Travel Blog
North Korea: The Leader in “Don’t Do It!” Vacations
by Jim Benning | 12.07.04 | 5:43 PM ET
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Dude, Don’t Blame Me, Eh? I’m Canadian!’
by Jim Benning | 12.07.04 | 4:41 PM ET
American travelers abroad sometimes find themselves in sticky situations. In the Middle East, they occasionally face hostile locals. From Europe to South America, they’re asked to explain everything from the overthrow of Salvador Allende to global warming to the invasion of Iraq. Three years ago this month, in our holiday Gift Guide, we suggested a solution: Give the American traveler you love a “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Canadian” T-shirt. The bold red-and-white shirts would say it all to the miffed mullahs and torch-wielding mobs, we insisted, diffusing any potential hostility. It was a joke. But it turns out that an American company is now marketing a “Go Canadian” package to American travelers aimed at accomplishing just that. T-shirtKing.com is selling a $24.95 package featuring a Canadian flag T-shirt, lapel pin, luggage patch and how-to-speak Canadian reference guide. CNN.com features a story about the package. Of course, some Americans have long pretended to be Canadian when overseas. But this is the first time we’ve heard of any marketing pitch aimed at them. We still think “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Canadian” is the bold way to go.
‘Dude, Don’t Blame Me, Eh? I’m Canadian!’
by Jim Benning | 12.07.04 | 4:41 PM ET
American travelers abroad sometimes find themselves in sticky situations. In the Middle East, they occasionally face hostile locals. From Europe to South America, they’re asked to explain everything from the overthrow of Salvador Allende to global warming to the invasion of Iraq. Three years ago this month, in our holiday Gift Guide, we suggested a solution: Give the American traveler you love a “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Canadian” T-shirt. The bold red-and-white shirts would say it all to the miffed mullahs and torch-wielding mobs, we insisted, diffusing any potential hostility. It was a joke. But it turns out that an American company is now marketing a “Go Canadian” package to American travelers aimed at accomplishing just that. T-shirtKing.com is selling a $24.95 package featuring a Canadian flag T-shirt, lapel pin, luggage patch and how-to-speak Canadian reference guide. CNN.com features a story about the package. Of course, some Americans have long pretended to be Canadian when overseas. But this is the first time we’ve heard of any marketing pitch aimed at them. We still think “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Canadian” is the bold way to go.
Et Tu, New York Times?
by Michael Yessis | 12.06.04 | 5:45 PM ET
The Gray Lady debuted the redesign of its travel section Sunday—without the personal essay column. We hope this is an anomaly and it will be back next week. If it’s gone for good, how sad. The Times has been the only major U.S. newspaper we know of that consistently gives travel writers a forum to look inward. It recognizes that travel sometimes involves a personal journey as well as a physical one. If the Times has done away with the essay, the philosophical dialogue among travelers will continue here and in other places, of course, but millions of newspaper readers in the U.S. will no longer be able to participate, and that’s a shame. The timing of the essay elimination is a bit ironic, considering that Sunday’s New York Times Book Review heralds the latest crop of narrative travel books. The headline? Choice of Literary Travel Guides Is Expanding.
Dido
by Jim Benning | 12.03.04 | 5:47 PM ET
In our urgent, ongoing examination of the travel habits of celebrities, we bring news that Dido, the British pop star, plans to spend the next year traveling the globe, writing new songs. Dido delivered the news to The Sun, but the good editors at the Chinese website Xinhuanet determined it an important story and picked it up. “Asia would be cool,” she reportedly said, suggesting she hasn’t finalized her itinerary. “I think I’d like to go back to New Zealand…Might go to South America. There’s loads of places I want to go.” You go, Dido.
