Travel Blog
What Happens When You Ride the Luggage Conveyor at the Airport?
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.06 | 11:09 AM ET
Chris Jackson found out this week at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. As the Union Leader reports, it’s not so funny.
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Yahoo! BuzzMaasbommel, Netherlands
by Ben Keene | 10.27.06 | 9:03 AM ET
Coordinates: 51 49 N 5 32 E
Approximate elevation: 13 feet (4 meters)
A certain preoccupation with water can be expected in a country located at the mouth of three major rivers and where roughly half of the total land area is at or below sea level. And when climate scientists talk of the very real possibility of oceans rising as a result of global warming, a concerned populace tends to start looking to the future with a pragmatic eye. Having overcome its low-lying geography for centuries, the Netherlands is preparing for another spate of damp difficulties by innovating an already sophisticated system of water management. Southeast of Amsterdam, for example, a Dutch construction firm has built several dozen amphibious homes in Maasbommel on the banks of the Maas River. In the event of flooding, these lightweight structures could rise up to 18 feet above their mooring posts to avoid damage.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Panama Backpackers’ Hotel Doubles as “Noah’s Ark” for Endangered Frogs
by Michael Yessis | 10.26.06 | 7:20 AM ET
Panama’s golden frogs are, according to the Washington Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia, “considered so lucky that their images appear on lottery tickets.” They’re also on the run from a fungus that has killed more than 100 species of amphibians in Central America, so an international network of biologists, zookeepers and environmentalists, in conjunction with Panama’s Hotel Campestre, has decided to make a stand by building a Noah’s Ark for the creatures within the hotel.
Outing the CIA’s Travel Agent
by Michael Yessis | 10.26.06 | 7:11 AM ET
It’s San Jose, California-based Jeppesen International Trip Planning, a subsidiary of Boeing, according to a Talk of the Town piece in this week’s issue of The New Yorker. “Boeing does not mention, either on its Web site or in its annual report, that Jeppesen’s clients include the C.I.A., and that among the international trips that the company plans for the agency are secret ‘extraordinary rendition’ flights for terrorism suspects,” Jane Mayer writes. “Most of the planes used in rendition flights are owned and operated by tiny charter airlines that function as C.I.A. front companies, but it is not widely known that the agency has turned to a division of Boeing, the publicly traded blue-chip behemoth, to handle many of the logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.”
Time Out Beirut: We’re Coming Back
by Jim Benning | 10.25.06 | 3:09 PM ET
“The World According to Sesame Street”
by Michael Yessis | 10.25.06 | 9:15 AM ET
Nobody brings the world together like muppets. The new season of the PBS series Independent Lens debuts this week with the documentary The World According to Sesame Street, a look at how the TV show for kids has become a global phenomenon. Los Angeles Times critic Robert Lloyd writes in a stellar review: “It runs in more than 120 countries, mostly in dubbed versions of the original, but in more and more places—beginning as far back as 1972, after an inquiry from Germany—it is being produced locally, retooled for the native audience, with new characters and settings reflecting native culture and concerns.” The documentary focuses on productions of “Sesame Street” in three countries places: Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa.
Mosque Tourism in Dubai
by Jim Benning | 10.25.06 | 8:10 AM ET
Apparently it’s all the rage—at least at Jumeirah Mosque. Tours aimed at boosting understanding of Islam among Western tourists have expanded, according to an AP story, “from irregular gatherings of a dozen people to five-times-weekly tours of a hundred or more.” And what’s more, “Now, the government-linked center wants to expand inside the United Arab Emirates and beyond with an eye on the more than 1 million Westerners, mostly Europeans, who visit every year.”
‘Expats’ in Busan: Rolf Potts in South Korea
by Jim Benning | 10.25.06 | 7:18 AM ET
Rolf Potts is filing stories from South Korea for Slate this week. His first dispatch came from the port city of Busan, where he attended a film festival. “I am here because I worked in Busan as an English teacher in the late ‘90s, and Korean-born U.S. director Wonsuk Chin has written a screenplay about this experience, titled ‘Expats,’” Potts writes. “Since Chin is at the festival, meeting with possible financiers for his film, I’ve made plans to see him this afternoon at the Grand Hotel.” It turns out Chin was inspired, at least in part, by a story Potts wrote years ago for Salon.
NPR Remembers Eric Newby
by Jim Benning | 10.24.06 | 7:37 PM ET
All Things Considered aired a terrific interview this afternoon with Wanda Newby, wife of the famed travel writer, who died Friday at the age of 86.
The State of Regional Dialects and Accents: “Hahvahd Yahd” is Here to Stay
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.06 | 10:22 AM ET
Conventional wisdom says that, given the rise of mass media, regional accents and dialects would disappear and “everyone would sound as distinctly indistinct as a television newscaster.” It won’t be so. In fact, “The Atlas of North American English, the first work to plot all the major speech patterns in the continental United States and Canada, has found the opposite: regional dialects are actually becoming more pronounced,” according to a story in October’s Smithsonian.
Japanese Tourists Succumb to ‘Paris Syndrome’
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.06 | 8:09 AM ET
Or, as the New York Post headline goes, “Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried.” Funny headline for an amusing story—amusing, at least, for everyone but the Japanese travelers who get “Paris Syndrome.” The Post and Reuters, among others, are relaying a story from the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, which claims that “a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations.” Paris Syndrome was first reported in 2004 in a psychiatric journal. According to AA Gill, there is a cure. He writes in the Times: “The cure is called Rome, though there are side effects: it’s very addictive.”
Rory MacLean Remembers Eric Newby
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.06 | 6:38 AM ET
Iraq Kurdistan to Tourists: Don’t Confuse Us with the Rest of Iraq
by Jim Benning | 10.23.06 | 3:55 PM ET
I’m accustomed to seeing TV commercials promoting vacations in places like New Zealand and Canada. So when I saw the commercial on CNN the other day touting travel to Kurdistan, I thought, of course, Kurdistan? Today, the AP explains the commercial’s origins. It turns out a California firm helped make the commercial for the Kurdistan Development Corp.
Sticky Surprises and Oozing Grit: The Dirty Truth About the Cleanliness of Airplanes
by Michael Yessis | 10.23.06 | 6:41 AM ET
Another reason I’m happy to be booked on a JetBlue flight later this week: It’s the cleanest of the U.S. carriers, which, according to this not-for-the-squeamish story in Sunday’s New York Times, have generally been eschewing thorough cleanings in the name of cutting costs. “Seatback pockets hiding sticky surprises, carpets with patterns that can no longer conceal the curious stains, overripe lavatories and crevices oozing snack grit and plain old grime,” writes Jeff Bailey. “Increasingly, that describes the modern airliner, an untidy tube hurtling through the sky full of passengers who cannot wait to land and go wash their hands with disinfectant soap. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but in the airline industry it has taken a back seat to financial survival.”
Interview with Matt Harding
by Michael Yessis | 10.23.06 | 6:28 AM ET
The Washington Post’s Andrea Sachs has an interview with the guy best known for dancing his way around the world. Twice.
