‘There is Nothing Quite as Hypnotic as a Travel Show that Suggests it’s Better to Stay Home’

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  05.10.10 | 12:57 PM ET

Alessandra Stanley finds a thread of fear and alarm in travel programs on television.

That fearfulness is perhaps fitting in an era of man-made economic decline and natural calamity—be it volcanic ash in Iceland or earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Tibet—and the more standard travel fare on television has rarely seemed so timorous. Nowadays even the Travel Channel is hidebound and xenophobic, focusing on beaches of Florida and California, and only occasionally venturing farther abroad than hotel chains in the Caribbean.

She has half a point: Shows like “Locked Up Abroad” exist and they can give even the most intrepid traveler shivers. But a word in defense of the Travel Channel: Did she even watch the current lineup? What about this or this or this—all of which aired in the last two weeks?



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