Travel Blog
800-Year-Old Roman Empire Courier Map Goes on Display. Briefly.
by Michael Yessis | 11.27.07 | 9:11 AM ET
The Tabula Peutingeriana (excerpt pictured), an 800-year-old copy of a chart used by the Roman Empire’s courier service, was pulled from the archives of Austria’s National Library yesterday as part of a celebration of its new “Memory of the World” status by UNESCO.
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Yahoo! BuzzAliens in New Mexico Tourism Ads ‘Look Like They’re Going to Suck Your Brains Out’
by Michael Yessis | 11.26.07 | 6:03 PM ET
Great for anyone interested in Roswell. Not so much, apparently, if you’re trying to convince others to visit your state. At least that’s what some key players in New Mexico tourism are saying about an ad campaign centered on not-so-cuddly aliens.
Environmentalist on Antarctica: ‘Do We Want This to Become Disneyland’?
by Jim Benning | 11.26.07 | 12:59 PM ET
The sinking of the cruise ship Explorer in Antarctica a few days ago has prompted some interesting questions, including the one posed by Jim Barnes in a story in today’s New York Times. “There’s been kind of an explosion of tourism in Antarctica,” said Barnes, who is the executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. “Do we want this to become Disneyland or do we want some controls?” While roughly 7,000 tourists visited Antarctica in 1992-93, more than 35,000 are expected this season, and because the region is outside any one country’s domain, controls seem to be few and far between.
‘Elderly White Women’ Look to Kenya for Sex Tourism
by Michael Yessis | 11.26.07 | 11:55 AM ET
Residents along the Kenyan coast “estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex,” according to a Reuters story. The country is “just full of big young boys who like us older girls,” a pair of 50- and 60-something tourists from England tells correspondent Jeremy Clarke. By “big young boys,” the ladies seem to be referring to consenting 20-something men, which makes the arrangements legal. That doesn’t make it right, though.
In Search of the Perfect Dumpling in Shanghai
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.26.07 | 11:09 AM ET
In Shanghai, the dumpling known as xiao long bao is on the city’s list of “protected traditional treasures.” It was invented in Shanghai, which made an excellent setting for a witty and mouth-watering piece in the International Herald Tribune by intrepid travel writer and World Hum contributor Daisann McLane. During the course of three days, she taste-tested her way through the city, looking for the perfect dumpling.
A Wild Rescue in Antarctica
by Jim Benning | 11.24.07 | 2:45 PM ET
The hole in the cruise ship’s hull was “about the size of a fist,” according to a spokeswoman for the ship’s owner. If true, that’s all it took to sink the nearly 40-year-old Explorer, the first cruise ship built to ferry passengers in icy Antarctic waters. The G.A.P. Adventures-owned ship was in the midst of a 19-day “Spirit of Shackleton” trip when it hit submerged ice before dawn Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports. So began a harrowing ordeal that should put the usual Thanksgiving week travel headaches—congested highways, airport delays, etc.—into perspective.
Happy Thanksgiving
by Jim Benning | 11.21.07 | 12:24 PM ET
‘Forget Waterloo’: New Train Route Bringing ‘Two Old Foes Closer’
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.21.07 | 11:52 AM ET
France’s high-speed rail network, which has been coping with a labor strike, was hit by fires and other acts of sabotage overnight, according to reports. But in unrelated news, there’s at least one glimmer of good news coming from some rail service in the region. Historical enemies France and England are getting soft-eyed over the new high-speed rail link between Paris and London, according to the New York Times. A recent full-page ad in the French newspaper Le Figaro declared “Oubliez Waterloo”—forget Waterloo. And the English were talking not about Napoleon’s last stand but the former Waterloo rail terminus station.
In Los Angeles, the Rise of Troubled K-Town
by Jim Benning | 11.21.07 | 10:52 AM ET
I’ve always enjoyed spending time in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. It’s one of those places you can go in the city to immediately feel far, far away from the waspy Westside. But as the L.A. Weekly reported recently, there’s trouble in K-town.
The Onion on ‘Thanksgiving Tradition of Sitting Around at Airport’
by Jim Benning | 11.21.07 | 10:24 AM ET
Yes, the Onion News Network offers a video report celebrating the holiday tradition of waiting at the airport. Across the country, millions are “enjoying” the tradition in “time-honored” ways.
Related on World Hum:
* Delays Kick Off Thanksgiving Travel Week
* Three Travel Tips: Surviving Thanksgiving Air Travel
Ted Conover on the Meaning of the Road
by Eva Holland | 11.20.07 | 10:35 AM ET
From Jack Kerouac to Route 66, there’s no denying the importance of the road in modern American folklore. So I was interested to hear that author Ted Conover’s next book will be about roads “and their power to change the places they connect and the people on them.” In a recent interview published in Matador Travel’s Traverse magazine, he answered questions about his research methods—which have included tagging along for an illegal crossing of the Mexico-U.S. border—and about his views on “the road” and its meaning to him.
The Rise of Cancel-For-Work Travel Insurance: ‘Nothing is Sacred’
by Julia Ross | 11.20.07 | 10:12 AM ET
When Lisa Belkin booked a winter vacation online, she was surprised to see a new option pop up on her laptop screen: Would she be interested in extra travel insurance that covers trip cancellation for “work reasons”? Belkin’s reaction to the proposed upgrade, summed up in a recent New York Times column, resonates with the Blackberry-challenged among us: “My first thought—now that’s a policy I can use—was followed quickly by my second—it’s official: nothing is sacred.”
Delays Kick Off Thanksgiving Travel Week
by Jim Benning | 11.19.07 | 12:54 PM ET
Everyone predicted tough travel at U.S. airports this week. It didn’t take long. Today, from Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago, Newark and New York City, weather and technical problems have caused flight delays. What’s more, reports CNN, “In Colorado, heavy snow was expected Tuesday and Wednesday…The same weather system could worsen travel conditions in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and the Texas panhandle.” Good luck out there.
Related on World Hum:
* Three Travel Tips: Surviving Thanksgiving Air Travel
Photo by Phing? via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
‘Greetings From Abkhazia’
by Jim Benning | 11.19.07 | 12:00 PM ET
Graeme Wood travels to the seaside resort in the Republic of Georgia for a story in The Smart Set. It was once the playground of Soviet leaders like Stalin. Today, Wood writes, “all Russians know Abkhazia as the balmiest coast in the otherwise frigid ex-Soviet empire—‘a corner of Spain or Sicily,’ wrote one 19th-century explorer, ‘dropped at the foot of Old Man Caucasus.’”
Exploring the ‘Unphotogenic Beauty of Our Journeys’
by Jim Benning | 11.19.07 | 11:05 AM ET
Thomas Swick recently flipped through a new, photo-filled coffee table book from National Geographic called “Journeys of a Lifetime.” He couldn’t get past the language in the title. One can photograph a place, he notes, but one can’t photograph the essence of a journey, because a journey mixes the internal and the external.
