something distinct about Krishna Praveen’s voice. As he explains in a column Sunday, Flinn met Krishna and his new wife on a canal in Kerala, India. They just happened to be staying on houseboats tied up next to one another. Then, as the two men chatted, Flinn discovered why Krishna’s diction sounded so familiar. We won’t give it all away, but let’s just say Flinn vowed never to curse on the phone when he calls tech support with a problem.
