Travel Blog
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Big Planes and Big Views
by Jim Benning | 03.23.07 | 1:15 PM ET
Travelers are thinking big this week, gawking at superjumbo jets and wondering about controversial big views. Here’s the (very big) Zeitgeist:
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
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71Miles
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Welcome to Los Angeles, Airbus A380
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph (current)
Spain from the Saddle
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Grand Canyon Skywalk Opens to First Visitors*
* We’ve asked it before and we’ll ask it again: What Would Edward Abbey Think?
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Prague
* That’s all fine, but what about the unmitigated joy of Czech funk?
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Ditch the smelly sleeping bag and go glamping—glamorous camping
* Yes, it’s the return of the verb we told you about weeks ago—the one that made one World Hum reader want to prarf.
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
First Visitors Set Foot on Grand Canyon Skywalk
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
Most Read Story
World Hum (this week)
Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘100 Places Every Woman Should Go’
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Ma.gnolia
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Yahoo! BuzzMombassa, Kenya
by Jim Benning | 03.23.07 | 11:54 AM ET
The Critics: ‘The Happiest Man in the World’ by Alec Wilkinson
by Jim Benning | 03.23.07 | 6:28 AM ET
Fans of Drifter Lit—that often thought-provoking and oddly inspirational little genre where one might place Jon Krakauer’s terrific, if tragic, “Into the Wild”—have reason to rejoice. Alec Wilkinson’s new book, The Happiest Man in the World, about the 74-year-old iconoclastic, raft-sailing Poppa Neutrino, is the latest title to explore a vagabond’s unconventional life, and it’s getting rave reviews. Neutrino (birth name: David Pearlman) is a freewheeling adventurer whose claim to fame is building rafts out of junk and sailing them, a la Thor Heyerdahl, across vast distances of open ocean.
Travel Books Crack List of the Top 1,000 Books Owned By Libraries Around the World
by Michael Yessis | 03.22.07 | 7:59 AM ET
The Online Computer Library Center has compiled a list of the 1,000 books most widely owned by libraries around the world. The entire list has been tagged and categorized on del.icio.us, and it looks like 12 books tagged travel made the cut. They are:
Chinese Traveler Spends Record 23,000 Euros in Duty-Free Spree
by Michael Yessis | 03.22.07 | 7:08 AM ET
His haul in Paris included a bottle of 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a Cotes de Rhone Hermitage la Chapelle 1978 and “a bottle of 1806 cognac that might have slipped through the fingers of Emperor Napoleon,” according to Reuters. Aeroports de Paris Shops, where the unnamed Chinese traveler made his purchases, says it has started to carry luxury items to cater to rich travelers from China, Japan and Russia. I’m sure the traveler had the good sense to avoid this mess in Miami on his way back to Beijing.
He’s Not a Fan of Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Work
by Jim Benning | 03.21.07 | 12:39 PM ET
Binyavanga Wainaina explains why he believes the late Polish journalist and travel writer didn’t get Africa right, and how he inspired the satirical Granta essay, How to Write About Africa. (Via The Elegant Variation.)
Related on World Hum:
* Kapuscinski: ‘I Sometimes Call it Literature by Foot’
* Remembering Kapuscinski: ‘He Was a Deity’
Stephen King vs. Dante: Why Traveling With the Right Book Matters
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.07 | 11:51 AM ET
It could be a guidebook, or Dante’s Divine Comedy, or even an atlas. In Jay Parini’s case, the books he takes along when he travels depend “a great deal on my mood and the context of the journey,” he writes in a terrific little essay in The Chronicle Review. “Weeks before any journey, I begin to worry about what books I’ll bring,” he writes. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a short hop for the night or something more adventurous, I wonder what I’ll read en route (if I’m going by plane or train) and what I’ll read while I’m there, perhaps sleepless in a hotel room. There’s nothing worse than being without the right book in those situations. Yet—given the restrictions and demands of travel—one has to be selective.”
Grand Canyon Skywalk Opens to First Visitors*
by Jim Benning | 03.20.07 | 5:44 PM ET
They did it. Members of the Hualapai Indian Tribe opened their $30 million horseshoe-shaped eco-travesty transparent walkway over the rim of the Grand Canyon today. As we’ve noted before, the Skywalk extends 70 feet beyond the canyon’s rim, allowing paying visitors to peer 4,000 feet down past their toes into the canyon. Today, invited guests—including, oddly, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who called it “magnificent”—gave it a try. The Skywalk opens to the general public March 28. We can, uh, hardly wait.
