Travel Blog
Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
by Ben Keene | 02.09.07 | 11:32 AM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Interstate Highways, Hot Destinations and the Mile-High Club
by Michael Yessis | 02.09.07 | 8:34 AM ET
We’re going to France and we’re learning the language. Excellent. Other stops in this week’s Zeitgeist include Spain, Morocco, Cuba, Hawaii and Hot-lanta.
Most Popular Country for Travelers
Reuters/French Tourism Ministry (2006)
France
* 78 million people visited the country last year.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
Fodor’s French for Travelers
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel
Best Place in the U.S. for a Value Vacation
Hotwire.com Travel Value Index (2007)
Atlanta, Georgia
* Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Orlando-Daytona Beach, Florida; and Kansas City, Missouri round out the top five.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Interstate Highway System Simplified
* The U.S. Interstates rendered in the style of a metro-system map. Its designer calls it “map-porn.”
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* We still like this book.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
In Cuba, Finding a Tiny Corner of Jewish Life
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
How to ... Join the Mile-High Club
* The Guardian suggests this.
Most Read Weblog Category
World Hum (this week)
Planet Theme Park
* This story helped it rise to the top.
In Brazil, Favela Tourism Rising
by Ben Keene | 02.08.07 | 5:45 PM ET
For every cruise ship full of pleasure-seekers tempted to travel by spa treatments, gourmet cuisine, and the occasional shore excursion, there is a tougher sort of tourist in search of a little hardship. Some people go for the controlled experience, forking over $18 for a simulated illegal border-crossing at Parque EcoAlberto in Mexico. Others, as the Christian Science Monitor reported earlier this week, prefer a more authentic kind of cultural exposure. Describing a small but growing trend among Americans and Europeans visiting Rio de Janeiro, Andrew Downie writes: “To many Brazilians, favelas are dirty, violent, frightening places. But to many foreigners, they are exciting, interesting, and romantic. More and more outsiders are coming from overseas to live, work, and just visit favelas, observers say. In doing so they are highlighting the difference between Brazilians who regard favelas with fear, rejection, and even disgust, and foreigners who embrace them as vibrant crucibles of modern Brazilian culture.”
Should Travel Writers Discourage Flying to Reduce Global Warming?
by Jim Benning | 02.08.07 | 1:36 PM ET
Or do the benefits of world travel—namely greater understanding across cultures—outweigh the damage air travel causes to the environment? A number of writers have been debating the issue in an interesting thread on Travelwriters.com. Wrote “Petra” to kick off the discussion: “I myself, being based in Britain, have decided that I will write about travel in the UK from now on (and believe me - I enjoy overseas travel). I know that rail and automobile travel within our shores will add to the problem, but not to the extent that air travel does. How do you, as travel writers, salve your conscience with regard to the effect air travel will have on global warming?”
Related on World Hum:
* Scientists Unveil ‘Silent, Energy-Efficient Plane’
* Can Slow Travel Save the Planet?
* Airplanes and Climate Change: The Guardian’s Week-Long Debate
From Abbey Road to Arctic Monkeys: Mapping England’s Pop Music Heritage
by Michael Yessis | 02.08.07 | 9:20 AM ET
Judging from this Google image search and this Flickr cluster, not too many music fans visiting England haven’t walked in the footsteps of John, Paul, George and Ringo across Abbey Road. But England, of course, has a rich music heritage beyond the Beatles, and the country’s tourism agency wants to show it off. VisitBritain just released a map—and a sweet Web site—with more than 200 destinations associated with famous musicians. “For decades the done thing has been to bury Britain’s rock heritage rather than praise it,” writes Jeevan Vasagar in the Guardian. “Two of the country’s most famous music venues—the Cavern Club in Liverpool and Manchester’s Hacienda—ended their lives under a wrecking ball. But the era of official neglect is over.”
The Critics: Louis Theroux’s ‘The Call of the Weird’
by Michael Yessis | 02.08.07 | 7:40 AM ET
Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ Scroll Enjoying Super Bowl Press
by Jim Benning | 02.07.07 | 2:33 PM ET
Why? Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay is being profiled in stories around the country, and writers love noting that Irsay bought the original “On the Road” scroll at auction in 2001 for nearly $2.5 million. “Like many adolescent boys, I was influenced by Kerouac’s book of adventure and daring,” Irsay told the Chicago Sun-Times. “What amazes me is that the book is as powerful today as it was 50 years ago, when it was published.” Irsay considers himself a “steward” of the scroll.
Related on World Hum:
* Video: Steve Allen Interviews Jack Kerouac
* Happy Anniversary ‘On the Road’
* Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ Manuscript to be Displayed in San Francisco
Oscars Tourism Tips, or How to Stalk Celebrities Like the Paparazzi
by Jim Benning | 02.07.07 | 1:40 PM ET
Yes, apparently there is such a thing as “Oscars tourism.” Here’s but one bit of creepy advice—um, I mean a savvy insider tip—from an Associated Press story about how to plan a trip to Hollywood for the Academy Awards and spot celebrities: “Wander around. Don’t look like a tourist, but bring a camera. Stars could be lurking around any corner. Even hanging out in the valet line has its perks. Waiting for my sister-in-law and her husband to join us for drinks, we saw rapper Tyrese stroll by and actress Finola Hughes gave us a wave and a smile. Hardly an A-list spotting, but it was a start.”
