Travel Blog
Colombia On Film (Again)
by Eva Holland | 12.29.08 | 1:17 PM ET
Sure, 2007’s Love in the Time of Cholera may never have become the big Colombian movie-tourism ticket that we were expecting (the film adaptation of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez classic tanked, critically and at the box office), but Cartagena—the city where “Cholera” was set—isn’t done yet.
There’s a new Cartagena-set movie in the works (called, appropriately enough, Cartagena) that will star Clive Owen as “an undercover agent at the center of the world’s cocaine trade,” as Get The Big Picture blogger Colin Boyd puts it.
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Yahoo! BuzzMorning Links: Post-War Comics, Notorious Airport Restrooms, Year-End Round-Ups and More
by Valerie Conners | 12.29.08 | 10:42 AM ET
- World Hum contributor Eric Weiner writes in a Washington Post op-ed about the recession and the pervasive negative media coverage that may just be making it worse.
- The Travel Hall of Infamy Awards have been announced, and yes, arm-sucking train toilets and scary pilots top the list.
- And the year-end round-ups continue: The San Francisco Chronicle highlights the year’s oddest travel stories.
- The hotel room of the future: straight lines and corners were so 20th century.
- The Tintin movie is in the works, and The Economist explains the popularity of the comic strip character—who grew to be a European cultural icon—through “the prism of post-war Europe.”
- The FBI has begun investigating the disappearance of a Norwegian Cruise Line passenger, reported missing on Friday and believed to have fallen overboard near the coast of Cancun.
- The airport restroom that gained notoriety following the Sen. Larry Craig “toe-tapping” scandal has become less of a tourist destination, said an airport official. He added, “I think we’ll all be glad when there’s no special interest in that restroom.”
- As the year’s end creeps closer, frequent flier mileage runs are in full swing. One traveler details the highs, lows and mad dashes of being a “frequent flier addict.”
World Hum’s Most Read: Dec. 20-26
by World Hum | 12.26.08 | 4:03 PM ET
Our five most popular features for the week:
1) Plato Was a Backpacker
2) Subcontinental Homesick Blues
3) World Hum’s Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time
4) What Every Traveler Should Know About Disposable Underwear
5) World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books (pictured)
Nine Travel Movies to Watch For in 2009
by Eva Holland | 12.26.08 | 12:41 PM ET
If there’s one December fixture that I enjoy almost as much as the ubiquitous “Best of the Past Year” list, it’s the “Trends to Watch Next Year” list. What’s new and hot? What’s old but hot again? And what never goes out of style? (Trends to Watch lists, that’s what.)
So, with that in mind, here are nine travel-esque movies hitting theaters in 2009.
The Descent 2: Looks like one of our favorite travel horror movies has spawned a sequel. In the second round, the lone survivor of a caving trip gone horrifically wrong heads back below the surface—local sheriff in tow—to confirm the fate of her companions. Predictably, things don’t quite go as planned.
Point Break: Indo: Twenty years later, there’s a new band of surfing bandits on the loose—this time in Bali—and a new surfing cop on their trail, too. The producers are being coy about possible cameos from Patrick Swayze or Keanu Reeves, but hey, Swayze turned up in a Dirty Dancing re-hashing a few years back, so why not Point Break, too?
Morning Links: Roman Gladiators, Michelin Guides, Prehistoric Airports and More
by Jim Benning | 12.26.08 | 11:58 AM ET
- Air travelers will soon be able to buy carbon offsets from self-service kiosks inside San Francisco Airport.
- A British tourist volunteering at an archaeological dig in Jerusalem discovered hundreds of gold coins dating from the 7th century.
- More trouble in Venice: All that water is causing the Campanile on St. Marks Square to tilt.
- The French edition of Michelin restaurant guide gets a new editor and—gasp—she’s not French.
- Thailand’s tourism economy is enduring its worst slump in decades.
- World Hum contributor Doug Lansky put together an audio slideshow about a new hostel in Stockholm—it’s set inside a jumbo jet.
- A three part series on NPR looks at the rise of earthquake tourism in Sichuan.
- Gladiators could soon return to Rome’s Colloseum. Now that’s ultimate fighting.
- Thomas Friedman just flew from Hong Kong’s state-of-the-art airport to New York’s aging Kennedy. His conclusion: It’s time for the U.S. to reboot. Funny, I had the same feeling not long ago, only I was flying from London’s Heathrow to LAX.
Happy Holidays, Safe Travels
by Jim Benning | 12.24.08 | 1:11 PM ET
We’ll be taking off Christmas day and posting lightly through the end of the week. If you’re traveling, good luck out there.
The Year in Eating
by David Farley | 12.23.08 | 4:44 PM ET
Food experts are rolling out their predictions for 2009 and they’re really going out on a limb forecasting, for example, that recession specials are going to be huge. Here’s what we think about eating in 2009: there will be no food because there will be no restaurants because no one will have much money to eat anything. Which will then make things that were previously unappetizing, very edible. (Yes, we’re looking at you dog!) Really, though, rather than look forward—after all, the future of eating doesn’t look so pink in the middle right now—let’s take a breather from all this fortunetelling and glance backwards to better times. This was the year of both Greek yogurt and mixologists. It was the year that Korean cuisine pissed all over Chinese food (Chinese will make a huge comeback in 2010, we think). And it was another great year for David Chang. But here are a few things we’d like to dwell on:
R.I.P. World Hum’s Old Globe
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.08 | 4:20 PM ET
Jim’s right. It was time for a change. We needed a new look, and our designer Joe Rivera developed a great one, all the way down to the new World Hum globe. I love it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the old one. I do. It had been a constant on the site—the only constant element, I believe—since the beginning. Now, after more than seven years anchoring World Hum, it’s retired.
