Travel Blog
“Suicide Tourism” Web Sites Close
by Michael Yessis | 11.04.05 | 10:41 AM ET
Roger Graham’s Web sites offered to help people make arrangements to kill themselves in Cambodia, and the expat American shut them down voluntarily today in an effort to avoid a confrontation with local authorities. According to an AP report, one of the now-unavailable sites offered a rationale for suicide and links to purchase books on the subject. “You are going to die anyway,” Graham apparently wrote, “so why not in Cambodia?”
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Yahoo! BuzzRanan Lurie Unveils a Painting Designed to Travel
by Michael Yessis | 11.03.05 | 5:30 AM ET
It’s called the Uniting Painting, and it debuted Tuesday in the lobby of U.N. headquarters in New York. But the man behind the painting, political cartoonist Ranan Lurie, envisions an ever-changing work of art that will extend out the U.N.‘s doors, across the East River and througout the world. “I do not have one single country where it was offered that has turned it down,” Lurie told the Voice of America’s Barbara Schoetzau. “Right now we have South Africa’s Ministry of Culture. We have South Korea wanting to do it with the purpose of spreading the painting to North Korea. And that will be the tendency, to spread it around and in different phases, slowly but surely bringing a uniting painting that lives up to its title.”
Interview with Joshua Berman
by Michael Yessis | 11.03.05 | 3:28 AM ET
Rolf Potts has posted a Q&A with writer Joshua Berman, whose book on Belize won the 2005 Lowell Thomas Award for best guidebook. He tells Potts that travel writing isn’t the most lucrative gig: “The only way I’ve been able to live off my writing is by taking my relatively meager book advances and running straight for the border, preferably to a country like Nicaragua where my expenses are minimal to nil.”
Visit Afghanistan: “Urban Attacks Are Infrequent”
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 1:12 PM ET
That’s but one of Robert Young Pelton’s “once dangerous, now safe (sort of)” travel recommendations for 2006. Pelton’s picks, published in National Geographic Adventure, also include Colombia (“Yes, I did get kidnapped in Colombia”) and Sabah, which he calls, curiously, “Borneo for grown-ups.” Ever cautious, Pelton suggests avoiding central Iraq, delicately noting that “People are hunting you.”
Happy Day of the Dead
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 12:49 PM ET
Today is the culmination of the great Mexican holiday. If you’re looking to get into the spirit, check out Picnicking with Los Muertos from the World Hum archives.
L.A. Times Launches Travel News Weblog
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 12:32 PM ET
A Travel Writer’s Campaign to Impeach President Bush
by Jim Benning | 11.02.05 | 7:45 AM ET
Travel writer Brad Newsham, author of the fine travel memoir Take Me With You, has launched an effort to impeach President Bush. No joke. At his Web site, where he outlines the campaign, he notes that he initially believed the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq. Now, he writes, “The number of people who still believe we were not consciously manipulated into an illegal, discretionary war is now roughly the same as the number of people who still believe in O.J.”
“I Tried to Conquer the Evil Yankee Imperialists and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt”
by Jim Benning | 11.01.05 | 1:27 PM ET
That’s the message that writer Ryan Clancy would like to see on the next generation of T-shirts featuring the iconic image of Che Guevara. Clancy isn’t happy that Che has become a symbol of idealistic rebellion around the globe. “Che demanded worldwide revolution, even if it meant a stream of death and misery,” he writes in Monday’s USA Today.
Simon Winchester on Public Radio
by Jim Benning | 11.01.05 | 12:36 PM ET
Occasional travel writer and raconteur extraordinaire Simon Winchester is making the rounds to promote his new book, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. He is scheduled to appear today on two Los Angeles public radio shows that broadcast or podast online: Talk of the City at 89.3 FM at 2 p.m., and Politics of Culture on 89.9 FM at 2:30. Winchester is one of the most articulate and compelling storytellers around, and whether he is talking about travel, the Oxford English Dictionary or geology, he’s always a pleasure to listen to.
Oxford Atlas of the World: Geography Resource, Workout Tool
by Jim Benning | 10.31.05 | 9:32 PM ET
I love my copy of the Oxford “Atlas of the World.” It was given to me as a gift last year, and it’s the first place I go when I have a geography question. It’s also the first place I go when I can’t find a dumbbell, because it’s the heaviest book I own. Atlases don’t get much press, so I was happy to hear an interview with the editor of the Oxford Atlas, Ben Keene, on the public radio show Marketplace today. It turns out that the new edition of the book weighs in at a hefty 12 pounds, and it hits stores Tuesday.
Haunted Travels: Searching For the Ghost of Jack the Ripper
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.05 | 6:32 AM ET
Here’s a spooky Halloween diversion: The Travel Channel’s Most Haunted is finishing up a weekend-long search for the ghost of Jack the Ripper. The show will broadcast live from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET, and four Web cams will be turned on as well. Be warned. I checked them out yesterday, and they’re no match for the cam trained on Pete’s Pond. Elsewhere, Christina Valhouli at Forbes offers a list of the world’s spookiest destinations.
Travel From an Academic Point of View
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.05 | 4:27 AM ET
A lot of people ask vagabond Rolf Potts questions about the art of travel, many of which he answers in a column for World Hum. Sometimes he’s asked by academics and graduate students to talk about travel from another perspective, and he’s decided to start featuring some of those exchanges on his Vagabonding site.
Celebrity Travel Watch: Pierce Brosnan
by Michael Yessis | 10.30.05 | 11:20 PM ET
The former James Bond has a travel movie of sorts coming out. In The Matador he plays “a traveling hit man facing a midlife crisis while tracking targets from Mexico City to Budapest,” and Travel + Leisure has a Q&A with him in its November issue. My favorite revelation? Brosnan travels with a ukulele.
Backpackers’ Killer Arrested in Cambodia
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.05 | 11:14 PM ET
Chhouk Rin, a former Khmer Rouge commander who was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1994 murder of three backpackers, was arrested yesterday in Anlong Veng, Cambodia. Rin and his accomplices had abducted Australian David Wilson, Briton Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet from a Cambodian train traveling between Phnom Penh and the southern city of Sihanoukville, held the trio hostage for two months, then killed them. The travelers’ bodies were found in a shallow grave. Philip Gourevitch wrote about the events in the September 1995 issue of Outside magazine, and his story is still available online. It’s such a vivid piece of writing that when I read the news of Rin’s arrest today, Gourevitch’s story immediately came to mind, even though I read it 10 years ago.
Indie Rockers The Walkmen Are Writing a Road Novel
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.05 | 5:50 AM ET
I know The Walkmen can write a hell of a rock song. And after seeing them open for Modest Mouse last year, I know they can make L.A. hipsters bob their heads. But can they write a novel anyone would want to read? Time will tell. The members of the band hope to release their collective literary effort by the time their third album comes out early next year. The book’s title: John’s Journey.
