Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Foodies Still Bitter About Tokyo’s Michelin Honors
by Michael Yessis | 09.03.08 | 3:03 PM ET
Yeah, they’re still talking about this like it’s some sort of crime. More than nine months after Michelin debuted its Tokyo guide with 191 stars, foodies are still questioning whether Tokyo is indeed the premier city in the world for food.
Related on World Hum:
* Eating Japanese: The World’s ‘My Boom’ Food
Photo by yomi955, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
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Yahoo! BuzzRevisiting ‘The Amazing Race’
by Michael Yessis | 09.03.08 | 1:58 PM ET
Replays of Season 12 of the perennial Emmy contender debut at 8 ET tonight on the Travel Channel, offering fans another chance to watch the couples speed around the globe from Los Angeles to Anchorage—and us a chance to recycle our epic 2006 IM debate: ‘The Amazing Race’: A Good Travel Show?
R.I.P. Don LaFontaine
by Eva Holland | 09.03.08 | 11:43 AM ET
Don LaFontaine, who did the voice-overs for more than 5,000 Hollywood movie trailers, has died at 68. LaFontaine’s trademark phrase, “In a world where…”, had tempted viewers into vicarious movieland travels for more than 30 years.
Hooters in China: It’s About ‘Moral Righteousness’
by Eva Holland | 09.02.08 | 3:30 PM ET
I’ve always loved noting the subtle differences between the same big-name chain restaurants at home and abroad. According to this McClatchy-Tribune story, though, when Hooters opened in China there was nothing subtle about the changes the chain made. The “American Owl Restaurant,” as it’s apparently known there, has a totally different shtick in Beijing. Said one server: “It’s more sexy in the U.S. Here, it’s more about being healthy, friendly, cute and having moral righteousness.”
Related on World Hum:
* Las Vegas’ Hooters Hotel to go Boutique
Photo of Beijing Hooters by china_puwa via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Around the World to See How the World Uses Mobile Phones
by Michael Yessis | 09.02.08 | 12:53 PM ET
Some of the interesting tidbits turned up by Cyriac Roeding during a six-week spin around the world to observe mobile phone usage: In South African airports, travelers are offered chances to sign up for sweepstakes via text message. In Nepal, people are wild for ring tones. In India, you can charge your phone at stations along the Ganges River.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa: Only the Third Most Leaning Tower in Europe?
by Michael Yessis | 09.02.08 | 11:47 AM ET
A Dutch mathematician claims a 12th-century building in the Netherlands town of Bedum leans more than the storied Italian attraction, Reuters reports. Big deal, says another authority: Guinness. Last year, it named the world’s true leaning masterpiece: Germany’s Schiefer Turm von Suurhusen. National Geographic News has side-by-side photos.
A Plea to Take Global Tourism Seriously: ‘It’s Nothing Short of a Planet-Threatening Plague’
by Julia Ross | 09.02.08 | 10:31 AM ET
In a rousing op-ed for the Washington Post, journalist and author Elizabeth Becker issues a plea to American government officials, journalists and travelers: Ignore the impact of global tourism at your peril. With 898 million people traveling the world last year, global tourism has reached a tipping point, she argues—one that has inflicted potentially irreversible damage in places like Angkor Wat and Venice, along with fueling an insidious sex tourism trade in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Airport Security Rife With ‘Watchlist Misidentification Issues’
by Elyse Franko | 09.02.08 | 9:33 AM ET
New York Times columnist Joe Sharkey reports on the complete disorder of government security watchlists. These include the national no-fly list, for those who are “known security threats,” and a secondary list for people whose names match records from police databanks and other security forces. The problem is, if any criminal on record has your name, you could encounter trouble at security checkpoints—and for “security” purposes, you probably won’t be able to get off the list any time soon, even if you’ve proven your own innocence.
World Hum’s Most Read: Aug. 23-29
by World Hum | 08.29.08 | 3:19 PM ET
Our five most popular features and blog posts for the week:
1) Wine Spectator Gives ‘Award of Excellence’ to Fake Restaurant
2) Q&A With Paul Theroux: Invisible Man on a Ghost Train
3) Images From the End of the (New York City Subway) Lines (pictured)
4) ‘Large Underwire Bra’ Triggers Metal Detector, Woman’s Wrath
5) R.I.P. Dave Freeman, Coauthor of ‘100 Things to do Before You Die’
R.I.P. ‘Staycation’
by Jim Benning | 08.29.08 | 1:25 PM ET
Not even in peace. Just take a rest. Yes, we all had a lot of fun with this clever new word this summer. We—travel writers, bloggers, even TV networks—lamented the high price of gas and the slow economy and declared it the perfect summer to stay home and explore our own backyards. We’ll take a staycation, we said, so pleased with the expression that self-satisfied grins followed its every use. Somewhere along the way, we lost our marbles.
‘The Internet is About the Best Thing to Happen to Geography Nerds Since the Sextant’
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.08 | 12:39 PM ET
Joshua Keating has a bit of a different perspective on the slow retreat of traditional maps than John Flinn.
Lamenting the Decline of the Map
by Eva Holland | 08.29.08 | 10:10 AM ET
In his latest column, San Francisco Chronicle travel editor John Flinn mourns the slow retreat of traditional maps in favor of GPS units and online search engines. Maps, after all, are so much more than a means of finding your way around, Flinn writes: “An intoxicating blend of science and art, they’re a landscape painting, a history book, a political treatise and a wanderlust factory. They can seize your imagination and give it wings in a way that no set of digital driving instructions ever could.” (Via Triporati)
First Step to a Great Airplane View: Get a Window Seat
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.08 | 5:51 PM ET
Seriously. That’s the first piece of advice in an otherwise useful Travel + Leisure story by Jeff Wise. Also of note: the presentation of this story in print vs. online.
Dead Sea Scrolls Go Digital
by Eva Holland | 08.28.08 | 5:43 PM ET
A team of expert preservationists is hard at work in Jerusalem this week, aiming to make the Dead Sea Scrolls—all 15,000 fragments of them—available online as digital images. “The project began as a conservation necessity,” one interviewee told the New York Times. “We wanted to monitor the deterioration of the scrolls and realized we needed to take precise photographs to watch the process ... We realized then that we could make the entire set of pictures available online to everyone, meaning that anyone will be able to see the scrolls in the kind of detail that no one has until now.”
The Ethics of Nicholas Kristof’s Travels
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.08 | 5:17 PM ET
The New York Times columnist has famously purchased the freedom of Cambodian slave-prostitutes and taken college students with him on trips to Africa. He’s even said that travel should play a central role in American education. His heart is surely in the right place. But is he ethical?
