Travel Blog
The Poetry Bus: “The Most Ambitious Poetry Tour Ever Attempted”
by Michael Yessis | 10.01.06 | 6:26 PM ET
The Poetry Bus Tour, a 50-cities-in-50-days journey, hits the mid-Atlantic states this weekend. The AP and the tour’s Web site have the scoop.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Onion on the New Air-Travel Guidelines
by Michael Yessis | 09.30.06 | 6:26 PM ET
The Onion’s man-on-the-street interviewees this week weigh in on the new guidelines for liquids on planes. Says systems analyst Ed Johansen, “By giving passengers renewed access to these gels, lotions, and shampoos, we run the risk of creating a very dangerous and highly evasive super-slippery terrorist able to avoid all manners of restraint.”
Thomas Swick on the Book that Changed His Life
by Jim Benning | 09.29.06 | 2:24 PM ET
Thirty years ago in London, a copy of V.S. Pritchett’s “Foreign Faces” landed him one important date.
Staten Island, Argentina
by Jim Benning | 09.29.06 | 2:03 PM ET
Coordinates: 54 40 S 64 30 W
Area: 209 sq. mi. (541 sq. km)
Mention Staten Island and most people will conjure images of the lower Manhattan skyline, or maybe the long, graceful curve of the massive suspension bridge linking it to Brooklyn. Fewer think of goat herders, seal hunters, and the cold, humid climate at the opposite end of the Atlantic. And yet in name, the more famous Staten of New York has a twin, larger in size but much smaller in population, just to the east of South America’s southernmost tip. Part of the sprawling Tierra del Fuego archipelago, Isla de los Estados, as the island is known in Argentina, lies less than 100 miles from the entrance to the Beagle Channel, a waterway that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and serves as an alternate route for sailors wishing to avoid Cape Horn’s rougher seas.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beppe, Borat, Bungees and Bunnies
by Michael Yessis | 09.29.06 | 8:03 AM ET
Beppe Severgnini returns to the top, and so does the Playboy Club. Travelers and armchair travelers have an eye on both this week as the Zeitgeist ventures to Oaxaca, New Zealand, Italy, Colorado and the 52nd floor of the Palms in Las Vegas.
Best Selling Travel Book
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La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind by Beppe Severgnini
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Where the Moon Stood Still, and the Ancients Watched (Chimney Rock, Colorado)
* The current most e-mailed story overall at the New York Times, however, is our kind of travel story: Kazakhs Shrug at ‘Borat’ While the State Fumes
Bangkok’s “Golden Land” Airport Opens
by Jim Benning | 09.28.06 | 2:26 PM ET
Despite the recent coup, Southeast Asia’s largest airport opened today, the highly anticipated $4 billion “mega airport” 20 miles from central Bangkok called Suvarnabhumi, or “Golden Land.” “First conceived in 1960,” the AP reports, “the high-profile project transformed a swamp where villagers once caught cobras for a living into a fertile ground for politicians and their cronies to profit from shady deals, allegedly ranging from land speculation to bribery and kickbacks from the $3.8 billion project.” Okay, so it got off to a shaky start. But since then, 99 monks and Brahmin priests have apologized to the spirits for any harm done. And now, travelers are raving about the place. According to the International Herald Tribune, officials hope the new airport, designed to move 45 million passengers a year, will “surpass Hong Kong as a regional air hub.” An express train to downtown Bangkok is scheduled to open next year.
Man Detained by TSA for Writing “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on His Clear Plastic Carry-On Bag
by Michael Yessis | 09.28.06 | 7:26 AM ET
Who is Kip Hawley? Just the director of the Transportation Security Administration. The alleged incident in Milwaukee, posted by a traveler on a flyertalk forum, has a lot of people pointing out that free speech doesn’t end at the security gate. Or at least it shouldn’t. If the flyertalk forum with the post is down—I got a database error this morning—check out Wonkette’s post that includes the original post.
