Travel Blog: News and Briefs
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Seville, Switzerland and The Strip
by Michael Yessis | 03.09.07 | 9:00 AM ET
Travelers this week looked to Las Vegas, Seville, the Grand Canyon, Tallinn, Riga and Charleson, S.C., and wondered whether to avoid Oslo (too expensive) and Atlanta (too busy). Here’s the Zeitgeist:
Most Read Weblog Category
World Hum (this week)
Las Vegas
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Las Vegas: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack
World’s Busiest Airport
Airports Council International (2006)
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
* Chicago’s O’Hare and London’s Heathrow finished second and third respectively.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph (current)
Seville’s the City for Piety Animals
* This also gets another of our groan-inducing headline of the week awards.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Charleston, S.C.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Switzerland Invades Liechtenstein
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Another Wonder for Grand Canyon?
* As we like to say, what would Edward Abbey think?
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Wi-Fi Bus Crosses the Border
* It’s “likely the first international cross-border Wi-Fi-enabled bus line.” It connects Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Schmap
Most Read Story
World Hum (this week)
Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘100 Places Every Woman Should Go’
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzPeace Deal Helps Lure Travelers Back to Nepal
by Michael Yessis | 03.08.07 | 8:42 AM ET
Photo of Nepal by Hugh Gage (Via Flickr, Creative Commons).
Adventure travel companies that had discontinued trips to Nepal in recent years are planning to resume their operations soon, according to a New York Times report. Conflict between the Nepalese government and Maoist rebels had caused outfitters to stop running trips, but a peace deal signed in November changed their outlook.
The 13th Floor: Okay With Most Travelers, But a Concern for…Firefighters
by Michael Yessis | 03.08.07 | 8:37 AM ET
Hotels in the U.S. traditionally skip the 13th floor, but Starwood and Hilton are among the companies now refusing to succumb to superstition on their properties. A USA Today/Gallup poll suggests they won’t offend too many travelers: 87 percent of respondents said they would be “comfortable” staying on the 13th floor of a hotel.
The Travel Writer as Airport Screener: ‘I Feel Ridiculous’
by Jim Benning | 03.07.07 | 12:03 PM ET
Dick Cheney, Long Flights and the Dangers of Deep Vein Thrombosis
by Jim Benning | 03.06.07 | 2:13 PM ET
The vice president has had better weeks. Not only was his former aide “Scooter” Libby just convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury, but as a result of the whopping 65 hours Cheney spent on a plane recently over the course of a 9-day trip, he has a potentially deadly blood clot in his leg. He reported experiencing “mild calf discomfort” on Monday, and that’s when his deep vein thrombosis (or DVT) was diagnosed. He’s being treated with blood-thinning medication. It’s a good reminder for all travelers to beware the dangers of flying long distances and to be able to recognize DVT symptoms. As one doctor told the Los Angeles Times: “DVT kills more people every year than breast cancer and AIDS combined, but when people have a pain in their leg, they often just shrug it off.” So what are the symptoms?
Chuck Klosterman: ‘I Believe Germans Are Nice Because They Were Nice To Me’
by Michael Yessis | 03.06.07 | 9:25 AM ET
Cultural stereotypes. We hate them and we love them. And in the case of Chuck Klosterman, they make an excellent topic for another half-brilliant, half-baked piece of cultural criticism. Writing in Esquire, the author of Fargo Rock City, Killing Yourself to Live and other books writes about a trip to Germany, where experiences including watching American football in a bar and visiting an art exhibit called “I Like America and America Likes Me” lead him to several insights about the folly of cultural stereotypes.
Name Every UN Member State. You Have 10 Minutes.
by Michael Yessis | 03.06.07 | 8:21 AM ET
That’s the latest addictive geography game making the rounds.
Related on World Hum:
* Around the World in 20 Geography Questions
Carbon Offsets for Travelers: What Are You Really Paying For?
by Michael Yessis | 03.05.07 | 7:59 AM ET
You’re traveling by air to Australia, but you’re conscious of the environmental damage caused by jets, so you spend an extra few bucks on offsets to balance out your carbon footprint. Good deed done, you’re on your way. Is it that easy? Not really, according to a USA Today story by Barbara De Lollis, who examines the effectiveness of offsetting projects such as planting trees and discusses who stands to profit from your green consciousness. Yes, some of these companies are out to make money from selling offsets to travelers.
