Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Travel in 2017: Start Learning Chinese and Changing Your Eating Habits
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.07 | 2:59 PM ET
The Freakonomics guys aren’t the only ones this week with an eye on the future of travel. Forbes delivered a special report about “The Future,” which features some provocative speculation on travel in the year 2017 from World Hum contributor Elisabeth Eaves. Among her predictions:
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Yahoo! BuzzSearching for Authenticity In Florence
by Joanna Kakissis | 10.18.07 | 8:51 AM ET
When the gesticulating Italian selling printed artifacts said “baper” instead of “paper,” Shashi Tharoor couldn’t resist asking the follow-up question: “Where are you from?” “Florence,” the Italian replied defensively. “But before that?” pressed Tharoor. “Jordan,” the salesman replied. “Originally.” Tharoor, an author and former under-secretary general of the United Nations, explored authenticity in the age of globalization in a clever essay in Financial Times. He traveled to the historic Renaissance city—“with its self-conscious air of serving as a citadel of centuries of Italian civilization”—to find a Jordanian man selling traditional Florentine handicraft, a couple of Bangladeshi waiters who spoke Italian with a Sylheti accent, and a Japanese woman who worked at the fabled Farmacia of Santa Maria Novella. “Perhaps our sense of what is and is not authentic needs to change as well in our mixed-up world,” Tharoor writes.
The Freakonomics Quorum on Air Travel
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.07 | 8:37 AM ET
As the summer of our air travel discontent gives way to the fall of our air travel discontent, the Freakonomics guys pose a question to five airline industry heavyweights on their New York Times blog: What Will U.S. Air Travel Look Like in Ten Years? More specifically, Stephen J. Dubner asks:
Thomas Swick Takes On Agra Station
by Eva Holland | 10.18.07 | 7:59 AM ET
In his latest column in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Thomas Swick describes his arrival at the station in Agra, the former capital of the Mughal Empire and home of the Taj Mahal. Foreign train stations, Swick writes, “have always held a certain terror for me.” But Agra’s was even more intimidating than most: “I stepped over sleeping bodies on the sidewalk and rolled my suitcase into a human maze. Crowds engulfed the platform, grudgingly making way for porters, machinery, luggage, new arrivals. There was no visible information, though every once in a while a woman’s voice—soothing in this predominantly male world—descended from the PA system. I couldn’t understand a word.”
New Immigration Museum in Paris Confronts, Celebrates a Changing French Society
by Eva Holland | 10.17.07 | 11:55 AM ET
The Museum of Immigration History in Paris seeks to tackle one of the most incendiary subjects in France, and, according to a story in The Globe and Mail, its creators certainly don’t see themselves in an impartial role. “Ever since the word ‘immigrant’ appeared in our vocabulary in the late 19th century, it has had a negative connotation—connoting a menace, an inassimilable foreigner, a potential criminal, a polygamist and now a terrorist,” Gérard Noiriel, one of the curators, told the Globe. “Our job is to change that point of view.”
Monet, Twombly and the Price of Art Vandalism
by Eva Holland | 10.16.07 | 9:03 AM ET
Talk about an art lover. A woman who kissed a Cy Twombly painting worth close to $3 million—leaving a red lipstick smear that restorers have been unable to remove—went on trial in Avignon last week, charged with “voluntarily damaging a work of art.” The defendant, who described the kiss as an “act of love,” faces a hefty fine and a mandatory class on good citizenship.
Airlines, DOT Schedule Summit on Flight Delays
by Michael Yessis | 10.15.07 | 3:47 PM ET
Last month President George W. Bush asked airlines to meet with Department of Transportation officials to attempt to resolve chronic flight delays. Those meetings have been set for Oct. 23-24 at JFK Airport in New York, according to the AP.
Travel Headline of the Day: ‘Man Arrested For Watching Crap Film on iPhone’
by Michael Yessis | 10.15.07 | 3:37 PM ET
Too hilarious to be completely true, unfortunately. A passenger apparently was watching a movie on an iPhone—“I Know What You Did Last Summer”—on an ATA flight to Hawaii. Casey, as the passenger identified himself or herself in a rambling letter to The Consumerist, was using an iPhone in “airplane mode,” a setting that apparently disables all of the device’s wireless capabilities and, thus, adheres to FAA rules against using cell phones in flight. It didn’t matter to the ATA flight attendant, apparently, and a ruckus ensued.
