Travel Blog
Two World Hum Stories Honored in 2005 Best American Travel Writing
by Michael Yessis | 08.22.05 | 7:26 PM ET
Wendy Knight’s The Burden of War and Rolf Potts’s Signs of Confusion were selected as notable travel writing in the latest edition of Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Travel Writing anthology. Jamaica Kincaid edited this year’s volume, and she selected stories by Pam Houston, John McPhee, Simon Winchester, World Hum contributor Tom Bissell and 21 others as featured selections. The book hits shelves October 5. More about it in the coming weeks.
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Yahoo! BuzzNorthwest Airlines Employee Takes Practice Swing With a Passenger’s Big Bertha! Film at 11!
by Michael Yessis | 08.22.05 | 6:39 PM ET
Do you know what baggage handlers are doing with your $1,000 set of Callaways? KSTP Eyewitness News in Minneapolis/St. Paul does. It has broken the story—pardon me, the “exclusive” story—about a Northwest Airlines employee swinging what appears to be a passenger’s golf club during a flight delay. It’s huge news at KSTP, on par with the footage of baggage handlers shooting baskets with Christmas presents back in winter of 2000. The video, which was taken pre-strike by a passenger, can be seen here.
Audubon Does Travel
by Jim Benning | 08.22.05 | 12:32 PM ET
Audubon magazine has published a travel-themed issue, and several of the stories are available online. Among them is a piece on the Bahamian island of Great Inagua, home to countless pink flamingos. “The challenge now facing Great Inagua is the inevitability of development,” writes Frank Graham Jr. “The history of ocean islands is that native human populations and their animal neighbors are eclipsed as outsiders appropriate their space for agriculture, industry, and resorts.”
For the Record
by Jim Benning | 08.22.05 | 10:38 AM ET
We recently took issue with the way The New York Times described World Hum in a story earlier this month. We’re pleased that the newspaper set the record straight on Sunday: “An article on Aug. 7 about Web sites that include reader reports on travel referred incorrectly to contributors to Worldhum.com. While the site indeed welcomes opinions from readers, many of its contributors have been previously published; they are not beginners.”
Travel Editor’s Shocking Confession: “I Haven’t Been Everywhere”
by Jim Benning | 08.21.05 | 7:55 PM ET
The stunning tell-all comes in a column today by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Travel Editor David Bear. “I hope this revelation doesn’t come as a shock,” he writes, “but I haven’t been everywhere.” And there’s more: “People often ask me for suggestions about good hotels and restaurants in cities they’ll be visiting, and so many of them seem surprised when a travel editor pleads ignorance simply because he’s never been there.” It’s a terrible fall from grace for a travel editor who, to so many of us, seemed to have been absolutely everywhere. There’s more to the column, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to read it. What might Bear reveal next? That he has yet to summit K2 without oxygen? That he’s never studied Sanskrit in Delhi? That the jungle enclaves of Chiapas rebels are generally unfamiliar to him? No, we’d read quite enough, thank you.
Travel Summit in Iceland
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 2:44 PM ET
While we’re on the subject of travel writing and photography conferences, the Icelandic Geographic Travel Summit, which takes place Sept. 8-10 in Reykjavik and bills itself as the “coolest travel summit on the planet,” has assembled plenty of star power. Among those scheduled to speak: Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, Lonely Planet’s Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and Keith Bellows of National Geographic Traveler.
Talking Travel Writing at Book Passage
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 1:49 PM ET
Jen Leo has posted a report and photos from the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which is taking place this weekend in Northern California. Tim Cahill and Simon Winchester are among those on the faculty.
“Travel Writer Rick Steves is a Long-Standing Nation Reader”
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 12:32 AM ET
Travel writers usually don’t have enough celebrity cache to be featured in advertisements, but a full-page ad in the July 11 issue of The Nation features a bespectacled Rick Steves reading a copy of the magazine. The caption: “Travel writer Rick Steves is a long-standing Nation reader.” Steves, as we’ve noted before, has often mixed politics and travel.