It deserves a small tribute.
Treatment for Plane Crash Victims Improving
by Eva Holland | 12.23.08 | 2:08 PM ET
In the wake of Saturday’s dramatic Denver plane crash, the AP has a story on the ways in which post-crash treatment—both for survivors, and for the families of victims—has improved over the last decade.
In the old days, Joshua Freed writes, “little care was taken to return personal possessions of crash victims or, in some cases, even their remains. Families tried in vain to reach airlines to find out whether their loved one was on board the plane, and whether they lived or died.” But following the TWA flight 800 crash in 1996, new measures were put in place, and—says a representative of a crash survivors’ group—“there have been some huge improvements.”
Ethical Travel for the Mindful Tourist
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.23.08 | 1:25 PM ET
Photo by joiseyshowaa (Creative Commons).
Argentina, Bolivia and Bulgaria top the 2008 list of the top ten ethical travel destinations, according to Ethical Traveler, a project of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Earth Island Institute. Researchers studied 70 developing countries “from Albania to Zimbabwe” to see which are actively improving their natural environment and the lives of their people through tourism. Half of the countries on the list are in Latin America but none in Asia, where runaway development has wreaked havoc on the land and human rights abuses continue to worsen.
Stocking Stuffers for Budget Travelers: The Christmas ‘Unlist’
by Eva Holland | 12.23.08 | 11:12 AM ET
In an unusual move at this time of year, Europestring‘s Christine Gilbert offers up the Christmas Unlist: 10 gifts not to buy for the European budget traveler in your life. There’s a lot of truth to her picks—and don’t worry, gift-list-lovers: she also offers thoughtful alternatives to her slate of no-nos.
Morning Links: Goa Beach Parties, Kim Jong Il’s Childhood Home and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.08 | 9:37 AM ET
- Arab women are finding new freedoms as flight attendants.
- In the U.S., a former T.W.A. flight attendant looks back on the days “when there were three dinner options on flights from Boston to Los Angeles—in coach.”
- Kim Jong Il’s childhood home in South Korea is open to travelers.
- The economic crisis hits the glass blowers of Murano.
- There will be no Goa beach parties in the coming weeks. Indian authorities are worried about security after the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
- Recce posted its Best Stories of 2008.
- Christopher Elliott offers some travel strategies for 2009.
- William Langewiesche reconstructs the collision of two planes over Brazil in 2006. Joe Sharkey has a few harsh words for the story.
- Airport security in Birmingham, England strip searched a clown. PC Konk the Clown said, “I’ve never had this problem before when I’ve been to international clown conventions abroad.” My favorite part is the groan-inducing headline: “Clown Finds Airport Security no Laughing Matter.”
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Beer in the U.S.
by David Farley | 12.22.08 | 6:52 PM ET
Hhmm…beer. It’s hard to believe now, but in 1873, there were 4,000 breweries in the United States. Brooklyn alone boasted 50. But Prohibition followed by industrialization wiped out nearly all the breweries. And by 1965 there were only a couple megalithic beer factories serving watered-down suds and just one craft beer maker in the country (Anchor Steam). This info comes to us from a recently published New Yorker piece by Burkhard Bilger on Dogfish Brewery.
Coincidentally, Czech beer buff and author of The Good Beer Guide Prague & The Czech Republic, Evan Rail, recently wrote about the numerous (and long-gone) breweries in 19th-century Prague. But let’s not start weeping in our pints of PBR just yet. According to Bilger there are now 1,500 breweries in the United States, and when I checked in with Evan Rail, he had this to say about brewing in the country that consumes more beer per capita than anywhere in the world: “When my book was published, there were about 102 (plus or minus) total breweries in the Czech Republic, counting brewpubs, micros and industrial brewers. Now it’s 122. That’s a gain of just under 20% in 18 months.”
We’ll most certainly toast to that.
R.I.P. Cafe Royal
by Eva Holland | 12.22.08 | 4:19 PM ET
The iconic London cafe closed this weekend after 143 years. Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and Graham Greene were among its many fans. (Via The Book Bench)
Goodbye ‘White Christmas’?
by Joanna Kakissis | 12.22.08 | 3:56 PM ET
Do you want to spend the winter holidays in an idyllic, snow-fringed place just like the one Irving Berlin used to know? Berlin wrote “White Christmas” 68 years ago, when the concept still made sense in the German city of Berlin as well as the rest of the northern hemisphere. In what has become an annual reality check during the increasingly warm winter holidays, climate scientists and meteorologists are again warning that global warming is the Grinch that’s stealing snowy landscapes around the world. Reuters reports that the odds of Berlin seeing snow in 2100 will decrease to 5 percent from 20 percent a century ago. Even frigid Oslo, Norway, will see a precipitous decline in snow days, scientists told Reuters.
