Travel Blog
The Art of the Holiday Jingles Road Trip
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.18.07 | 4:27 PM ET
NPR’s Stephen Thompson recently drove 1,000 miles to see his family for Thanksgiving and, en route, listened to hours and hours of Christmas music, both cool and corny. Think Eileen Ivers and Carnie Wilson, Josh Groban and Michael Bolton, and even “A Twismas Story” by the late country crooner Conway Twitty. Would I be a loser if the idea of Mr. Thompson’s roadtrip soundtrack made me weepy with jealousy?
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Yahoo! BuzzHeadline of the Day: ‘Brazilian Santa Escapes Gunfire’
by Jim Benning | 12.18.07 | 4:20 PM ET
Seriously. Matt Groening, are you taking notes?
R.I.P. 64 Journalists
by Jim Benning | 12.18.07 | 4:00 PM ET
That’s the number of journalists killed around the globe this year—the most in over a decade. Not surprisingly, Iraq claimed more lives than any other country, 31, nearly all of them Iraqi. “Somalia was ranked the second deadliest country with seven journalists deaths in 2007,” Reuters reports. “Sri Lanka and Pakistan each recorded five journalists deaths, and Afghanistan and Eritrea each had two deaths.” One positive note: For the first time in more than a decade, there wasn’t a single reporter murdered in Colombia. Could it be further evidence of this?
South Africa: Three Great Books
by Eva Holland | 12.18.07 | 7:37 AM ET
In Three Great Books, we highlight must-reads for a topic, city or country.
Photo by Victor Geere via Flickr (Creative Commons)
The German philosopher Friedrich Schiller believed that periods of oppression and tyranny produce the greatest works of art; in his words, that “truth and beauty, with their own indestructible vitality, struggle triumphantly to the surface.” In South Africa’s case, at least, he just may have been right. The apartheid era and its aftermath have inspired a wealth of high-quality literature from the likes of Alan Paton, Zakes Mda and Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee. Three great books:
World Hum on Travel Channel’s Pilot Week
by Michael Yessis | 12.17.07 | 6:39 PM ET
See how a traveling band of World Hum contributors cleans up for television this Thursday at 8 p.m. during the Travel Channel’s debut of 25 Mind Blowing Escapes. Terry Ward, Tony Perrottet, Wendy Knight, Rolf Potts, Matt Gross and your humble editors, Jim Benning and I, are among the travelers revealing our thoughts on some provocative spots around the world. It’s one of 10 new Travel Channel shows airing this week, beginning tonight at 8 p.m. with the first episode of The Feasty Boys Eat America.
Stop the Presses: Miss Belgium Doesn’t Speak Dutch
by Jim Benning | 12.17.07 | 4:27 PM ET
No, she speaks French, and that’s why she was booed by some of the 3,400 people in attendance at the Miss Belgium contest in Antwerp. Turns out, 20-year-old Alizee Poulicek has spent half her life in in Czech Republic, so I’m guessing she speaks Czech, too. Is not speaking Dutch really such a problem, Belgium? I know you have your language issues, but come on, at least she doesn’t think Europe is a country.
And You Thought Getting a New U.S. Passport Was a Pain Now?
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.17.07 | 4:02 PM ET
Imagine if you were born without a birth certificate, as some Native Americans were. Some are concerned that new U.S. Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requirements will bar them from crossing back and forth into Mexico as they’ve done for years. Apparently a tribal enrollment card decorated with eagle feathers does not a valid passport make.
‘Which Middle East Capital Was Once Known as Philadelphia?’
by Jim Benning | 12.17.07 | 11:50 AM ET
That and other intriguing questions (and answers) can be found in the San Francisco Chronicle travel section’s new geography quiz. Presumably, Hot Americans on Television Botching Geography Questions need not apply—if they do, please send us the video.
David Farley on Calcata, Italy and the Search for the Holy Foreskin
by Jim Benning | 12.17.07 | 11:10 AM ET
World Hum contributor David Farley—travel writer turned foreskin detective—tells the Toronto Star all about his unlikely book project, and why he gets responses from church officials like this: “What? The Holy Foreskin? You want me to hook you up with someone at the Vatican to talk about the Holy Foreskin? No way! That’s ridiculous.”
Related on World Hum:
* Where in the World Are You, David Farley?
Around the World in 557 Front Pages
by Michael Yessis | 12.17.07 | 10:07 AM ET
This could become the first page I visit every morning: Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages mashup. Roll your cursor over any of the hundreds of cities and regions of the world, and up pops the front page of the corresponding newspaper, such as this morning’s El Mundo (pictured) from Medellin, Colombia. This morning the site features 557 front pages from 58 different countries. Hard to think of a better way to get a quick glance at what’s going on in the world.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Air Time
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.07 | 3:37 PM ET
There’s a lot of love in the air. And anger. And curiosity about the 64-year-old German man who chugged his Vodka instead of giving it up at an airport security checkpoint. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Popular Travel Story
Iloho (current)
Number of Air Rage Incidents Triples in 3 Years
Most Blogged Travel News Story
Buzz Tracker
Man Chugs Liter of Vodka in Airport Security Line
* Among the lingering questions about the incident: What does he want for Christmas?
Best Airport for Forming a Relationship With a Fellow Traveler
Sperling’s BestPlaces/AXE study
Philadelphia International Airport
* The study was “based on amenities per traveler, on-time performance and inclement weather,” USA Today reports.
Airport With Most Healthful Food Offerings
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
Most Read Feature Story
World Hum (posted this week)
Borat: Touristic Guidings to Kazakhstan and U.S. and A.
Big City, Bright Lights, Shady Bars
by Eva Holland | 12.14.07 | 11:17 AM ET
Something unexpected happened this week: my grown-up, travel writing present and my teenage, trashy-movie-going past collided. It turns out that the film adaptation of “Eat, Pray, Love” won’t be Elizabeth Gilbert’s first brush with Hollywood. Long before she wrote her seemingly unstoppable bestseller, she wrote a shorter piece for GQ about her early days bartending in New York City. That piece became the movie Coyote Ugly. Now, this may sound shallow to people who take their travel inspiration from Thoreau or Mark Twain or Christopher McCandless. But Coyote Ugly, silly and smutty though it may be, was still the first movie I can remember seeing that made me realize there was a wide, wild world out there, and that I needed to experience it.
New Travel Book: ‘Transit Maps of the World’
by Julia Ross | 12.14.07 | 10:57 AM ET
Full title: “Transit Maps of the World: The World’s First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth”
Author: Mark Ovenden, former MTV and BBC broadcaster
Released: Oct. 30, 2007
Travel genre: Subterranean guide
Gadling Goes to North Korea
by Jim Benning | 12.13.07 | 12:13 PM ET
Gadling blogger Neil Woodburn has been posting some interesting pieces about his recent trip to North Korea. My favorite so far: The Sexy Traffic Girls of Pyongyang. Turns out there are no traffic signals in the capital. Hence, the “traffic girls.”
Photo: What You Don’t Want to See at a Border Crossing
by Jim Benning | 12.13.07 | 11:55 AM ET
At least not if you’re trying to cross said border. This shot was taken this week at the Italy-France border at Ventimiglia. Thousands of striking Italian truck drivers have been blocking major ports, border-crossings and motorways for days around Italy, causing a good bit of chaos, including fuel and food shortages. The good news: They’ve agreed to end the blockade, at least for now.
Photo: AP.
