Travel Blog
Airplane Books: Weighty Tomes Are the New Fluff
by Michael Yessis | 08.14.05 | 12:59 PM ET
The airport bookstore has become the new marketplace of intellectual ideas. So says Henry Fountain in Sunday’s New York Times. Why?
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Yahoo! BuzzWanted: “Shoe Weapon Inspection System”
by Jim Benning | 08.11.05 | 1:12 PM ET
Few post-9/11, post-moron-shoe-bomber-guy airport requirements are more dispiriting than the one to remove your shoes before walking through the x-ray machine. It’s a relatively minor inconvenience, but it’s a sorry reminder of how much air travel has changed. Fortunately, there may be good news on the naked foot front. Ben Mutzabaugh writes in USA Today about a Transportation Security Administration effort to find companies to develop a “Shoe Weapon Inspection System” to screen shoes for bombs without passengers having to de-shoe. The administration has even placed an ad for it. If you happen to be in the Shoe Weapon Inspection System business, I beg you, on behalf of all travelers, to deliver us from this indignity.
When Tourists Attack
by Jim Benning | 08.11.05 | 12:00 PM ET
One fall night a couple of years ago, I found myself on a tiny island in the middle of Lake Patzcuaro in the Mexican state of Michaoacan. I’d come to see the traditional Day of the Dead celebration, when families hold vigils at the graves of their ancestors, decorating them with flickering candles and bright orange marigolds to welcome the ancestors’ souls back for a visit. It’s a beautiful tradition I’d witnessed in other areas. There was just one problem on this night: The island’s small cemetery was being overrun by so many visitors that one couldn’t begin to appreciate the occasion. People were shuffling through the cemetery cheek by jowl, elbowing one another, tripping over tombstones. There was little room to walk or even breathe.
Arthur Frommer: “I Hated the Jingoism”
by Jim Benning | 08.10.05 | 10:06 AM ET
Guidebook author Arthur Frommer is featured in a short profile in The Seattle Times. The piece covers some interesting ground, including Frommer’s non travel-related books (among them, “The Bible and the Public Schools,” in which he argued against compulsory Bible reading in schools), and his unorthodox guidebook to Branson, Missouri. “It’s the only guidebook in history,” he said, “that tells the reader, in effect, do not go!”
Bloggers’ Race to Get on “Amazing Race” Heats Up
by Michael Yessis | 08.09.05 | 10:35 PM ET
Who needs to watch The Amazing Race when the jockeying to get on the show is just as entertaining? Two sets of bloggers are hoping to be the first ones to appear on the hit CBS reality travel show—Swirlspice and Lasadh (Erica and Sherri) and the Bloggertwins (Cameron and Damien). On Monday, Erica and Sherri learned of the Bloggertwins’ existence, and the smackdown commenced. “Erica and I,” Sherri wrote, “are SO going to be the bloggers selected for the Amazing Race, not these two.” Erica followed with, “Pffffft. We are so gonna get picked over you.” Cameron and Damien have not responded, but that won’t stop us from handicapping the competition. Here’s the tale of the tape:
Podcasting Caffe Reggio
by Jim Benning | 08.09.05 | 1:00 PM ET
Sandra Tsing Loh: “I really do not enjoy turbulence”
by Michael Yessis | 08.09.05 | 12:09 AM ET
If Valium and Bloody Marys aren’t enough to get you through an airplane flight, don’t miss Sandra Tsing Loh’s most recent Loh Life commentary, Plane Geometry. It’s hilarious.
World Hum: “A Virtual Library of Beginner Travel Writing”?
by Jim Benning | 08.06.05 | 1:52 AM ET
Welcome to the site The New York Times just heralded as “a virtual library of beginner travel writing.” We appreciate the mention, but beginner? Among the “beginner” travel writers now featured on World Hum’s front page are novelist Porter Shreve, author of the New York Times Notable Book “The Obituary Writer” and a contributor to the New York Times Sophisticated Traveler; Rolf Potts, whose stories have appeared in Salon, National Geographic Traveler and Houghton Mifflin’s “The Best American Travel Writing”; and Terry Ward, whose travel writing has been published in the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times Magazine. For beginners, they’re not doing half bad. Regardless, enjoy the tales.
“From the Movies and the Music Videos, I Thought All Girls in America Were Like Britney Spears”
by Jim Benning | 08.05.05 | 10:49 PM ET
So says Kaoutar, a 17-year-old girl from Morocco. But that was before she came to the United States as part of the U.S. State Department-sponsored Youth Exchange and Study Program, launched in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. According to a story in the International Herald Tribune, while some U.S. efforts to improve the country’s image abroad have been criticized, the youth exchange program is “a notable exception.” The program appears to be changing minds.
Q&A with Taras Grescoe
by Jim Benning | 08.05.05 | 9:43 PM ET
Rolf Potts has posted an interview with Taras Grescoe, author of a couple of books, including The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists. Grescoe offered warnings and advice for would-be travel writers: “Travel is addictive. People will never offer any sympathy when you complain about how tired you are of traveling. Your circle of friends will grow, but they will be scattered all over the earth, and you will never be able to get them in the same room for a party. And if you don’t watch out, you may become the unbearably pretentious possessor of a spurious cosmopolitanism. Allow your friends to bring you back down to earth.”
William Least Heat-Moon on Book TV
by Jim Benning | 08.05.05 | 12:40 AM ET
The author of the classic travel memoir Blue Highways: A Journey Into America will be featured on a three-hour In Depth segment on C-SPAN2 Sunday. The program airs at noon Eastern time.
“Terrorists are giving backpacks a bad name”
by Jim Benning | 08.04.05 | 5:11 PM ET
The backpack—the ultra-utilitarian bag of choice for hip travelers and students everywhere—is under attack. According to a report in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune, since the recent London bombings, transporation and stadium officials in the United States are more likely to view backpacks as potential carrying cases for weapons of terror. “Transit officials in New York are randomly inspecting backpacks on subway platforms,” the article states. “A frightened Manhattan tour bus operator recently called police with a report of five swarthy men with overstuffed backpacks.”
Portzline Debuts “Bookstore Tourism” Podcast
by Michael Yessis | 08.03.05 | 9:49 PM ET
It’s newsy, but it’s the kind of news we like. Larry Portzline, who created Bookstore Tourism and wrote a book about it, discusses how to kickstart your own local bookstore tour and spreads the word about an upcoming trip planned by the Southern California Booksellers Association. Portzline also has a Bookstore Tourism blog.
“We’re Salesmen, Aren’t We?”
by Michael Yessis | 08.03.05 | 9:43 PM ET
Steven Vincent RIP
by Jim Benning | 08.03.05 | 8:22 PM ET
It’s hard to imagine just how many writers—journalists, travel writers, poets—have been inspired by Jack Kerouac. It turns out that Steven Vincent, the 49-year-old American freelance journalist shot to death in Iraq on Tuesday, was one of them. The Boston Globe has published a touching AP story about the writer, who was apparently at work on a book about the port city of Basra when he was kidnapped and killed. According to the Globe, Vincent graduated from Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in English. Afterward, in 1980, he hitchhiked to New York, “heeding the siren call of the big city—and my dream to become the next Jack Kerouac,” he once wrote in a bio.
