Travel Blog

That’s just one bit of advice from nation-branding guru Simon Anholt, the founding editor of Place Branding, a wonkish quarterly journal devoted to nation brand management. It’s covered in a recent issue of Foreign Policy (even if you’re not a policy wonk, the dessert recipes in the back are fabulous). Why are we writing about it? Why have we just created a new weblog category devoted to nation branding? We can’t get enough of the topic, in part because we know at some level it drives the travel decisions we make. As we’ve noted before, branding efforts have completely changed public perception of countries like Spain and New Zealand. That makes one wonder whether countries with bigger image problems can turn things around with a slick marketing campaign, a few well-timed commercials on CNN and a funky-hip logo. Probably not, says Anholt.

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Petra Makes Push for Seven Wonders Status

by Michael Yessis | 01.17.07 | 12:03 PM ET

Until last century, Petra was virtually off limits to non-Arab travelers. And in recent years, troubles in the Middle East have kept travelers away. But now that Petra has been shortlisted for the New Seven Wonders of the World list, the Jordanian government is making a push to show off the “rose red city half as old as time.” The BBC’s Jon Leyne reports that Petra “has probably not seen such a buzz of activity since civilised life ended there in the 8th century AD.”

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R.I.P. Bradford Washburn

by Michael Yessis | 01.17.07 | 7:12 AM ET

Photographer Ansel Adams called the mountaineer, mapmaker and photographer Bradford Washburn “a roving genius of mind and mountains.”

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Honoring ‘Babel’

by Jim Benning | 01.16.07 | 9:41 PM ET

I’ve done a bit of complaining about some travel-related films recently, but I have no qualms with Babel. In fact, I was happy to see it win the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie last night. While it doesn’t depict world travel in the most favorable light—among other calamities in the film, Cate Blanchett’s character is shot during a trip to Morocco—it does movingly show how interconnected the world is becoming, and how that doesn’t necessarily make communication across borders (or even within families) any easier. Filmed in rural Morocco, Tokyo and Tijuana, it’s the kind of movie that somehow simultaneously shrinks the world and expands it. It’s ambitious, with a global perspective, and how many movies can you say that about?

Need a New Passport? Bill the Caribbean.

by Terry Ward | 01.16.07 | 2:59 PM ET

When my passport expired late last year, I shelled out nearly $150 in expedited fees and overnight shipping envelopes to have a new one rushed my way. If Morocco hadn’t been calling, however, perhaps I would have waited for the Bahamas to pick up the tab. Nassau Paradise Island is spending big bucks on newspaper ads—I saw one in the Orlando Sentinel—touting a new gimmick to keep passport-shy Americans coming: 19 member hotels are offering to reimburse the cost of passports in exchange for a minimum two-night stay.

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Jack Kerouac in Denver: ‘Just Another Traveler on His Way to Wherever’

by Michael Yessis | 01.16.07 | 8:51 AM ET

The original scroll of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is currently on display in Denver, and Westword’s Amy Haimerl uses the occasion to revisit the writer’s time in the city and examine its far-reaching impact.

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Remembering MLK

by Jim Benning | 01.15.07 | 1:29 PM ET

How to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s life? Those inclined to travel can visit a number of historic places that explore his legacy, beginning with the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Georgia.

Photo: pingnews.com via Flickr. (Public domain.)

‘Has the Romance Gone Out of Travel?’

by Michael Yessis | 01.15.07 | 9:17 AM ET

Michael Bywater argues it has and Alexander Frater says no way in a he said-he said debate this week in the pages of The Observer. I stand with Frater, a former chief travel correspondent for the paper, who writes: “To those who say the excitement has gone out of travel, I say ‘cobblers’. Curiosity continues to tug us around blind corners and over interesting hills, so that even something as innocuous as a sightseeing day trip in Ladakh can become a small adventure, a genuine golden moment.” The Atlantic has a similar story this month, as Virginia Postrel explores how glamour has been eliminated from air travel.

