Travel Blog
JetBlue Apologizes for Stranding Passengers on Planes at JFK
by Michael Yessis | 02.15.07 | 8:47 AM ET
Who can relate to the passengers on JetBlue flights who were stuck on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport for as long as nine hours yesterday? Perhaps the passengers who recently were stuck for more than eight hours in Austin, Texas with malfunctioning toilets and no food. If this effort to support a passengers’ bill of rights gains traction—and it looks like some members of Congress are behind it—perhaps these incidents will become a thing of the past.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzCycling the Silk Road
by Michael Yessis | 02.15.07 | 8:43 AM ET
Three college friends recently embarked on an epic ride from Turkey to China via the Silk Road, a trek being chronicled this week on Slate. Greg Grim wrote the first installment, and he outlined the trip’s goals: “Mikey, Cam, and I aimed to show these folks that not all Americans are fat, rich, Muslim-hating warmongers. Rather, we’re people just like them, with the same needs, questions, and desires. But diplomacy isn’t our sole mission: It doesn’t hurt that these lands are breathtaking in their beauty and baffling in their culture.” As usual with Slate’s travel coverage, a compelling slideshow accompanies the dispatches.
Related on World Hum:
* Lost City of the Silk Road
* Colin Thubron and the “Shadow of the Silk Road”
Flying With Pets
by Jim Benning | 02.14.07 | 5:36 PM ET
The Associated Press offers a list of tips and regulations. Among them: “Fees vary. JetBlue charges $50 for a pet to fly in the cabin; Continental, $95, American and Northwest, $80. It’s free on USAir Shuttle and Delta Shuttle.”
Valentine’s Day Comes to Ghana
by Jim Benning | 02.14.07 | 4:45 PM ET
Why is the holiday taking off in the African nation? In part, one cultural anthropologist told USA Today, because “radio airplay of love songs by Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Lionel Richie and others is year-round and has fed the idea that Valentine’s Day is for sweethearts.” It’s tangential, but that reminds us of the intriguing Lionel Richie-Libya connection.
Chocolate Travels, From Hotel Hershey to the Boston Chocolate Tour
by Jim Benning | 02.14.07 | 3:12 PM ET
We think every day is a good day to eat chocolate, or write about eating chocolate, for that matter. But Valentine’s Day seems a particularly good excuse to point out this story highlighting chocolate-related hotels and attractions around the United States. It turns out that chocolate lovers can find all kinds of creative ways to indulge during their travels. Among the most intriguing: the Boston Chocolate Tour, which concludes with “the Langham Hotel’s infamous chocolate bar, with such innovative concoctions as create-your-own crepes, chocolate ‘sushi,’ and chocolate croissant bread pudding.”
The Intersection of Love and Travel
by Jim Benning | 02.14.07 | 2:13 PM ET
Colombia: Besieged By Narcoterrorists or Emerging Hot Destination?
by Michael Yessis | 02.14.07 | 11:40 AM ET
The Highs and Lows of Traveling on iTunes
by Jim Benning | 02.13.07 | 6:35 PM ET
‘People Are Always Telling Me to Put Down My Notepad and Enjoy the Experience’
by Jim Benning | 02.13.07 | 12:54 PM ET
So says Concierge.com editor Peter J. Frank, who discusses his work in the Frequent Flier column of today’s New York Times. Call me crazy, but I have to agree with those people: Peter, please, put down the stupid notepad and enjoy the experience.
Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust: Travel Picks
by Michael Yessis | 02.13.07 | 7:24 AM ET
Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust and superstar librarian—she has an action figure— appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday and recommended eight travel books to stoke winter wanderlust. Among her picks: Redmond O’Hanlon’s In Trouble Again: A Journey Between Orinoco and the Amazon, Will Ferguson’s Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw: Travels In Search of Canada and Freya Stark’s A Winter in Arabia.
Related on World Hum:
* World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books
The Rise of Luxe Surf Travel (at Least According to the NY Times)
by Jim Benning | 02.12.07 | 10:53 AM ET
Anyone who surfs or knows people who do realized years ago that the sport had shed its dirtbag image—that doctors and attorneys now eagerly lay claim to the title “surfer” (even if they don’t much surf) and that big bucks are spent on travel to remote, uncrowded breaks in places like Central America and Indonesia. Now, the New York Times is on the case. In a front-page story yesterday, the Times breathlessly reported: “For $10,000 a day, you can have the ultimate surfing sojourn in Indonesia aboard the 110-foot Indies Trader IV, a sort of floating hotel with 15 cabins, a helipad and three-course meals with wine. A motorized tender takes you to the waves.” And about today’s surfers: “This new species of surfer contributes to a booming market for vacation packages, instruction, equipment and real estate near some of the world’s best surf breaks. Like golf, surfing has become an ideal activity around which to discuss business.”
Our Vote for Best Dressed at Last Night’s Grammy Awards
by Jim Benning | 02.12.07 | 7:38 AM ET
Gnarls Barkley, who performed in full airline pilot attire, complete with captain’s hat and shades. Does that make them crazy? No way.
Are Cheap Airline Flights a Blessing or a Horror? Or Both?
by Michael Yessis | 02.12.07 | 7:04 AM ET
As former Lonely Planet global travel editor Don George pointed out in a recent interview with World Hum, the travel equation is getting very complicated. When asked how he sees travel changing, George replied, “When you think about the effects of airplane pollution, for example, it becomes a more complicated equation—the good you do as a traveler and the harm you do.” At World Hum, we’ve been tracking the environmental impact of travel since the site began almost six years ago. In that time I can’t remember a more sobering breakdown of the travel equation, as George put it, than the one in the latest edition of the Christian Science Monitor.
Who’s ‘the Official Corporate Sponsor of Airport Paranoia’?
by Michael Yessis | 02.12.07 | 6:42 AM ET
That would be Rolodex, according to Up in the Air author Walter Kirn. While traveling through Los Angeles International Airport recently, Kirn came across the same bin-bottom advertisement at the security checkpoint that I did a few months ago. “The ad bewildered me for a couple of reasons,” he writes in the New York Times Magazine. “First, I didn’t expect to see it there (even though, by now, I should have, since researchers estimate that the average city dweller is exposed to 5,000 ads per day, up from 2,000 per day three decades ago). The second and greater mystery, however, was why a major company would want me to associate its product with the experience of being searched.” Precisely.
Related on World Hum:
* US Airways to Sell Ad Space on Barf Bags
China Will Be Top World Travel Destination by 2020
by Jim Benning | 02.09.07 | 11:48 AM ET
So predicts the World Tourism Organization. France led the pack in 2006, drawing 78 million foreign travelers.
