Travel Blog
Iran Hopes to Lure Western Travelers With Cash Incentives
by Michael Yessis | 11.03.06 | 7:54 AM ET
The country is offering $20 a head, and it goes to “those who attract European or American tourists to the country,” according to an AP report. Visitors from other countries would earn travel agents US$10.
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Yahoo! BuzzA Guide to the ‘Middle of Nowhere’
by Jim Benning | 11.03.06 | 7:11 AM ET
Having created guidebooks to just about everywhere, Lonely Planet has set its sights on nowhere, and in a big way. We recently noted the release of Lonely Planet’s new literary travel anthology, Tales from Nowhere, which features stories from far-flung locales. Now comes the Lonely Planet Guide to the Middle of Nowhere, a coffee table book with arresting photos and short essays about middles of nowhere around the globe, from Bolivia’s Atacama Desert to India’s Himachal Pradesh. “For a supposedly social species, our appetite for space, wilderness and isolation is remarkable,” writes Ben Saunders in the introduction. “The phrase ‘middle of nowhere’ has wormed its way into our everyday language; we all know where it is, and we can all recount a visit there, but unlike the summit of a mountain, the shore of an ocean or a famous monument, ‘nowhere’ itself is harder to pinpoint.” Yet LP manages to locate it in more than 50 places, each of which can whet the appetite of those yearning for their own kind of nowhere.
Salt, Spain
by Ben Keene | 11.03.06 | 7:07 AM ET
Coordinates: 41 59 N 2 47 E
Population: 25,912 (2004 est.)
Salt has long been paired with pepper in dining rooms across the globe. On a map, however, their closeness is considerably lessened. The Spanish town of Salt is located in Gerona, the country’s easternmost province, along the Ter River. Situated on a fertile agricultural plain south of the Pyrenees Mountains and the French border, Salt is half a world away from its culinary counterpart. Pimienta, the Spanish word for “pepper,” is also located in a river valley—in Honduras, south of San Pedro Sula’s busy streets and the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Exporting Dubai
by Terry Ward | 11.02.06 | 8:46 AM ET
For me, visiting Morocco has always meant hanging with my host family in Fes (I studied Arabic there in 2003), seaside sardine feasts for a few bucks in Essaouira and strolls through the medinas to soak up the chaos and color. But when you’re Emaar—Dubai’s largest property group, backed by the ruling Maktoum family—Morocco is just another stage for a decadent Arabian playground, replete with a golf-course-cum-ski-resort, luxury shopping streets and fake beaches. Never mind that the construction site, Oukaimeden—a small provincial ski resort in the High Atlas mountains, not far from Marrakech—is nowhere near the United Arab Emirates.
KLM Introduces Sustainable Coffee on Flights, Faces Greenwashing Charges
by Michael Yessis | 11.02.06 | 8:16 AM ET
The airline’s recent pledge to serve coffee from sustainable farms in conjunction with the Rainforest Alliance has been met with mixed reviews. It’s the first European airline to take such a step, but according to a story by Tom Chesshyre in The Times of London, “environmentalists are sceptical that the move is ‘greenwashing,’ designed to shift focus from the damage that emissions cause to the environment.” KLM serves 25 million cups of coffee a year.
Related on World Hum:
* Branson Pledges Airline and Train Profits to Renewable Energy Research
* Airplanes and Climate Change
Help for the Wayward Underground Rider
by Ben Keene | 11.01.06 | 3:07 PM ET
As an atlas editor, I have a questionably healthy obsession with maps. As a traveler, I never go anywhere without one (and preferably two or three). Which is why I was particularly excited to learn that a British design company is now selling credit card-sized, stainless steel maps of the London Underground and the New York Subway. They strike me as the perfect accessory for a hip cartographer or really anyone wishing to be a less conspicuous tourist. Hopefully they’ll pave the way for similar maps for other cities with subterranean mass transit systems. Tokyo would be an excellent candidate—that is if it’s even possible to fit all of the subway lines and stops on a piece of metal measuring 85 millimeters across.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
This Magazine Cover Has the Philadelphia Hotel Association Running Scared
by Michael Yessis | 11.01.06 | 11:54 AM ET
Philadelphia Magazine usually distributes about 6,000 copies of its glossy pub to hotel rooms around the city. Not this month, though. November’s issue features a cover story about murder in the city, with a subhead that reads: “One terrifying night on the streets—and why everything we’re doing to stop the shooting won’t work.” Philadelphia Hotel Association executive director Ed Grose “urged hotels to think twice before providing guests with copies” of the magazine, according to a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In Oaxaca, a Different Kind of Day of the Dead
by Jim Benning | 11.01.06 | 8:11 AM ET
Today marks the beginning of Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities, when Mexicans and tourists alike gather in cemeteries and around town squares to ponder the world beyond and welcome back the spirits of loved ones who have passed away. Oaxaca is among the most popular places for visitors to get a taste of the holiday, but as the AP notes today, few tourists have made the trip this year due to concerns over ongoing protests in the city and occasional related violence. As one local remarked, “Our celebration is very sad this year, it doesn’t have that happy feeling.”
