Travel Blog
The We’ve Had It with the ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ Edition
by Michael Yessis | 10.14.04 | 6:52 PM ET
The book that lured so many American tourists to Tuscany now has a rebuttal: Too Much Tuscan Sun: Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide by Dario Castagno with Robert Rodi. The San Francisco Chronicle’s David Armstrong liked it. “In brief, easily digestible chapters, Castagno tells some very funny stories about often-ignorant and occasionally exasperating foreign tourists,” he writes. Here’s one of my favorite quotes: “A Yank asks what the Italian word for cappuccino is.”
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Yahoo! BuzzPete McCarthy Dies at 81
by Michael Yessis | 10.13.04 | 6:57 PM ET
Pete McCarthy, author of “McCarthy’s Bar” and “The Road to McCarthy,” died last week in Brighton, England, the Associated Press has reported. McCarthy’s Bar recounts his journey through the west of Ireland, which he called “an attempt to discover whether my feelings were genuine: is it possible to have a genetic memory of a place where you haven’t lived but your ancestors did? Or am I just another sad plastic Paddy who has been conned by the Chieftains’ albums and the Guinness ads?”
What’s Next: Ask the Baggage Handler?
by Michael Yessis | 10.13.04 | 6:55 PM ET
Ask the Pilot, Patrick Smith’s Salon column that entertains as it demystifies flying, has a competitor. It’s Ask the Captain, written for USA Today by United pilot Merile Getline, who also seeks to entertain and demystify flying. Smith is a little bent out of shape, though it’s not because his turf has been invaded. “[I]t’s the name that irks me. Ask the Captain?” Smith writes in his most recent column. “I know, sour grapes, but try to feel my pain: A major U.S. newspaper chooses to run a series strikingly similar to my own column and book, using almost the identical name?” Getline tells Smith she wasn’t aware of his column, and that she’d previously been answering questions independently at her personal Web site, FromTheCockpit.
Susan Orlean’s “My Kind of Place”
by Jim Benning | 10.12.04 | 6:58 PM ET
The Chicago Sun-Times’ Jennifer Hunter reviewed a new collection of travel stories by Susan Orlean in Sunday’s paper. “My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere” features articles Orlean has written for the Atlantic Monthly and Outside, among other publications. The stories aren’t conventional travel narratives, Hunter observes. The book “does tell you something about place, but it tells more about the ordinary people who inhabit that place and the ethos that governs their lives,” she writes. Hunter’s review also includes a thoughtful rumination about the history of women travel writers: “Travel writing became a natural genre for women authors during the 18th century, when transportation became less arduous and social strictures began to loosen, a welcome consequence of the revolutionary period in France.”
“All Writing is Travel Writing”
by Michael Yessis | 10.08.04 | 7:07 PM ET
In the September issue of Harper’s—sorry, we got a little behind in our magazine reading—Nicholas Delbanco, in his essay “Anywhere Out of This World,” makes a compelling case for the oft-denigrated genre of travel writing. He writes: “In the Western tradition of literature, the common denominator of the ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and ‘The Divine Comedy’—not to mention ‘Don Quixote’ or ‘Moby Dick’ or ‘Faust’—is near-constant motion.” I recommend the essay for anyone who can dig up a copy (it’s unavailable online), but one thing about it makes me curious: The excuse for Delbanco’s five-and-a-half page piece is a “review” of Pico Iyer’s “Sun After Dark,” which, by my count, he touches on in just one paragraph.
Traveling ‘The Che Trail’
by Jim Benning | 10.08.04 | 7:02 PM ET
Today’s Los Angeles Times features a fascinating front page story about efforts in Bolivia and beyond to transform Che Guevara historical sites into major tourist attractions. The article also touches on Che-related commercial absurdity beyond Latin America, noting: “The Republica Trading Co. collection—available at retail outlets such as Bloomingdale’s and Fred Segal—includes a $98 Che cashmere sweater. When Johnny Depp posed for the cover of GQ magazine last year, he wore a Che medallion.” Ugh.
Will ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ Spawn a New Magazine: Condé Nast Revolution?
by Jim Benning | 10.08.04 | 6:59 PM ET
I imagine I’m not the only travel addict who was eager to see “The Motorcycle Diaries,” the new film about Che Guevara’s youthful journey through South America. After all, it’s a road film, and done right, road films stoke wanderlust. So does “The Motorcycle Diaries” deliver? I’d say so, having seen the movie last night.