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Tom Haines in Romania: Exploring the Outer Edges of the EU

by Michael Yessis | 01.15.07 | 9:15 AM ET

Romania officially joined the European Union this year, and the Boston Globe’s Tom Haines used the occasion to kick off a four-part series to see how the changes will affect the citizens of many of the nations that have recently been welcomed into the EU. Part one begins in the fog-shrouded foothills of the Carpathian range. “[W]ith a wash of midmorning sun, only faint wisps of white lingered above the village of Voronet and a stone church adorned with frescoes in rich red, gold, and blue,” Haines writes. “The Orthodox images of Adam plowing, of the Last Judgment, and more were not sheltered inside a sanctuary, but exposed, vulnerable, on outside walls.”

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The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: California Dreaming

by Michael Yessis | 01.12.07 | 8:40 AM ET

From Los Angeles to Big Sur, travelers have California on their minds this week. Supermodels, Walt Disney World, St. John and Sealand, too. Here’s the Zeitgeist:

Top-Ranked ‘Zeitgeist’ City
Hub Culture (2007)
Los Angeles
* The Walt Disney Concert Hall (pictured) and other attractions have helped turn L.A. into a city of the moment.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Big Sur Without the Crowds

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Ghostly Squid Boats of San Pedro

Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
For Sale: World’s Smallest Island Nation
* The price for Sealand? $100 million, by one estimate.

Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2007 by Bob Sehlinger with Len Testa

Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Paulina Porizkova: A Model Traveler

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Dance of the Flight Attendant
* A clever comic by Jen Wang.

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Bangkok, Thailand

by Ben Keene | 01.12.07 | 6:44 AM ET

Coordinates: 13 45 N 100 31 E
Population: 6,604,000 (2005 est.)
Maps always have distortions and abbreviations: It simply isn’t possible to fit every place name and natural feature on a single page or sheet of paper. Of course, this may seem obvious to anyone who’s ever squinted at an atlas in search of his or her hometown. Arguably the best example of this is the city westerners call Bangkok. Called Krung Thep by the people of Thailand, the full name of the capital founded on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in 1782 is a whopping 43 syllables. Roughly translated, it means “great city of angels, the supreme repository of divine jewels, the great land unconquerable, the grand and prominent realm, the royal and delightful capital city full of nine noble gems, the highest royal dwelling and grand palace, the divine shelter and living place of the reincarnated spirits.” It would challenge a Thai T-shirt designer as much as any cartographer.

—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.

Peru: It’s No Nepal

by Michael Yessis | 01.12.07 | 6:16 AM ET

Royal Nepal Airlines apologized to Peru for promoting Nepalese tourism using an image of Machu Picchu, perhaps the most iconic attraction in all of South America. How does such a blunder occur? M.B. Khadka of the airline said the mix up was caused by the printing agency in charge of making the airline’s advertising posters, according to news reports.

A Former Peace Corps Volunteer as President?

by Jim Benning | 01.11.07 | 8:30 PM ET

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who announced his candidacy for the White House today, isn’t exactly a front-runner. But he is, interestingly, a former Peace Corps volunteer who served in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. Today on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews, another former Peace Corps volunteer, asked Dodd about that experience.

 

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Jimmy Buffett at 60: Still Selling ‘Unsentimental’ Tropical Fantasies

by Jim Benning | 01.11.07 | 5:15 PM ET

As I’ve confessed before, I’m a sucker for Jimmy Buffett songs celebrating margaritas, hammocks and sailing odysseys in the tropics. How can you not love a guy who would name an album “Banana Wind”? So I was happy to read yesterday’s appreciation of Buffett in Slate. The sandal-shod singer-songwriter turned 60 last month, and he’s still touring and turning out new albums. Jody Rosen places Buffett in the long tradition of singers evoking tropical fantasies, from Bing Crosby to Don Ho. The difference with Buffett? He is, he writes, identifying something I think is key to his songs’ appeal, “unsentimental and journalistic.”

 

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