Freelancers, Travel and The New York Times
by Jim Benning | 08.19.05 | 6:18 PM ET
A number of freelance travel writers are miffed about a column in Sunday’s New York Times by Public Editor Byron Calame. Calame points out that bylines of stories written by freelancers in The Times Travel section look no different from those written by staff writers. Because it’s difficult for editors to monitor the ethical and reporting standards of freelancers, Calame writes, “readers deserve to know whether a freelancer or a staffer provides the content.” Many newspapers make a distinction, of course: Bylines of stories written by freelancers in the Los Angeles Times, for example, carry the phrase “Special to the Times” as opposed to “Times Staff Writer.”
Santa Cruz vs. Huntington Beach: A Pox on Both of Their ‘Surf City’ Houses
by Jim Benning | 08.19.05 | 4:13 PM ET
Oh, the battles that people and places will wage in the quest for the almighty tourist buck. The California cities of Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach are squabbling once again over the use of the moniker “Surf City USA.” The latest flare-up is the result of a state senator introducing a resolution to make Santa Cruz in his district “Surf City USA.” Not so fast, says Huntington Beach, which has filed trademark applications for “Surf City USA” and uses the name in its logo. A story in today’s Los Angeles Times details the history of the fight, which goes back 13 years. It’s ugly.
That Rough Landing Wasn’t the Captain’s Fault. It Was the Asphalt!
by Michael Yessis | 08.19.05 | 10:35 AM ET
Comedy, as we’ve said before, has become as much a part of modern air travel as jet lag. A story by Jayne Clark in this weekend’s USA Today confirms that funny flying is spreading across the U.S. It’s not all about the yuk yuk cabin announcements, wannabe stand-up comedian pilots and airlines listing fun as a core value. Clark’s piece profiles Dave George, Independence Air’s “FLYi Guy,” the nation’s only airport comedian.
Meet ‘Australia’s Forrest Gump’
by Michael Yessis | 08.18.05 | 9:55 PM ET
Boing Boing has news today of Alan Waddell, a 91-year-old man in the middle of a quest to walk every street in Sydney and its suburbs. He joins a few other peripatetic travelers who have taken on entire cities, including Phyllis Pearsall, who walked 3,000 miles in London while compiling the “Geographer’s A-Z Street Atlas,” and Francine Corcoran who conquered the streets of Minneapolis.
Of Pilgrimages and “Billgrimages”
by Michael Yessis | 08.17.05 | 9:16 AM ET
What’s a “Billgrimage”? That’s what fans of former U.S. President Bill Clinton are calling their trips to Hope, Arkansas to see his birthplace and presidential library. CNN has the story via AP. Across the Atlantic, a more traditional pilgrim has been making news.
Sister Mary Michael, a 61-year-old Roman Catholic nun, is leading a protest against the filming of “The Da Vinci Code” at Lincoln Cathedral this week by subjecting herself to the three-day Lough Derg pilgrimage. The Times religion writer Ruth Gledhill calls it “ascetically demanding”—pilgrims eat one small meal a day and travel barefoot.
Celebrity Travel Watch Special Edition: Paris Hilton Did It Here
by Theodore Fez | 08.17.05 | 9:06 AM ET
It’s a spectacular day here at Celebrity Travel Watch! I’ve been waiting for years for someone to break the story about where celebrities like to have sex when they’re on the road, and, hot damn, BlackBook magazine has done it. The four-page “celebrity guide to the best hotels for sex” features a plethora of boldface names: Hilton! Pitt! Jolie! Depp! Led Zeppelin! Alyssa Shelasky’s story isn’t quite “Hammer of the Gods,” but she sure knows her way around the places where celebrities get down.
Q-and-A With Bill Bryson
by Michael Yessis | 08.15.05 | 11:05 PM ET
Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an interview with “Walk in the Woods” author Bill Bryson. What’s he up to? “I’m doing a book which is a kind of travel book,” he tells K.C. Summers, “except that it’s a memoir about growing up in the ‘50s in Iowa.” Go with it, Bill. We’re with you.