The film’s visuals are enough to make you want to hop on the next flight to Buenos Aires, Cuzco or Valparaiso. What’s more, the film captures that sense of discovery so many young travelers experience when they light out for the first time. But it’s not perfect.
A reviewer for The Nation, Stuart Klawans, hit the nail on the head with this observation: “With this much sense of visual discovery, ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ could spawn a glossy magazine: Condé Nast Revolution.” In other words, sometimes it’s a bit much.
What’s more, because the film focuses on the pre-revolutionary Che, audiences aren’t asked to consider what became of Guevara’s transformation years later. As Klawans writes: “He devoted much of his adult life to activities of the kill-or-be-killed variety. That, of course, is something that a culture of liberal self-congratulation would prefer not to contemplate. We’d rather get the T-shirt Che, only prettier.”
True enough. I’ll skip the T-shirt. But I’m a sucker for a good road movie.
‘Best American Travel Writing’ Launches with New York Event
by Jim Benning | 10.07.04 | 7:36 PM ET
Editor Pico Iyer hosts the launch event for the 2004 Best American Travel Writing anthology Tuesday, October 12, at The Explorers Club in New York City. The reception begins at 6:30 p.m. Readings from Tad Friend, George Packer and Elizabeth Rubin follow at 7 p.m. The cost is $15 for nonmembers and $5 for students. This year’s edition features two World Hum stories, Test Day by Frank Bures and Sandbags in the Archipelago by Heather Eliot.
Lonely Planet Seeks Stories
by Jim Benning | 10.07.04 | 7:10 PM ET
The publisher is accepting entries for a travel humor competition, and all entries will be considered for a forthcoming book. The deadline is November 30.
Blogging the Perils of Travel Writing
by Jim Benning | 10.07.04 | 7:09 PM ET
Travel writer Carl Parkes has launched a weblog devoted to, as he puts it on the site, “the travails of travel writing.” So far eschewing personal commentary, Parkes has posted previously published articles by prominent writers, including Thomas Swick and Jason Wilson. Swick’s essay exploring the tired conventions of the genre, which first appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, is a must-read for any travel writer. Parkes is the author of six guidebooks and a winner of two Lowell Thomas awards, so he knows a thing or two about the business. We look forward to watching this new blog develop.
Molvania in the News
by Jim Benning | 10.05.04 | 7:14 PM ET
The Life of a Traveling Writer
by Jim Benning | 10.05.04 | 7:13 PM ET
“Neighborhoods Give Our Journeys a Pleasing Singularity”
by Jim Benning | 10.04.04 | 7:17 PM ET
It took years for the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Thomas Swick to come to terms with it: When he travels, he’ll take a commonplace neighborhood over an iconic monument any day. “Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, belong to every visitor to Istanbul, but if one evening you slip into a Beyoglu tavern and share small green plums with a table of Turks, those Turks, and those plums, are yours alone,” he writes in a column Sunday. “It takes some effort. True neighborhoods are usually far from chain hotels and equestrian statues. Tour buses never clutter their streets. You know you’ve stumbled into one when you pass a barbershop. See men in coveralls. Feel out of place. I wear Rooster ties, now found only in vintage clothing stores, so even if a trip doesn’t enhance my collection it leads me to boroughs I might otherwise miss.”
Celebrating Graham Greene
by Jim Benning | 10.04.04 | 7:16 PM ET
He’s Really, Really, Really Trying to Like India
by Michael Yessis | 09.30.04 | 7:19 PM ET
The last time Seth Stevenson went to India he just “haaaaaaated it.” Yes, that’s seven As, which is a whole lot of hate. But he’s trying again, this time with his girlfriend. He’s chronicling his second effort in India all this week on Slate. So far he’s puked a little, sought a little spirituality, and been, in general, quite funny while doing it. “It seems there exists a sort of Hindu metaphysics known as Ayurveda, which aims to heal both body and spirit (and, most important, has been championed by Deepak Chopra),” he writes. “I figure this will do the trick. And since they happen to have an Ayurvedic spa at our beach resort, I also figure: Why not seek deeper meaning on a massage table?”
