Travel Blog: News and Briefs
“The World According to Sesame Street”
by Michael Yessis | 10.25.06 | 9:15 AM ET
Nobody brings the world together like muppets. The new season of the PBS series Independent Lens debuts this week with the documentary The World According to Sesame Street, a look at how the TV show for kids has become a global phenomenon. Los Angeles Times critic Robert Lloyd writes in a stellar review: “It runs in more than 120 countries, mostly in dubbed versions of the original, but in more and more places—beginning as far back as 1972, after an inquiry from Germany—it is being produced locally, retooled for the native audience, with new characters and settings reflecting native culture and concerns.” The documentary focuses on productions of “Sesame Street” in three countries places: Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa.
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Yahoo! BuzzMosque Tourism in Dubai
by Jim Benning | 10.25.06 | 8:10 AM ET
Apparently it’s all the rage—at least at Jumeirah Mosque. Tours aimed at boosting understanding of Islam among Western tourists have expanded, according to an AP story, “from irregular gatherings of a dozen people to five-times-weekly tours of a hundred or more.” And what’s more, “Now, the government-linked center wants to expand inside the United Arab Emirates and beyond with an eye on the more than 1 million Westerners, mostly Europeans, who visit every year.”
‘Expats’ in Busan: Rolf Potts in South Korea
by Jim Benning | 10.25.06 | 7:18 AM ET
Rolf Potts is filing stories from South Korea for Slate this week. His first dispatch came from the port city of Busan, where he attended a film festival. “I am here because I worked in Busan as an English teacher in the late ‘90s, and Korean-born U.S. director Wonsuk Chin has written a screenplay about this experience, titled ‘Expats,’” Potts writes. “Since Chin is at the festival, meeting with possible financiers for his film, I’ve made plans to see him this afternoon at the Grand Hotel.” It turns out Chin was inspired, at least in part, by a story Potts wrote years ago for Salon.
The State of Regional Dialects and Accents: “Hahvahd Yahd” is Here to Stay
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.06 | 10:22 AM ET
Conventional wisdom says that, given the rise of mass media, regional accents and dialects would disappear and “everyone would sound as distinctly indistinct as a television newscaster.” It won’t be so. In fact, “The Atlas of North American English, the first work to plot all the major speech patterns in the continental United States and Canada, has found the opposite: regional dialects are actually becoming more pronounced,” according to a story in October’s Smithsonian.
Japanese Tourists Succumb to ‘Paris Syndrome’
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.06 | 8:09 AM ET
Or, as the New York Post headline goes, “Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried.” Funny headline for an amusing story—amusing, at least, for everyone but the Japanese travelers who get “Paris Syndrome.” The Post and Reuters, among others, are relaying a story from the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, which claims that “a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations.” Paris Syndrome was first reported in 2004 in a psychiatric journal. According to AA Gill, there is a cure. He writes in the Times: “The cure is called Rome, though there are side effects: it’s very addictive.”
Sticky Surprises and Oozing Grit: The Dirty Truth About the Cleanliness of Airplanes
by Michael Yessis | 10.23.06 | 6:41 AM ET
Another reason I’m happy to be booked on a JetBlue flight later this week: It’s the cleanest of the U.S. carriers, which, according to this not-for-the-squeamish story in Sunday’s New York Times, have generally been eschewing thorough cleanings in the name of cutting costs. “Seatback pockets hiding sticky surprises, carpets with patterns that can no longer conceal the curious stains, overripe lavatories and crevices oozing snack grit and plain old grime,” writes Jeff Bailey. “Increasingly, that describes the modern airliner, an untidy tube hurtling through the sky full of passengers who cannot wait to land and go wash their hands with disinfectant soap. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but in the airline industry it has taken a back seat to financial survival.”
R.I.P. Eric Newby
by Michael Yessis | 10.22.06 | 5:43 PM ET
Eric Newby, author of the classic travel book “A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush” and other works, passed away of natural causes Friday evening in Southern England. He was 86, and lived an adventurous life.
World Hum Wins Lowell Thomas Gold
by Jim Benning | 10.20.06 | 1:50 PM ET
The Society of American Travel Writers announced the winners of the 2006 Lowell Thomas Awards today at its convention in Santiago, Chile. In the Internet publication category, which happens to be our favorite, we’re delighted to report that World Hum took top honors, winning the gold award. Lonely Planet took the silver and NewYorkology took the bronze.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beauty and the Borat
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.06 | 7:35 AM ET
The most gorgeous city in the United States—that would be San Francisco—steps into the Zeitgeist spotlight this week, along with Hawaii, road tripping, airlines of all sorts and the nemesis the government of Kazakhstan, Borat.