‘Can’t We All Just Get Along—Like Tourists?’
by Jim Benning | 03.02.07 | 5:46 PM ET
Thomas Swick has observed an infectious camaraderie among travelers at tourist sites. “People of various faiths and nationalities pose for pictures while others, with a few found words, kindly offer assistance,” he wrote recently. “Smiles are exchanged, along with looks of shared wonder. Added to the feeling of awe is a sense of oneness. And then you get another remarkable sight: The tourist as example. The tourist as ideal.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Traveler Beware Edition
by Michael Yessis | 03.02.07 | 8:01 AM ET
They’re turning people back at the Canadian border, shrinking the payout for blackjack in Las Vegas and seeing through your clothes in Phoenix. Those stories—plus journeys to Alaska, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Sweden and Mulholland Drive—are intriguing travelers this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Going to Canada? Check Your Past
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Las Vegas: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack
* Casino are starting to pay only 6-5 for blackjack. What’s next? No doubling down?
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Full-Body X-Ray Security Scanner Debuts
* The first passengers asked to submit to a full-body X-ray, apparently, “didn’t bat an eyelash.”
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Escapes Under $500: Go to Puerto Rico’s Second City
* That would be Ponce.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
The Cold Show in Fairbanks, Alaska
Most Read Travel Story
World Hum (this week)
Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘100 Places Every Woman Should Go’
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Wayfaring
Best Waterfront City
Project for Public Spaces
Stockholm
Travel Story of the Year
Solas Awards (2007)
Fishing With Larry by Tom Joseph
* Here are all the prize winners.
Most Competitive Country
World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitive Index
Switzerland
* What is this? “The index is not a ‘beauty contest’, or a statement about the attractiveness of a country. On the contrary, the index measures the factors that make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism industry of individual countries,” said Jennifer Blanke, Senior Economist of the World Economic Forum.
R.I.P. Hal Rothman, Sin City Scholar
by Jim Benning | 03.01.07 | 2:37 PM ET
You don’t have to be an academic to appreciate the work of Las Vegas scholar and writer Hal Rothman, who died Sunday at the age of 48. In books like Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century and Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth Century American West, he explored tourism’s powerful impact on Las Vegas and the Western U.S. “He didn’t dismiss it (Las Vegas),” said one UNLV professor in an obituary in today’s Los Angeles Times. “He understood that some people loved it, others hated it, and you had to take Las Vegas seriously as a subject for study.”
Lebanon: The Story Behind the World Press Photo of the Year
by Michael Yessis | 03.01.07 | 2:10 PM ET
The judges of the World Press Photo of the Year said Spencer Platt’s image—it captures a group of young, fashionable Lebanese women driving through a devastated Beirut neighborhood soon after Israeli bombings struck last summer—“has the complexity and contradiction of real life, amidst chaos. This photograph makes you look beyond the obvious.” Apparently many viewers haven’t been looking hard enough.
World Hum’s Most Read: February 2007
by Michael Yessis | 03.01.07 | 8:50 AM ET
Our 10 most popular stories posted last month:
1) JetBlue Apologizes for Stranding Passengers on Planes at JFK
2) JetBlue ‘Hostage Crisis’: The Blog
3) Armrest Seating, Anyone?
4) Supersonic Passenger Jets Poised for a Comeback
5) Paulina Porizkova Goes ‘Dancing With the Stars’
6) Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘100 Places Every Woman Should Go’
7) Mexican Migrant Theme Park: Homage or Crass Attraction?
8) Stephen Colbert’s ‘Investigation’ into a Caribbean Resort
9) ‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel
10) Are Cheap Airline Flights a Blessing or a Horror? Or Both?
Gary Snyder: ‘Our Western Thoreau’
by Jim Benning | 02.28.07 | 3:35 PM ET
Gary Snyder might be best known as the inspiration for the character Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s novel “The Dharma Bums.” But Snyder is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a fine essayist who has devoted much of his life to exploring ecology and Eastern philosophy. While he’s not exactly a travel writer, he has evoked the Sierra Nevada mountain range in his various works about as well as anyone. Which is why we note a new book from him, Back on the Fire: Essays.
Fidel Castro Dials Up Hugo Chavez’s Radio Show
by Jim Benning | 02.28.07 | 2:24 PM ET
Why don’t we in the U.S. get radio shows like this? Now that’s entertainment.
