Travel Blog
IRS Beats Airlines in Customer Satisfaction Survey
by Michael Yessis | 05.16.07 | 1:00 PM ET
When this happens and this happens and this happens and this happens, it’s easy to understand why. The report comes from the University of Michigan’s annual American Customer Satisfaction index, which surveyed 80,000 consumers and ranked 19 industries in the United States. “If a company has a score close to the IRS’ score, something is awfully wrong,” Claes Fornell, the study director, told USA Today’s Roger Yu. Only the cable and satellite TV industry fared lower than the airline industry.
Photo by Ingorrr, via flickr. (Creative Commons).
Related on World Hum:
* Armrest Seating, Anyone?
* Want to Send a Message to the People Who Search Your Bags? Try Some Fourth Amendment Luggage Tape.
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Yahoo! BuzzTravel Writer on Airport Stranding in Texas: ‘My Head Was in Burma’
by Jim Benning | 05.16.07 | 11:48 AM ET
Last month, in the latest in a string of widely reported passenger stranding ordeals, an American Airlines jet with 180 people on board sat on the tarmac in Midland, Texas for almost 10 hours. The flight was headed to Dallas when bad weather forced a detour to Midland, and there passengers sat, unable to leave the aircraft, growing ever more hungry and frustrated. We didn’t know it at the time, but Jeff Biggers, a World Hum contributor who was nearing the end a nationwide book tour, was among those on board. He’s quoted briefly in Joe Sharkey’s story about such incidents in yesterday’s New York Times. I wanted to learn the gory details straight from the passenger’s mouth, so I dialed up Jeff to chat about the experience, and to ask him what he thought of the proposed passengers’ bill of rights to help prevent such ordeals.
If You’re Rich, Influential or Arnold Schwarzenegger, Svalbard Would Like You to Visit
by Michael Yessis | 05.16.07 | 9:57 AM ET
You really don’t have to be any or all of those things, but if you are, Svalbard looks forward to seeing you and enlisting your help in solving the planet’s climate crisis. The Norwegian-run archipelago, situated in the Arctic Ocean between that country and the North Pole, is billing itself as a great place to see the effects of global warming first-hand. According to a Reuters story, local officials want to spur more help in the fight against global warming, and they believe that welcoming tourists—particularly rich and influential tourists—to see melting glaciers and the glory of the threatened polar bear-dominated ecosystem can stimulate action.
Does the United Nations Need a Secretary of Transport?
by Michael Yessis | 05.15.07 | 3:50 PM ET
Tyler Brûlé makes a plea for one in the International Herald Tribune, and he’s convincing. “It could be argued that the secretary general has better, more important things to be getting on with than worry about how people get from A to B and in what shape,” Brûlé writes. “I would argue that for a sector worth so much money, that is ultimately responsible for the patterns of human migration and is increasingly in the spotlight for the mistreatment of those it carries over land, sea and through the air, it’s not only necessary but urgent.”
Japan’s Latest Budget Accommodation: Internet Cafes
by Jim Benning | 05.15.07 | 3:14 PM ET
Photo by Jael via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Seriously. The nation that brought us the capsule hotel has done it again. The country’s working poor—and salarymen who don’t want to spring for a capsule after a night of drinking—are spending nights in Internet cafes, according to a Reuters story. For $12 to $20, they get a reclining chair in front of a computer, soft drinks, comics and, of course, Internet access. No word on how many low-budget travelers (also known as the backpack lunatic fringe) are spending nights in Internet cafes, but Wikitravel suggest Japanese cafes are an option, noting that some even provide a mat to sleep on and a shower.
Happy Birthday, Stewardesses
by Jim Benning | 05.15.07 | 2:29 PM ET
Yes, you in the fabulous oxygen mask. And your colleagues. On this day back in 1930, long before they became flight attendants, stewardesses had their big debut. The Today in History column notes that registered nurse Ellen Church started work as a stewardess for Boeing Air Transport on a flight from Oakland to Chicago. Slate, which suggests it was actualy a flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne, has a slide show to mark the occasion.
Related on World Hum:
* The New Hot Job in India: Flight Attendant
* ‘Has the Romance Gone Out of Travel?’
* Who Wears the Pants on Alitalia Flights?
* Singapore Girl: Icon, Anachronism, Winged Geisha and Pretty Young Thing
* Flight Attendants After 9/11
Photo by Mandroid via Flickr (Creative Commons).
You Can Find Your Bathroom in the Dark. Why Can’t You Find Namibia on a Map?
by Michael Yessis | 05.15.07 | 12:36 PM ET
Perhaps you can. If you can and you’re a resident of the United States, consider yourself part of an enlightened minority. As a whole, Americans seem to know little about where places are situated in the world. In a shrinking world, that’s a problem for a variety of reasons explored in a terrific essay by Thomas Swick in the latest issue of Westways. He writes: “[I]t is not enough to know one’s individual piece of Earth, one’s place, because today all places are lavishly linked.”
