Travel Blog
The Critics: Summer Travel Books
by Michael Yessis | 06.04.07 | 11:35 AM ET
More proof that, despite the naysayers, travel books remain an interesting, vibrant genre: The New York Times Book Review’s annual list of summer reading includes books by Diswasher Pete and Miss Manners. No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice by Judith Martin (aka Miss Manners) and Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States by Pete Jordan (aka Dishwasher Pete) are among the six travel books reviewed by Pamela Paul. She gives a hesitant thumbs up to both. “Probably in spite of, and not courtesy of, its irresponsible narrator, ‘Dishwasher’ is almost compulsively readable,” she writes.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Seeing Stars Edition
by Michael Yessis | 06.01.07 | 6:41 PM ET
Kelly Slater, Billy Graham and Harry Potter all make the Zeitgeist this week as travelers contemplate Hawaiian surf, learning to speak French, Planet Theme Park and the alleged return of the Loch Ness monster.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Q&A: Eight-Time World Champion Surfer Kelly Slater
* He says the sight of the heavens from Mauna Kea (pictured) is probably the best view in Hawaii.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Florence
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Harry Potter, Billy Graham Get Theme Parks
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Travelers Face Frustrating Passport Delays
* Earlier on World Hum: U.S. Passports in Demand: Lines Look ‘Like a Rolling Stones Concert 25 Years Ago’
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Panoramio
* The site allows users “to locate photos exactly over the place they were taken.” It’s also being acquired by Google.
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
National Geographic’s Atmosphere
* The pitch: “It’s not quite as cool as teletransporting, but it’s close.”
“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Tips on Using TripAdvisor, or How to Not Get the Room Next to the Jackhammering at 5 a.m.
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 6:39 PM ET
Most experienced travelers are well aware of the potential pitfalls of making hotel decisions based on TripAdvisor reviews. Which reviews to trust? Is a negative review legit? Or is the writer simply out to help a competing business? The Wall Street Journal has published a helpful look at the many ways that experienced TripAdvisor users sort through reviews to find ones they can trust. The article’s author, Nancy Keates, quickly moves beyond the obvious tactic of looking for patterns and discarding opinions at odds with the bulk of a hotel’s reviews. What other strategies do readers use?
Aracataca, Colombia: It’s ‘Latin America All Wrapped Up In One Small Place’
by Michael Yessis | 06.01.07 | 5:13 PM ET
The impression of Aracataca, Colombia as a representation of the entirety of Latin America stems from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the man who 40 years ago thinly disguised his hometown and used it as a setting for his classic novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Marquez returned to Aracataca for the first time in 25 years the other day, an event noted by many news outlets, including NPR. Juan Forero covered the homecoming for ‘Morning Edition,’ and his audio postcard from Aracataca gives a great sense of the town and just how much the residents love and appreciate the man they call Gabo.
Bill Gates’s Yacht Inspires Plans for Thai Island
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 4:01 PM ET
Oh, to be Bill Gates’s yacht. The waters you’d sail. The navigational software that would chart your course. The luxury tourism developments you’d inspire. Developer Gulu Lalvani says a conversation he had with Gates in Phuket, Thailand earlier this year has inspired him to build a small island just off the Thailand coast in Phang Nga Bay. As Lalvani recalled, Gates told him: “If I could bring my yacht, I would come here every year.” The trouble is, Gates’s 54-meter yacht (a little larger than the pleasure craft pictured here) is too big for Phuket’s marina, which holds yachts up to 40 meters long.
Straight Men Are Better Map Readers Than Straight Women, Study Says*
by Michael Yessis | 06.01.07 | 2:04 PM ET
So are bisexual men, gay men, gay women and bisexual women. In fact, that’s the map-reading hierarchy according to a study conducted by the UK’s University of Warwick with help from the BBC.
Out: Buddha G-Strings. In: Jesus Thongs.
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 1:48 PM ET
Or something like that. CafePress.com has removed G-strings and dog attire featuring images of the Buddha from its online catalog after Thais protested the sale of the products. “Such products offend not only Thais, but Buddhists elsewhere in the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Piriya Khempon told Reuters.
