Travel Blog
R.I.P. William Shurcliff
by Michael Yessis | 06.28.06 | 12:46 PM ET
The famed physicist was, among other things, the founder of the Citizens League Against the Sonic Boom, “a scientific clearinghouse that opposed the U.S. government’s development of supersonic transit,” according to an obituary in today’s Washington Post. Shurcliff emphasized the “sound pollution” of supersonic jets and, writes Adam Bernstein in the Post, was credited with helping to end the development of American supersonic jets and to limit supersonic flights from Europe to the U.S. Shurcliff also built kayaks, helped create military camouflage paint, co-edited an official history of the Manhattan Project, advocated for solar energy and documented atomic tests on Bikini Atoll. He was 97.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Most Polite Cities in the World
by Michael Yessis | 06.28.06 | 6:30 AM ET
They’re New York, Zurich and Toronto, according to a survey in the July issue of Readers Digest. The least polite? Mumbai, Bucharest and Kuala Lumpur. The magazine arrived at its conclusions after a semi-scientific survey: It asked its reporters in major cities in the 35 different countries where it publishes to perform a series of tests.
World Hum in the Wall Street Journal
by Jim Benning | 06.26.06 | 11:56 AM ET
Today’s Wall Street Journal kindly named World Hum one of the top travel weblogs around, generously noting: “Superb writing and stylish layout make visiting the site like cracking open a high-quality travel magazine.” Other sites making the list include NewYorkology, Lonely Planet’s Journeys blog and BootsnAll. Unfortunately, the story is available only to subscribers. However, another story in today’s Journal, available to everyone, notes that niche Web publications, when done well (say, with superb writing and a stylish layout, we’re thinking), can make great investments. Not that we’re suggesting any investors take an interest in World Hum or anything. That would be crazy.
The 50th Anniversary of the Interstate System: Where Have the Big Roads Taken Us?
by Michael Yessis | 06.26.06 | 7:25 AM ET
Robert Sullivan, author of the upcoming book Cross Country, takes a look at the impact of the U.S. Interstate Highway System in Sunday’s New York Times magazine. In its 50 years of existence, the Interstate System has not only changed the way Americans travel, but the way we live. “In building it during the 60’s, the U.S. destroyed nearly as much public housing as it put up,” Sullivan writes. “Then again, in a backhanded way, the Interstate System helped spawn the modern environmental movement, with the battle over I-40 through Overton Park in Memphis, for example, and with the fight over I-75 though the Everglades. It gave us historic preservation, after wiping out middle-class black neighborhoods in New Orleans. It also gave us sprawl. It gave us Atlanta. It gave us the modern South.”
Hanoi Embraces the Colonel
by Terry Ward | 06.26.06 | 6:50 AM ET
Last week, American fast-foot giant KFC opened its first outlet in Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi. It was a huge hit. “The line was so long Phan Huyen Trang, 26, had to wait 25 minutes for chicken, coleslaw and mashed potato and gravy,” according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur report. “‘You have to wait for a longer time to have a KFC meal than to have pho,’ Trang complained, referring to the Vietnamese national dish of beef soup with rice noodles.”
Not a Bad Time to Be in Ghana
by Jim Benning | 06.23.06 | 1:23 PM ET
Travel writer Joshua Berman is in the midst of one of those ‘round-the-world trips that would make anyone with remotely itchy feet turn, uh, green with envy. Over the last year, he has passed through Paris, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia. And yesterday, he was in Ghana to see the African nation defeat the United States in a World Cup match. Not surprisingly, as this photo he shot indicates, he found himself in the midst of one serious party.
Kabylia, Algeria
by Ben Keene | 06.23.06 | 12:37 PM ET
Coordinates: 36 40 N 4 55 E
Number of provinces included: 8
As a descriptive category, world music succeeds in being a particularly vague label for such a wide range of sound. The musical styles and traditions rooted in specific places usually have more meaningful names. Kabylia, for example, a small region along Algeria’s Mediterranean Coast between the cities of Algiers and Skikda, is home to an eclectic type of folk music called yal. The fiercely independent Berber people living in Kabylia developed it by blending rhythms and instrumentation to produce something similar to rai, a more familiar type of Algerian music. This mountainous, rather isolated part of Africa’s second largest country is divided into two sections by the Sahel-Soumman valley.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Pico Iyer on World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books
by Rolf Potts | 06.22.06 | 2:07 PM ET
Last month, we posted our list of the Top 30 Travel Books of all time, to which I contributed a number of reviews. After the dust settled and dozens of readers weighed in with their own recommendations, it occurred to me that I correspond with a number of the authors who made the list. What, I thought, would Pico Iyer or Peter Hessler or Tony Horwitz or Tim Cahill or Jeffrey Tayler think of the selections? Curious, I queried these five writers, all of whom gave me thoughtful replies. I’ll share comments from each of these writers in coming days, starting today with Pico Iyer, whose “Video Night in Kathmandu” weighed in at number 8 on the list.