Thou, Yosemite, Art His Goddess
by Jim Benning | 05.15.07 | 11:35 AM ET
Gary Kamiya recently returned from a visit to Yosemite, where he found spring turning in a typically brilliant performance. His eloquent essay in Salon today celebrates all places wild and California’s grandest national park, in particular. Kamiya draws heavily on the writings of John Muir. He also sprinkles in quotes from Melville, Camus, Shelley and even Edmund from “King Lear.” “The planet is putting on its most spectacular show right now in Yosemite,” he begins. “Over an ancient sun-soaked cliff, a river that moments ago was as staid and obedient as you and me is hurling itself over the edge like a runaway roller coaster, turning into a hundred-headed shower of white downward-streaking comets, twisting and turning and dissolving and embracing and vanishing and reappearing, falling 500, a thousand, 1,500 feet before it collides with the rocks and disappears into a maelstrom of foam and mist.” For the uninitiated, that’s Yosemite Falls.
Related on World Hum:
* Celebrating California’s Highway 395
* Gary Snyder: ‘Our Western Thoreau’
* Can Slow Travel Save the Planet?
Photo by i_r_e_n_e via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Burning Mao
by Jim Benning | 05.14.07 | 6:14 PM ET
You have to hand it to Chinese authorities. Just a day after the giant must-see portrait of Mao Zedong hanging in Tiananmen Square was damaged when a man threw a burning object at it Saturday, they replaced it with an identical portrait. Which makes you wonder: Just how many giant Mao portraits do they have waiting in the wings? It’s downright Warholesque. According to Reuters, a man from Xinjiang has been held in the case. (Something tells me he hasn’t read China’s current best-selling book.) If he’s convicted of vandalizing the portrait and punished like one man who attacked the painting in 1989, he could go to prison for years.
Related on World Hum:
* ‘Confucius Craze’ Sweeps China
* China to Female Taxi Drivers: No Chunky Earrings!
* Beijing Visitors May Get Some ‘Mixed Elbow with Garlic Mud’ After All
Photo by yeowatzup via Flickr (Creative Commons).
‘Brava Gondoliera! Brava!’: Venice Gets its First Female Gondolier
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 2:22 PM ET
Meet Alexandra Hai, Venice’s first female gondolier. Ever. She’s 40 years old. She’s of German and Algerian descent. A court ruling says she’s allowed to paddle only for guests at a particular Venice hotel. And she’s stirred up the ire of many of her male counterparts. “To gondoliers,” Peter Keifer writes in the New York Times, “the job is fit only for a man, since it involves strength, ability to navigate currents and paddle in reverse, and even the aesthetics of the gondoliers of yore in their black-and-white striped shirts.” Sounds like something from 1,000 years ago, which is almost how long women had been on the outside looking in until Hai came along.
What Happened to the ‘Lovable Aussie’ Traveler?
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 9:30 AM ET
Ben Groundwater says being an Australian abroad used to be “awesome.” “You’d find yourself the token conversation piece at get-togethers, where you could persuade people that you wrestled kangaroos for a living,” he writes on The Backpacker, a Sydney Morning Herald blog. “Doors magically opened, hassles were incredibly smoothed over, with the help of an Australian accent. But it’s all gone wrong…” In short, Groundwater says, Australian travelers are now often greeted with disdain. Among the possible reasons: Overexposure, “blokes on buck’s weekends,” politics and jealousy. He concludes: “The bottom line, however, is that anyone who’s travelled knows there are a lot of Australians out there acting like dickheads, and it’s giving the rest of us a bad name.” As you might expect, the post has stimulated some heated—and interesting—conversation.
R.I.P. William Becker, Co-Founder of Motel 6
by Michael Yessis | 05.14.07 | 9:23 AM ET
Photo by independentman via Flickr (Creative Commons).
The “6” in Motel 6 famously represents the $6 William Becker and his co-founder, Paul Greene, charged travelers per night when the budget chain opened its first property in Santa Barbara, California in 1962. According to an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Becker “had been inspired by a monthlong, cross-country car trip from Santa Barbara to his family’s farm in Greenwich, N.Y., in the summer of 1960.” The two founders leveraged their background in building low-cost tract homes, and turned out rooms with no-iron sheets, coin-operated televisions and “shower stalls with rounded edges rather than corners to reduce cleaning time.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Naked and the Red
by Michael Yessis | 05.11.07 | 3:45 PM ET
From Sin City to St. Petersburg, Russia, we’re not worried about traveling with too many clothes this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in St. Petersburg, Russia
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Sin City Uncovered: Vegas Strips Down to Embrace its Naughty Side
* It’s an $8 billion embrace.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph (current)
The Perfect Break: Jersey
* The island, not the home of Bon Jovi.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Brisbane Times (current)
Gang Violence Marring NZ’s Image
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
A Mass-Transit Trek Through Portland’s Singular Sites
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* It’s been so many weeks now we’ve stopped counting.
Could Michael Moore’s Cuba Visit Prompt New Debate on Travel Ban?
by Jim Benning | 05.11.07 | 3:37 PM ET
We wish, but we’re not holding our breath.
The ‘Naughty Side’ of Las Vegas: An $8 Billion a Year Enterprise
by Michael Yessis | 05.11.07 | 2:23 PM ET
That astronomical figure comes from a titillating look at Las Vegas’s adult entertainment offerings in USA Today. It’s an estimate from Sin City’s chamber of commerce, and, if accurate, it’s more than the gambling haul on the Las Vegas Strip in 2006. Analysts put that at an estimated $6.5 billion. I was surprised by the staggering figure, but perhaps I shouldn’t be considering the ubiquity and success of the “What happens here, stays here” ad campaign. “Our vice squad is busy,” officer Martin Wright, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, tells USA Today’s Kitty Bean Yancey.