Lonely Planet’s ‘Tales from Nowhere’
by Jim Benning | 09.27.06 | 2:43 PM ET
Lonely Planet’s latest literary travel anthology, Tales from Nowhere, just hit bookstores. Edited by Don George, it features dozens of stories from contributors such as Pico Iyer, Simon Winchester, Jeffrey Tayler, Lisa Alpine and Rolf Potts. The stories, the back cover states, “all celebrate and illuminate one simple truth: if we embark on each adventure with an open heart and an open mind, travel will take us places we never planned to go, and enrich and englighten us in ways we never otherwise would have known.” So where is Nowhere? “Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It’s not on any map, but you know it when you’ve been there.” I’m delighted to have a story in the book, too. My Nowhere was a Sizzler restaurant, of all places, in southern Thailand.
Travel Writers Pick Their Favorite Airports
by Michael Yessis | 09.27.06 | 2:09 PM ET
USA Today’s Jayne Clark asks a handful of travel writers about their favorite airports in today’s edition. Among them: The Naked Tourist author Lawrence Osborne, who notes about his favorite, Wamena, Irian Jaya, on the island of New Guinea, “It’s the anti-airport. It has almost no staff. There is no glass in the windows, just naked men in pig fat jumping up and down.” Hmmm. Could be worth a trip just to see that.
The Pope on Travel
by Jim Benning | 09.27.06 | 1:51 PM ET
It’s World Tourism Day, and to celebrate, Pope Benedict XVI told those gathered at St. Peter’s Square, including tourists, “I hope that tourism will increasingly promote dialogue and respect between cultures, thereby becoming an open door to peace and harmonious cohabitation.” Now that’s one papal statement we can get behind.
Ben Bradlee Cruises “the Slot”
by Michael Yessis | 09.27.06 | 7:20 AM ET
This week’s New Yorker features a piece I’ve been looking forward to since March: Legendary newspaper editor Ben Bradlee’s story about taking a cruise in the waters of the Pacific where he served on a United States Navy destroyer in World War II. It’s a great read, with Bradlee weaving war remembrance in with travels.
This Guy Really Loves Highway 42
by Michael Yessis | 09.27.06 | 6:35 AM ET
You don’t have to be a fan of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to find this man’s quest interesting, but it might help.
Oaxaca Visitors ‘Run for Cover’
by Jim Benning | 09.26.06 | 6:49 PM ET
A gunfight in front of a hotel in Oaxaca, the southern Mexican city beloved by many Mexico travelers, forced journalists and tourists to “run for cover,” according to an AP report on CNN.com. It’s a crazy story that involves leftist protesters, Oaxaca’s embattled state governor, guns and machetes. The news comes just days after the U.S. State Department urged Americans in Mexico to exercise extreme caution when in unfamiliar areas. It’s all dismaying news for those who, like me, love traveling in the country and believe its culture hasn’t begun to get the appreciation from travelers it deserves. For those heading to Oaxaca anyway—the local black mole sauce alone is worthy of UNESCO World Heritage status and a visit, if you ask me—Ron Mader at Planeta has tips.
Travelers’ Tales’ ‘The World is a Kitchen’
by Jim Benning | 09.26.06 | 6:20 PM ET
Food, cooking and travel are, thankfully, inextricably linked. They’re also great fodder for books. Bill Buford’s Heat is among the latest to explore the subjects in a book-length memoir. Now comes The World is a Kitchen, an intriguing book from Travelers’ Tales that combines stories about learning to cook in countries around the globe with recipes and related resources. Writes Michele Anna Jordan in the preface: “Cooking has become the universal language, an international tongue that allows us to communicate, to resolve every cultural challenge, be it language, custom or belief, and even overcome personal inhibitions like shyness and insecurity. We take a bite, smile, and raise our eyes to see the same response in our companions. May I have some more, please? And you know what comes next: How did you make it? We lick each other’s fingers and ask for the recipe.” The book is the latest in a series of Travelers’ Tales titles exploring travel and food.
Flight Attendant to Gay Couple: Stop the Touching and Kissing or We’ll Divert this Plane
by Michael Yessis | 09.26.06 | 7:31 AM ET
The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins has the sad tale of boyfriends who were singled out by a flight attendant for kissing— “not kiss kiss, just mwah,” said George Tsikhiseli, one of the kissers—and told to behave or the pilot would divert the American Airlines Paris to New York flight. As Andrew Sullivan wrote, “I think American Airlines just lost a lot of potential customers.”