A Father-Son Journey Back to Vietnam
by Jim Benning | 12.01.04 | 5:51 PM ET
Crossing Divides Into Cambodia
by Jim Benning | 12.01.04 | 5:50 PM ET
Tom Haines’ ambitious Boston Globe travel series “Crossing Divides” continued Sunday with a story about his journey through Laos and Cambodia. The story opens along Cambodia’s Mekong River. “[M]any living above and below the falls have witnessed the end of any illusions they may have had, not of colonial conquest, but of what to expect from life,” Haines writes. “A journey from Cambodia through the falls to Laos intersected time and again with this reckoning. An awareness of death was as vivid as life in a hilly jungle hamlet, below a thundering cataract, in a riverside temple, and in the farming village home of the sleeping newborn.”
“Best American Travel Writing 2004”
by Jim Benning | 12.01.04 | 5:48 PM ET
Pat MacEnulty reviews this year’s anthology in Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel. MacEnulty liked the collection. “Even frequent travelers can’t go everywhere, and a few places described in this collection, quite frankly, seem pretty uninviting,” MacEnulty writes. “But for those who are curious about the world and the people therein, this book provides an excellent opportunity to learn about what’s happening down those roads they’re not likely to travel.”
What’s With All the Foot-Care Products?
by Jim Benning | 11.29.04 | 5:52 PM ET
Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel features a story about the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela by Thomas Swick. It begins with a terrific opener: “The pharmacies in Santiago de Compostela are rich in foot-care products. This is not because the city produces bad shoemakers—what a quaint word that is!—but because it is filled with pilgrims.”
What Would Edward Abbey Think?
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.04 | 6:00 PM ET
Last September a group of international travelers descended on southern Utah to traverse canyons and ride horses and smoke their brains out. They went to Moab on a junket sponsored by Philip Morris, a company that has used the rugged land of the American southwest as a backdrop for its Marlboro cigarette ads since the early 1960s. The “winners” of the promotion were flown in from around the world - no Americans allowed - for 12 days of adventure, which was recorded for potential use in upcoming ads. The event drew the attention of L.A. Times reporter Charles Duhigg for many reasons, including the fact that this orgy of exploitation and commercialism takes place on public land. His story offers a fascinating look at the power of landscapes and multi-national corporations. It’s also absurdly funny. For instance, this quote from Philip Morris executive François Moreillon: “We want the winners to experience the freedom of America. And we find this is easiest when Americans are not part of the event.”
Over There
by Michael Yessis | 11.23.04 | 6:08 PM ET
For all the Americans threatening to move to another country in the wake of President George W. Bush’s reelection, Derek Denton has a simple message: “Living abroad is certainly worth doing; I wish more of our people would try it at least once,” he writes in Sunday’s Seattle Times. “But it ought to be motivated by curiosity, guts and a love of challenges. If you’re looking for an escape from your own current reality, stay home and take drugs.”
She’s so Heavy, Continued
by Michael Yessis | 11.23.04 | 6:04 PM ET
Patrick Smith, Salon’s Ask the Pilot columnist, has more about the Centers for Disease Control study that concluded America’s growing waistlines are hurting the bottom lines of airline companies.
What Do Andre Gide, Camus and Pico Iyer Have in Common?
by Jim Benning | 11.18.04 | 9:10 PM ET
Memo to American Airlines MD-80 Passengers: BYOP
by Jim Benning | 11.18.04 | 9:08 PM ET
That’s Bring Your Own Pillow. The airline announced yesterday it was yanking small pillows from its MD-80 jets to save money. That’s so wrong.
Checking Off the Mona Lisa
by Jim Benning | 11.18.04 | 9:06 PM ET
Most first-time Paris visitors insist on seeing the Mona Lisa—so many, in fact, that on most days a crowd is gathered around the painting by 10 a.m. The Guardian recently featured a terrific overview of the phenomenon, from the crush of tourists to the complicated psychology of a Mona Lisa visit. “To doubt that the Mona Lisa is worth seeing is a bit like asking whether it’s worth coming to Paris at all,” Amelia Gentleman writes. “The Mona Lisa is a key part of the Paris package, and one of the reasons why you come to France, why you come to Europe. For most tourists this moment will be a critical part of their memory of France as a whole. To come here and not be amazed or delighted is in some way to admit that the whole Paris experience is somehow not as great as it’s cracked up to be. Most people know this is illogical, and yet they buy into it anyway.”