As President George W. Bush’s Popularity Sinks, Tourism Takes a Hit in Crawford, Texas
by Michael Yessis | 02.07.07 | 11:55 AM ET
Two summers ago, during the height of Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war protests near President George W. Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch, I took an impromptu detour off I-35 on the way to Dallas and drove into town. Only 700 or so people live in Crawford, and there’s not much to it beyond a few dusty buildings, but with all the protesters (including protesters protesting the protesters), TV news crews, souvenir shoppers and curiosity seekers like me, it took some time to pass through. Crawford was buzzing unlike any small town I’ve ever seen. It turns out that the town once had a thriving little tourism business built around its connection to the president. But now, according to an AP story by Angela K. Brown, Crawford is struggling.
From Ipanema to Copacabana: What Rio de Janeiro’s Beaches Say About Brazil
by Michael Yessis | 02.07.07 | 8:17 AM ET
A lot, it seems. “Brazilians like to say that the beach is their country’s ‘most democratic space,’” writes Larry Rohter in a terrific story in the New York Times. “But some bodies—and some beaches—are more equal than others.” Rohter focuses on Ipanema and Copacabana, revealing what groups frequent each of the 12 postos (lifeguard stations) that span Rio’s most elite beaches and how Brazil’s cultural and social trends are often born on the sand. “When, in the early 1970s, for example, the actress Leila Diniz wore a skimpy bikini to Posto 9 while gloriously pregnant and unmarried, traditionalists were horrified,” Rohter writes. “But feminists point to the episode as a galvanizing moment in their efforts to gain equal rights.”
Sign Police Hit Beijing Streets; Chinglish Editor Renews Call to Arms
by Jim Benning | 02.06.07 | 2:56 PM ET
Terrible news. In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing officials are working to rid the city of signs with nonsensical and awkward English translations. “For the next eight months, 10 teams of linguistic monitors will patrol the city’s parks, museums, subway stations and other public places searching for gaffes to fix,” reports the Wall Street Journal. I’m not sure the sign I photographed in Beijing several years ago would merit removal—I know that the Palace Museum had more glory on the day I visited because I gave it tons and tons of care—but either way, I can only hope the sign police fail.
‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel
by Michael Yessis | 02.06.07 | 9:00 AM ET
Photo of Strait of Gibraltar by karynsig via flickr (Creative Commons).
Building a tunnel between Morocco and Spain has been on the “official drawing boards” of the countries’ governments for 25 years, according to the Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock, and perhaps on the minds of adventurers—and seasick ferry travelers—for much longer. Now, after rounds of geological tests and a set of blueprints developed by a Swiss firm, engineers say a tunnel underneath the Mediterranean Sea could materialize by 2025. “Government officials on both sides of the Mediterranean say the tunnel would give the economies of southern Europe and North Africa an enormous boost,” writes Whitlock. “But the project is being driven at least as much by intangible benefits: the prospect of uniting two continents that culturally and socially remain a world apart despite their geographic proximity.”
Music Cruises: Still a Trend
by Michael Yessis | 02.06.07 | 8:42 AM ET
In 2005, as we noted, the San Francisco Chronicle called music cruises a trend, asking, “[H]ow long will it be before a Holland America ship hosts Burning Man?” In 2006, we pointed out that Rolling Stone called the Jam Cruise with Les Claypool, Bela Fleck and Umphrey’s McGee a hot ticket. Now, in 2007, AP reports—imagine this—a rise in floating festivals. However, they’re still not a major force in the cruise industry. “It’s still on a small scale because chartering a ship takes a lot of moxie and money,” Jay Shapiro, owner of Five Star Travel in Fort Lauderdale and a member of the Cruise Lines International Association, told the AP. “You have to have a big name to get top dollar for tickets and draw people.”
Inside the UK’s Best Chip Shops With Badly Drawn Boy
by Michael Yessis | 02.06.07 | 8:05 AM ET
I’ve got a soft spot for Badly Drawn Boy, aka Damon Gough, and it’s not only because my wife and I saw him perform in San Francisco during our first date. Badly Drawn Boy, like the subject of our latest Q-and-A, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, is a musician with a healthy appreciation for food. But here’s the twist: Where Kapranos wrote a book about his gastronomic adventures while on tour, this month Badly Drawn Boy will be take his act on the road to some chip shops around the UK. How can you not love that?
Nominations Open for ‘The Travvies’
by Michael Yessis | 02.05.07 | 11:21 PM ET
Upgrade: Travel Better launched its travel blog awards today. Readers can nominate blogs for the Travvies through next Monday, with voting to begin nine days later.
