Travel Blog
106-Year-Olds Set to Travel
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.06 | 1:39 AM ET
Kudos to the three Japanese travelers who are proving that you’re never too old to go somewhere. According to Thanh Nien News, the trio from Okinawa Island will embark on a four-day trip to Vietnam beginning this Sunday.
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Yahoo! Buzz2006: The Year of the Long-Haul Airliner
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.06 | 1:36 AM ET
Superjumbo jets like the soon-to-debut Airbus A380 “will fundamentally change the experience of flying around the world,” writes Joe Sharkey in today’s New York Times. Besides making it easier for travelers to get from continent to continent, the planes also promise extra comfort. Airports around the world are beginning to modify their infrastructure to accommodate the 500 to 900 passenger behemoths, but some are lagging, including Los Angeles International Airport.
LAX Through Hotel Room Windows
by Jim Benning | 01.02.06 | 12:58 PM ET
Photographer Zoe Crosher embarked on an unusual and oddly compelling project in 2001: She decided to photograph planes coming in to land at Los Angeles International Airport, shooting them through the windows of 31 motels and hotels around LAX. “Crosher shoots in the morning, and the images (which often feature the plastic linings of cheap curtains) are in a sense second to the narrative thread of the series: transience, anonymity and the fleeting promise of Los Angeles,” writes Steffie Nelson in last Thursday’s L.A. Weekly. A book collection of the photos, “Out the Window (LAX),” is due to be published this spring, with an introduction by Pico Iyer.
Behind the Scenes of “Flight 93”
by Michael Yessis | 01.02.06 | 12:50 PM ET
The first major motion picture to focus on the September 11, 2001 attacks—specifically on the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field—will be released this spring, and Sunday’s New York Times has a detailed look at the production. All of the families of the flight’s passengers reportedly cooperated with director Paul Greengrass, not just those who had been able to reach their loved ones via cell phone.
We’re Back, and So is Farris Hassan
by Michael Yessis | 01.02.06 | 12:44 PM ET
Welcome back, Farris. The 16-year-old high school student, who had taken $1,800 his parents gave him to invest in the stock market and embarked on a solo trip to Iraq, returned home to Fort Lauderdale, Florida last night. It ended one of the most fascinating odysseys of 2005. Hassan took off for the Middle East on December 11, reportedly to research a school journalism project.
Happy Holidays!
by Jim Benning | 12.23.05 | 4:04 PM ET
We’ll be taking a week off from the weblog and will return Monday, Jan. 2. We wish you all a happy holidays and a merry 2006!
Bob Dylan, the “Fockers” and Brinco Shoes: The Weblog Year in Review
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.05 | 2:15 PM ET
One way to drive traffic to a website is to write about sex. Or Paris Hilton. Or, as our travel gossip columnist Theodore Fez did here, both at the same time. But we’ve pored over our visitor statistics in recent days, and we’re happy to report that our item about that other Paris didn’t even rank near the top of our most read weblog items this year. The readers of this weblog usually turned out for more worldly items, like this one about Brinco shoes, the first footwear designed for the undocumented migrant market. It has consistently been one of our highest ranking items for the last month, and it recently broke into the top five for the year.
Indonesia
by Ben Keene | 12.23.05 | 1:39 PM ET
Population: 241,973,879 (2005 est.)
Coordinates: 0 30 N 114 0 E
We’ve all heard that the world is getting smaller, and yet with all of the shrinking going on, gaps remain in what we know about the planet. Earlier this month, World Wildlife Fund researchers working in the mountains of Borneo, Indonesia captured a previously unknown species of carnivore on film. Somehow this reddish feline, temporarily dubbed a cat-fox, had escaped discovery and classification despite sharing its island habitat with a nation of nearly a quarter billion people.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Pundits Weigh in on Televised “Planes in Trouble”
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.05 | 2:19 AM ET
Now that televised emergency plane landings are an official cable news trend, media pundits are being asked to measure their significance. “You could be really cynical and say that we’re all stupid and easily entertained but I think it says something about the power of stories in our culture,” Kelly McBride, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute of journalism, told Reuters.
“Airplane!” Special Edition DVD Debuts
by Michael Yessis | 12.23.05 | 1:03 AM ET
Gadling Gets a New Look
by Jim Benning | 12.22.05 | 2:24 PM ET
The good folks at Gadling travel blog have a cool new look, complete with powder blue edges and a fresh logo. I think it’s a big improvement, and it sounds like they do, too. “We’ve been dying to haul away that old greenish design,” Erik Olsen writes.
Hemingway Was a Regular on Chalk’s Ocean Airways
by Jim Benning | 12.22.05 | 1:23 AM ET
I hadn’t heard of Chalk’s Ocean Airways until this week, with the news that a twin-engine Mallard seaplane it operated crashed off Miami on Monday, killing at least 19 people on board. It turns out the company and its planes have a long, storied history. The Florida carrier claims to be the world’s oldest surviving airline, and according to a fine story in the Palm Beach Post, Ernest Hemingway was once a regular passenger on flights to the island of Bimini. The Post story opens with a description of a Mallard taking off.
Have Charlie Rose and Fareed Zakaria Found Utopia in the Dominican Republic?
by Jim Benning | 12.21.05 | 11:27 PM ET
Sometimes I stumble across travel tidbits in the oddest places. This morning, via Jim Romenesko, it was a New York Observer profile of Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, whose writing I always enjoy, even if I don’t always agree with his politics. Zakaria, the story reports, was invited last year to take part in an odd vacation development project in the Dominican Republic that also involved musician Moby and talk show host Charlie Rose, among others.
Los Angeles: Hotels
by Michael Yessis | 12.21.05 | 1:21 PM ET
HIGH END
The Millenium Biltmore Hotel
This downtown hotel has been around since 1923 and is the site of the abduction of the Black Dahlia.
Moby, Dave Navarro Book Trips to Space
by Michael Yessis | 12.21.05 | 5:42 AM ET
The two musicians have reportedly reserved tickets through Virgin Galactic, a commercial space venture being developed by Richard Branson.