* Reuters has a slideshow and video, available here.
Related on World Hum:
* The Grand Canyon Skywalk: What Would Edward Abbey Think?
Interview with ‘Tropophiliac’ Alexander Frater
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.07 | 7:33 AM ET
Alexander Frater, author of Tales From the Torrid Zone: Travels in the Deep Tropics and self-proclaimed tropophiliac—“a lover of warm, wet countries”—sat for an interview this week on the public radio show On Point. The Washington Times and The New York Times have raved about “Tales.” In the latter, William Grimes calls Frater a “genial tour guide and a stylish writer” who “makes excellent company.”
Better Than Sitting Near a Crying Baby?
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.07 | 7:23 AM ET
The passenger who had to endure this on a British Airways flight said his journey was “deeply disturbing.” Thanks, Jerry.
Holy Land Hooters
by Jim Benning | 03.19.07 | 3:13 PM ET
No kidding. The restaurant chain is bound for Israel. Declares the man behind the project: “I strongly believe that the Hooters concept is something that Israelis are looking for.”
Related on World Hum:
* Hooters Casino Hotel Opens Today in Las Vegas
* Lesson No. 1 of Hooters Air: It Is Awfully Difficult to Make Buffalo Wings at 30,000 Feet
Enough With the Superjumbo Jets. How About a Superjumbo Bus?
by Jim Benning | 03.19.07 | 2:25 PM ET
By now, we’ve heard all about the new Airbus A380 superjumbo jet. It takes off. It crosses oceans. It even lands. It’s a very big, functional plane. It’s cool. It’s “super.” We get it. Now put the thing in commercial circulation and let’s move on to the next travel marvel, right? Are you with me? Good, because we’ve got the next big travel thing for your consideration: the world’s largest superjumbo passenger bus. It carries a whopping 300 passengers. It was just unveiled in Shanghai and will be used on the streets of Beijing and Hangzhou. You go, China.
Behemoth A380s Touch Down in U.S.
by Jim Benning | 03.19.07 | 12:06 PM ET
Crowds cheered the arrival of two Airbus A380 superjumbo jets, which landed in the U.S. for the first time today carrying airline personnel and reporters. One touched down in New York. A short while later, another landed in Los Angeles. CNN showed live video of the second plane touching down, wobbling a little as it landed. Narrated the CNN anchor helpfully: “Whoa, steady, steady, steady.” If only he’d been narrating that terrible, bumpy flight I had into Denver. The landing surely would have been much softer.
Related on World Hum:
* The Airbus A380: ‘The Mother Load’
* Airbus A380 Makes North American Debut
* The Flight of the 800-Passenger Gorilla
Photo by All Glory to the Hypnotoad, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Japan Unveils Plan for ‘Sushi Police’
by Michael Yessis | 03.19.07 | 7:26 AM ET
Japan’s agricultural ministry will fight the “gastronomic indignities” of bad sushi, but to the relief of some, surprise raids won’t be part of the plan. Instead, restaurants around the world will be able to request an authenticity test of their menu. “The test would centre on food staples, such as miso soybean paste and rice, cooking techniques and seasoning,” according to a Reuters report. Restaurants that pass the test will get official government recommendation. Japan, as we’ve noted, takes the creeping bastardization of its cuisine seriously.
Related on World Hum:
* Hide the California Rolls! Here Comes Japan’s ‘Sushi Police’
* Update: Japan’s ‘Sushi Police’
Photo by rubyran, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
SkyWest Apologizes to Passenger After, Uh, Unorthodox Use of Air Sickness Bag
by Michael Yessis | 03.19.07 | 6:39 AM ET
James Whipple drank “two really big beers” in a Boise, Idaho airport bar before boarding a SkyWest Airlines flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. When he was repeatedly denied access to the bathroom on his 67-minute trip—it was allegedly out of order—he turned to his air sickness bag for what the Salt Lake City Tribune calls “urinary relief.” The airline apologized, but Whipple, who was not found to be legally drunk, said it isn’t enough. The man, understandably, has supporters. As of Sunday night, Tribune readers are voting about 3-to-1 pro Whipple.