Top United States City
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
San Francisco
* The city has finished first in the magazine’s survey in 18 of its 19 years. Guess readers can’t get enough of this view.
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Affordable San Francisco
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
RealTravel
Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Oprah Winfrey, Amanda Congdon and the New Golden Age of the Cross-Country Road Trip
Most Popular Food & Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Airline Will Cater to Smokers
Top Ranked Travel Podcast
Podcast Alley (October)
808Talk
* 808 is the area code for Hawaii, which seems to have already rebounded after the recent 6.7 earthquake.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* The New York Times has the first chapter of Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top International Route Airline
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
Singapore Airlines
* The carrier has also topped its category for every year of the magazine’s survey but one.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum
A Week in the Life of American Airlines
Now Available: The Best American Travel Writing 2006
by Jim Benning | 10.19.06 | 5:18 PM ET
The latest collection of the popular Houghton Mifflin travel writing anthology hit bookstores this month and is now available from online booksellers. The book, we’re delighted to note, features Tony Perrottet’s World Hum story The Joy of Steam and honors three other World Hum stories as notable travel writing. Tim Cahill served as this year’s editor.
Can Slow Travel Save the Planet?
by Jim Benning | 10.19.06 | 2:36 PM ET
Paul Theroux, among others, has written of his preference for train journeys over air travel: “Although it has become the way of the world, we still ought to lament the fact that airplanes have made us insensitive to space; we are encumbered, like lovers in suits of armor.” That passage from The Old Patagonian Express, published in 1979, came to mind as I read a compelling new story on Alternet about air travel, its role in global warming, and potential solutions to the problem. The story notes a UK study showing that the predicted rise in air travel in the coming decades is bad news for the environment: “[F]actoring in the projected growth of air travel, carbon emissions would have to be reduced to zero in manufacturing, ground transportation and private households to meet the British government’s 2050 green goals.” So what’s the solution?
Wired Posts Travel Guide for Second Life
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.06 | 7:25 AM ET
The Wired Travel Guide: Second Life—a guide to the fast-growing virtual community Second Life—reminds me of faux guides to Molvania and Phaic Tan. It reads like a guidebook and is organized like a guidebook, but the entries seem just a little off. For instance, according to the Wired guide, these are the major ethnic groups you’ll find in Second Life: “Blingtards, Elves, Furries, Geeks, Goreans, Goths, mechas, Steampunks, grad students looking for a grant project.” Unlike the faux residents of Molvania and Phaic Tan, though, these people actually exist, albeit in a virtual state.
A Week in the Life of American Airlines
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.06 | 7:20 AM ET
CNBC airs a two-hour documentary tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT chronicling a week behind-the-scenes at American Airlines. Peter Greenberg hosts, and he—and the program—are getting good reviews. “Some of his access is surprising,” writes The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Robert Philpot. “Greenberg doesn’t just canvass cockpits and executive suites, he climbs onboard with passengers to discuss their comfort level, how much they paid for tickets, or how they used their frequent-flier miles.” Philpot gives the program a B+. Florangela Davila of the Seattle Times writes that “it’s the little gems of information—the weight of a jetliner at departure versus arrival—that will stay with you. And tonight’s portrait might have you thinking twice before ranting the next time your flight is delayed.” CNBC has posted eight video clips from the show. No sign of them on YouTube yet.
Lonely Planet’s ‘The Perfect Day’
by Jim Benning | 10.17.06 | 3:14 PM ET
Most of us, when pressed, could describe our ideal day in a city we know well. It might begin with breakfast out and strolling along a favorite street. It might culminate with dinner and a trip to a favorite club to take in some live music. In between, we’d see something of the town, check out a particular neighborhood or two. That’s the concept behind Lonely Planet’s new book, The Perfect Day. It features short, perfect-day scenarios in 100 cities around the globe, from Kuala Lumpur to Philadelphia. Each city gets one page with several paragraphs and a photo. It’s a fun read. Of course, the perfect days described are perfect only for the people who wrote them, so part of the pleasure in flipping through the book is arguing with the selections for a given city.
Mapping the World: Is Accuracy Possible?
by Michael Yessis | 10.17.06 | 8:03 AM ET
Probably not, according to this BBC story. Map-makers are in a constant battle to juggle scale, distance and the curvature of the earth, not to mention often having to shrink Africa down so it can fit in the frame. The 1477 Ptolemy atlas that was sold for $3.9 million at Sotheby(tm)s in London last week shows where we’ve come from—that map has “England butting the Bay of Biscay and Scotland floating in the German Sea”—and where we’re going.