China’s Three Gorges: As Environmental Catastrophe Looms, Beauty Lingers
by Joanna Kakissis | 10.15.07 | 10:17 AM ET
We’ve been reading for some time that China is choking on epic pollution produced by its push for fast growth. One of the victims, of course, is the Three Gorges, the once-beautiful, mist-filled river passage through tall limestone and sandstone crags. Since 2003, China has dammed the Yangtze, the country’s largest river, to create a reservoir that is expected to fill by 2009. The dam is expected to produce 20 times as much electricity as the Hoover Dam and reduce China’s reliance on polluting coal—hopefully reducing the smog that regularly blots out the sun. Already more than 1,000 towns and villages are underwater, and an iconic landscape has changed. But it’s still a beautiful place of rain-slicked trees and bamboo bushes and slender waterfalls churning into a jade-colored river, writes Mary Beth Sheridan in The Washington Post.
Branson on Fossett: ‘He Truly Was the Adventurer’s Adventurer’
by Julia Ross | 10.15.07 | 9:55 AM ET
Now that the air search for Steve Fossett has been called off, at least one longtime friend has stepped forward to pay tribute to the life of the millionaire adventurer. Writing for Time, Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson praises Fossett’s seemingly indefatigable pioneer spirit. “He began adventuring in a modest way, swimming the English Channel in 1985, ” Branson recalls. “Over the next 22 years, he amassed 115 records in aviation, gliding, ballooning, sailing, boating, mountaineering, skiing, triathlon, even dogsledding. He truly was the adventurer’s adventurer.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Power and the Glory
by Michael Yessis | 10.12.07 | 2:17 PM ET
This week travelers immersed themselves in the power of nature—and travel—from Yosemite to Mexico City to Easter Island. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
The Fall Glory of Yosemite National Park
* The Times also has a terrific slide show.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Flight Stats
Most Read Feature
World Hum (posted this week)
Where the Roads Diverged
* “Wow,” said one commenter of Catherine Watson’s powerful Easter Island piece. “Easily one of the best travel stories I’ve ever read.”
Most Read Blog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
Three Travel Tips: Traveling With Your Laptop
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
What to Tip, in 77 countries
* Or, in the case of Japan, what not to tip.
Top Ranked Travel Story
Propeller (this week)
Online Guide To Thailand
Women’s Travel E-Mail Roundtable Wrap Up
by Michael Yessis | 10.12.07 | 11:58 AM ET
Thanks to Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Liz Sinclair, Terry Ward and Catherine Watson for participating in our first-ever roundtable this week. The compelling discussion touched on everything from the perils of traveling for women to reasons why everyone—male or female—should consider hitting the road alone. All twelve installments are linked below.
Secret Thoughts of Travelers Revealed
by Terry Ward | 10.12.07 | 11:03 AM ET
PostSecret is one of those Web sites I wander onto and proceed to lose a good half morning. The site’s founder, Frank Warren, invites strangers to send him their deepest, often darkest secrets on a handmade postcard. The results range from enlightening to downright disturbing. So I was interested to see this recent Frequent Flier piece in the New York Times relaying the secret thoughts of travelers, as mailed to Warren.
Faro, Sweden: Through a Remote Island, Brightly
by Joanna Kakissis | 10.10.07 | 4:38 PM ET
I’m a sucker for quirky, remote places that revel in their magical weirdness. So after reading Danielle Pergament’s fabulous New York Times piece on Ingmar Bergman‘s home island of Faro, Sweden, I’m already dreaming of a Storybook Hollow wonderland of verdant fields, giant mushrooms, wild strawberry fields and a cast of enchanted characters. “Like Bergman, Faro is remote,” writes Pergament. “Getting to the island, off the eastern coast of Sweden, takes a plane, a train or a bus, a car and two ferries. Which is exactly what made it so appealing to the reclusive Bergman.”
David Byrne Goes to Graceland
by Michael Yessis | 10.10.07 | 7:01 AM ET
And beyond. Last month David Byrne and his daughter Malu spent a week driving from New York to Los Angeles, a road trip he chronicled with terrific detail and insight on his Web site. The former Talking Heads leader slept at Holiday Inns and Best Westerns, stayed at Dollywood until it closed for the night, digressed about ads for plastic surgeons in a Tennessee tabloid, ate Texas steak and made a pilgrimage to Graceland to visit another musician known for his eccentric choice in suits.