Kiwis Sour on U.S., and it’s Getting Personal
by Jim Benning | 06.22.06 | 1:43 PM ET
And a bit ugly. According to a story in the Christian Science Monitor, a recent poll found that while 54 percent of Kiwis had positive feelings about the U.S. in 2001, only 29 percent of them feel that way today. Perhaps more surprising is that Americans in New Zealand are getting an earful. One American teacher on the North Island got so tired of verbal abuse from his students, he filed a complaint with the country’s Human Rights Commission.
Southwest Flight 1248 Pilots “Picked the Wrong Day to Stop Sniffin’ Glue”
by Michael Yessis | 06.22.06 | 1:03 PM ET
I love the movie Airplane! And I’m not above quoting it. But I’m not sure I want the pilot of my plane barking out lines from it while flying through bad weather. A snowstorm, say. Yet according to the partial transcript of Southwest Flight 1248—the flight that ran off a snowy runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport last December, killing a six-year-old boy—Capt. Bruce Sutherland and first officer Steven Oliver were yukking it up less than 15 minutes before the plane’s tragic accident.
Thai Monks Succumb to World Cup Hangovers
by Michael Yessis | 06.22.06 | 11:12 AM ET
Oh, those wild monks. The Nation newspaper in Thailand reports that they’ve been staying up all night watching World Cup matches, “causing them to skip their morning walk to beg for alms.” It’s not against the rules, says Phra Kru Sophonkaweewat, deputy abbot of Jedee Lung Wiharn Temple in Chiang Mai. “We allow them to watch some matches but they are prohibited from watching all of them and engaging in noisy cheering,” he said. “And no gambling is allowed.” Even though Thailand doesn’t have a team in the competition, the country is soccer mad and it has several connections to the tournament. All the game balls were made in a factory in Sri Racha, Chonburi province, and one Thai linesman is working the games in Germany. Check out stories in the International Herald Tribune/ThaiDay by World Hum contributor Newley Purnell.
Tom Bissell on Robert D. Kaplan and Travel Writing
by Jim Benning | 06.21.06 | 7:51 AM ET
Chasing the Sea author Tom Bissell doesn’t much care for the work of Robert D. Kaplan, the author of numerous books about travel and world affairs. In a new essay in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Bissell offers an extensive critique Kaplan’s work. He also has a few words for travel writers in general. “[T]he travel genre has much to answer for,” he writes.
Ballet for Bellhops
by Michael Yessis | 06.20.06 | 7:31 PM ET
Bellhops at Washington D.C.‘s Hotel Palomar are learning lessons in classical ballet in advance of the hotel’s September opening. “It’s a ... uh ... different experience,” bellboy-in-training Alvin Green tells the Washington Post’s Adriane Quinlan. It’s part of a trend by boutique hotels to develop themes other than “Hand over credit card, get key.”
Buford, “Heat” at the Post
by Michael Yessis | 06.20.06 | 11:53 AM ET
Foodie travelers can chat with Heat author Bill Buford today at 3 p.m. ET at the Washington Post. Before serving an apprenticeship with Mario Batali in the kitchen of his New York restaurant Babbo, Buford spent time in Italy studying to be a pasta maker and butcher. He chronicles it all in “Heat.” The book has received rave reviews from, among others, the Post, the Onion, Slate and the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times recently profiled Buford and recounted his unlikely journey from New Yorker editor to culinary student. Reported the Times: “[N]ot too many people would have walked out on his job at the New Yorker. Few would have traded such cachet—rubbing shoulders with writers and influencing the national literary conversation—for a set of perilous kitchen knives.” Buford told the newspaper: “These all turned out to be exhilarating experiences. Before this happened, I was on the outside looking in. But now I’m a participant. I feel like I’m part of a culinary tradition.”
Interview with Peter Hessler
by Frank Bures | 06.20.06 | 11:34 AM ET
We’re always delighted when travel writers pop up on radio or TV. Over the weekend, Peter Hessler appeared on the radio show Here on Earth, Radio With Borders to discuss his new book, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present. Hessler’s first book, “River Town,” was No. 20 in our list of the Best Travel Books of All Time.