Where in the World Are You, Terry Ward?
by Jim Benning | 06.01.07 | 12:25 PM ET
The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: World Hum contributor Terry Ward, whose response landed in our inbox this morning.
World Hum: Where in the world are you?
World Hum’s Most Read: May 2007
by Michael Yessis | 06.01.07 | 5:35 AM ET
Was Director Mike Figgis Detained at LAX for Saying He Was Going to ‘Shoot a Pilot’?
by Michael Yessis | 05.31.07 | 8:41 PM ET
Reports circulated earlier this week that “Leaving Las Vegas” director Mike Figgis was detained at Los Angeles International Airport for telling security that he was in town to “shoot a pilot.” A television pilot, of course, but given heightened airport security, it wasn’t taken that way. Paranoia and detainment ensued. It’s a bogus story, according to an e-mail apparently written by Figgis and posted on Boing Boing. The site features several perspectives about the non-story story, including one now non-operable theory that Figgis “spread this urban legend to the press in an attempt to gain publicity.” C’mon. Everyone knows the best way to get publicity out of an airport-security incident is to wear the right T-shirt.
Related on World Hum:
* ‘We Will Not Be Silent’ T-Shirt Causes Stir at JFK*
* Update: Lorrie Heasley, ‘The Fockers’ and the United States Constitution
* Special Offer From T-Shirt Hell: ‘Free Speech or Free Travel’
Interview with Seal Press Founder Barbara Sjoholm
by Jim Benning | 05.31.07 | 4:05 PM ET
Seal Press publishes loads of books featuring women’s travel writing—recent titles include Greece: A Love Story: Women Write About Their Greek Experience and The Risks of Sunbathing Topless: And Other Funny Stories from the Road. Gadling has posted an interview that Kelly Amabile did with the founder, Barbara Sjoholm. In addition to founding the company, Sjoholm is a novelist and the author the memoir Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me a Writer.
Where in the World Are You, Kelsey Timmerman?
by Jim Benning | 05.31.07 | 1:00 PM ET
Today, we debut “Where in the World Are You?”—a nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world. Our first traveler is a writer, Kelsey Timmerman, whose response landed in our inbox this morning.
World Hum: Where in the world are you?
The Upside of Delays and Security Lines: Better Airport Cuisine
by Michael Yessis | 05.31.07 | 11:59 AM ET
Regina Schrambling makes the link in a Los Angeles Times food-section story about the rise of local restaurants and cuisine at airports across the U.S. “Hard as it is to believe, the most dreaded places in the country—thanks to flight delays and security hassles—also happen to be sources of excellent local food,” she writes. “And now that travelers are spending more time waiting, the pickings are improving.”
Harry Potter, Billy Graham Get Theme Parks
by Jim Benning | 05.31.07 | 11:43 AM ET
Every day brings news of more amusement parks in the works, on themes ranging from the sacred to the profane. In Charlotte, North Carolina today, 88-year-old evangelist Billy Graham celebrates the dedication of the Billy Graham Library, which, according to some observers and Graham fans, is more like a corny theme park than a dignified museum. “Their concerns start just inside the enormous glass cross that forms the door to the 40,000-square-foot museum,” according to the Los Angeles Times, which headlined its story, Billy Graham, tourist attraction. “The lobby is set up like a barn to evoke Graham’s boyhood on a North Carolina dairy farm. Hens cluck on a soundtrack. A stuffed cat heaves a battery-powered sigh. And amid bales of hay, a cow that looks uncannily lifelike begins to sing.”
Quarantined Air Traveler: ‘I Didn’t Want to Put Anybody at Risk’
by Jim Benning | 05.30.07 | 3:31 PM ET
The quarantined man infected with a particularly dangerous form of tuberculosis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he “didn’t want to put anybody at risk” by flying to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon and returning to the U.S. for treatment. According to the newspaper, “He questioned why nobody told him to cancel his wedding before he left Atlanta—and why the CDC waited until he was on his honeymoon in Rome to order him into isolation.” The man, who is from the Atlanta area and says he has no symptoms, told the newspaper: “I’m a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person. This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary confinement in Italy thing.”
