Travel Blog
Tony Perrottet
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:35 AM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzTom Downey
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:31 AM ET
Catherine Watson
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:30 AM ET
E. Casey Kittrell
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:28 AM ET
Jason Anthony
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:27 AM ET
David Farley
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:25 AM ET
Terry Ward
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:23 AM ET
Rolf Potts
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:22 AM ET
Rolf Potts is the author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. His stories have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, National Geographic Adventure and Conde Nast Traveler, as well as on Salon, where he wrote the “Vagabonding” column. His writing has been featured in many anthologies, including “The Best American Travel Writing.”
Dispatches:
* The Art of Writing a Story About Walking Across Andorra
* Signs of Confusion
* Lost in Translation
* Islam’s Bloody Celebration
* Anthem Soul
Ask Rolf:
* Ask Rolf Archive
Q&A:
Rolf Potts: The Art of Vagabonding
Kristin Van Tassel
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 1:19 AM ET
Leslie Berestein
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 12:43 AM ET
Leslie Berestein writes about immigration and the border for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She has worked as a reporter at Time, People, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times. Among other assignments, she has reported on missing migrants in Mexico; hurricane victims in the Dominican Republic; refugees rebuilding towns in post-war El Salvador; a septuagenarian bald-eagle feeder in Alaska; and a dinosaur fossil detective in Wyoming. These days, in her leisure time, she joins World Hum’s co-editor, Jim, who happens to be her husband, for trips across the Mexican border to eat carnitas and watch lucha libre wrestling.
Dispatches:
* Picnicking with los Muertos
* Havana Homecoming
Jim Benning
by Jim Benning | 07.11.06 | 12:07 AM ET
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the co-founder and co-editor of World Hum. He left reporting jobs at the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register to work as a full-time freelance writer. His work has appeared in National Geographic Adventure, Outside, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times Magazine and Men’s Journal, among other publications. He lives in San Diego, where he teaches travel writing and makes frequent trips across the Mexican border to his favorite carnitas and mariachi joint. More: JimBenning.net.
Dispatches:
* Lust in Translation
* Lonely Planet at 30
* Dreaming in Thailand
* The Art of Seasickness
* Sorrow in the Land of Smiles
* Lesson at the Laverie
Speaker’s Corner:
* “The Amazing Race”: A Good Travel Show?
* Tsunamis Bring Out the Best in Travelers
Q&A’s:
* Jason Wilson: One Traveler, Three Dishes Named “Jason”
* David Farley and Jessie Sholl: A Passion for Prague
* Jeffrey Tayler: Facing Africa’s “Angry Wind”
* Jennifer Leo: Travels Down the Written Road
* Andrew Steves: Travels in Dad’s Footsteps
* Don George: The Art of Travel Writing
* Michael Shapiro: A Sense of Place
* Thomas Swick: A Way to See the World
* Doug Lansky: Around the World
* Jeff Greenwald: Travels During War
* Rolf Potts: The Art of Vagabonding
* Elliott Hester: Plane Insanity
Why Am I Searching the World for Mexican Food?
by Jim Benning | 07.10.06 | 6:19 PM ET
I enjoyed seeing a few letters in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle in response to my recent story about eating Mexican food in France. In the piece, I (courageously, I think) came clean about my Mexican food addiction and complained about the curry-flavored fajitas I was served in Lyon. But at least one reader, a Mr. Brown, was not sympathetic to my plight. “If Jim Benning is searching the world for Mexican food, I understand you can find it in Mexico,” he wrote. “Personally, when I go to a foreign country, I try to eat what the locals eat.” Believe me, Mr. Brown, I am not searching the world for Mexican food. I enjoyed many fine French meals in France. The trouble, you see, is that I am a Mexican food addict, owing in large part to my upbringing in Southern California, where seriously excellent taco shops can be found on almost every corner. Now, as an adult, I am powerless when confronted with Mexican food, especially when I’ve gone without for a few days, and even when I know it will be awful. So when I stumbled upon El Sombrero restaurant in Lyon, in I went. And that is when the trouble began. Alas, I suspect this is something only fellow addicts can understand. You are a lucky, lucky man, Mr. Brown. If you suffered from my condition, I know you would be more sympathetic.
“Really Cool, Well-Traveled” John Flinn on the Dorky Zip-Off Pant
by Jim Benning | 07.10.06 | 5:49 PM ET
It’s one of the great questions of our time: Is the zip-off travel pant simply dorky—end of story—or is dorky but also useful? The topic reared its oh-so-unfashionable head in John Flinn’s column in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Flinn dipped into the mail bag to share feedback on a recent piece he wrote with tips on packing light. In that column, Flinn recommended packing zip-off pants, but afterward, one reader wrote in, remembering that Flinn had once called the pants “dorky.” As the reader put it in an e-mail: “I often wear such pants on trips during the summer, feeling dorky knowing what the really cool, well-traveled John Flinn thinks of them. What am I to think now?” That poor, confused reader. Fortunately, Flinn clarified his position on Sunday. “Actually, I called them ‘dorky but useful,’” he writes. “I wear them in shorts mode most of the time and convert them into longs if weather, bugs or poison oak dictate. And besides, I’ll take dorky over wannabe-hip or self-important any day.” Whew. We’re glad that’s cleared up.
The New Che Play: “School of the Americas”
by Jim Benning | 07.10.06 | 2:12 PM ET
The Skinny on Eat.Shop Guides
by Jim Benning | 07.10.06 | 1:26 PM ET
While we’re on the subject of travel guidebooks: Business Week just published an AP story about eat.shop guides, a series started in 2003 that, according to the article, “get down to what really matters for a generation weaned on ‘Sex and the City:’ Eating. Then shopping. And then, perhaps, more eating, followed by, why not, a smidgen more shopping.” Jen Leo, among others, likes the approach, telling the AP, “Travelers are looking beyond the basic hotel and popular restaurant—they are looking for a different angle on why they tour a city.”