World Hum’s Most Read: October 2006
by Michael Yessis | 11.01.06 | 7:11 AM ET
Space Tourist Anousheh Ansari Transfixes, Befuddles Iran
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.06 | 6:46 AM ET
Last month, Iranian-American businesswoman Anousheh Ansari spent in the neighborhood of $20 million to hop a ride aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to become the first female space tourist. Folks in the land of her birth were obsessed with Ansari’s trip, according to Nazila Fathi’s New York Times story. The journey stimulated much debate about the plight of women in Iran and whether Ansari’s money might have been better spent helping out the country’s poor.
Most Tasteless Travel-Themed Halloween Display Ever?
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.06 | 6:42 AM ET
Here’s the story. And here’s the photo. And here’s the explanation for how Steve Chambers moved parts of an airplane onto his front lawn to simulate a crash site: Beer and physics.
R.I.P. Stardust Hotel
by Jim Benning | 10.31.06 | 5:59 AM ET
Photo by heather0714, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
I spotted the guy in the ghoulish grim reaper costume, gripping his faux scythe, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas Saturday night. He fit right in among the other Halloween revelers—the scantily clad nurses, the Top Gun pilots in their flight suits and reflective sunglasses, Richard Nixon and his entourage of Secret Service agents. But the grim reaper really should have been skulking several blocks up the strip at the Stardust, where death loomed like a hazy cloud of casino cigarette smoke. On Wednesday, the half-century-old hotel with the strip’s most iconic neon sign will close for good. The usual implosion will follow in several months, paving the way, as the Vegas hotel life cycle dictates, for a new megaresort.
The Critics: Jason Elliot’s ‘Mirrors of the Unseen’
by Jim Benning | 10.30.06 | 2:49 PM ET
Eric Newby, One of the Last of the ‘Fearless English Gentlemen-Adventurers’
by Jim Benning | 10.30.06 | 1:26 PM ET
That’s how Pico Iyer recently described Newby, the author of “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush,” who died earlier this month at the age of 86. Michael Shapiro recalled the author’s life in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. In an e-mail, Iyer told Shapiro: “Newby was one of the last of that dazzling generation of fearless English gentlemen-adventurers distinguished by Norman Lewis, Wilfred Thesiger and Patrick Leigh Fermor, the kind who could toss off a walk across Afghanistan as easily as a journey to the corner shop and who in their travels remind us how small are the distances between Englishman and Bedouin. What made Newby so wonderful and distinctive was that he often seemed to be traveling in spite of himself, less professional explorer than professional Everyman.” Earlier this year, Shapiro sang the praises of Newby’s “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” for our list of the top 30 travel books of all time.
Related on World Hum:
* NPR Remembers Eric Newby
* Rory MacLean Remembers Eric Newby
* R.I.P. Eric Newby
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Skimpy Skirts and Thunderbolts
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.06 | 11:30 AM ET
There’s a hint of fear in the air, but, as always, we’re still hitting the road. This week the Zeitgeist leads to Paris, Dubai, Iowa, Mexico City and the most scenic toilet in the world. Let’s go.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Japanese Tourists Succumb to “Paris Syndrome”
* I’ve seen a bit of coverage of this story this week, and the New York Post gets the best headline award: Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried.
World’s Least Favorite Airline
TripAdvisor (survey)
Ryanair
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Beyond Skimpy Skirts, a Rare Debate on Identity
* Hassan M. Fattah’s story explores the limits of multiculturalism in Dubai.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* Two weeks in a row at the top for Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hotels Ditch Imposing Desks for Friendly ‘Pods’
* Three reasons why: To lure younger customers, to improve employee productivity and, of course, to increase revenue.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
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Most Dugg “Travel” Story
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Apple’s Gift to Travelers: Magsafe Airline Power Adapter
