Travel Blog
Off the Road
by Jim Benning | 03.28.05 | 3:53 PM ET
The Washington Post’s Jerry V. Haines reviewed “Off the Road” in the Sunday Travel section. The book, by Jack Hitt, chronicles the author’s not-so-religious pilgrimage on foot from France to Santiago de Compostela. Apparently Hitt didn’t consider himself a religious pilgrim but thought the journey would make for a nice hike. What did Haines think of the book? “Hitt has surprisingly little introspection for someone in such a contemplative undertaking,” he writes. “He slips in a little geography, legends of the Knights Templar and deaths of the martyrs. All in great fun. Is it irreverent? Inspirational? Actually, both—and capably so.”
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Yahoo! BuzzMaureen Dowd Just Wants Some Nachos
by Michael Yessis | 03.24.05 | 12:43 AM ET
New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd recently took a break from pointing out that the emperor has no clothes in order to travel with her sister Peggy to Aqua, “Cancun’s first boutique-style luxury hotel.” Dowd’s story about their experience in Mexico ran in Sunday’s paper, and it’s just what I expect from the Pulitzer Prize winner: Edgy, funny and a damn good read. Dowd swims, but not with dolphins: “If there’s one thing I detest,” she writes, “it’s swimming with dolphins.” Dowd gets a spa treatment with an ambitious aim: “[T]he hotel had seemed like a spectacularly beautiful but unapproachable woman sitting alone in an empty restaurant,” she writes. “But here was the promise of Soul.” And Dowd eats, but not what she was hoping for: “This was upgraded, contemporary, avant-garde Mexico,” she writes. “This was the land of fusion. I hate fusion. I hate infusion. I want my ethnicity straight up.”
What’s More Interesting, Writing About Science or Travel?
by Jim Benning | 03.18.05 | 5:53 PM ET
That was just one of the questions posed to Bill Bryson by Guardian newspaper readers recently. How did the author of a book about hiking the Appalachian Trail respond? “The thing I really enjoy about my existence, my work, is the variety of it. I did a science book as a break from travel writing, but I’d be happy at some point to go back to it - or equally to go off and doing something else entirely. I really enjoy going to a library and spending the day doing research - to me that was the most pleasurable part of the science book. So - not writing the same kind of book over and over again is to me the real pleasure of what I do.” Also: Bryson told the BBC he’s working on a memoir about growing up in the 1950s and a biography of William Shakespeare, and that he’d like to do more travel writing, perhaps about Japan and the Far East.
W. G. Sebald’s “Campo Santo”
by Jim Benning | 03.18.05 | 5:50 PM ET
The Allure of the Atlanta
by Michael Yessis | 03.15.05 | 7:46 PM ET
In the heart of one of Bangkok’s most notorious sex tourism districts lies the Atlanta Hotel. It’s “revered as the Taj Mahal of budget hotels,” writes Terry Ward in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Ward, who also wrote the current feature story on World Hum’s home page, recently spent five nights in Bangkok, and she tracked down the hotel’s elusive owner, Charles Henn. Henn promotes the Atlanta as a haven from the sex trade, a civilized oasis whose existence relies primarily on word passed from traveler to traveler. “The kind of person that would want to know about the Atlanta, well, would be in a minority anyway,” he tells Ward, “It appeals to a certain kind of traveler, and that’s just as it should be.”
Kenya vs. Tanzania: Trading Insults and Allegations for Tourist Dollars
by Jim Benning | 03.11.05 | 8:53 PM ET
“Even Flirting is Political in Beirut”
by Michael Yessis | 03.10.05 | 8:55 PM ET
Slate is running another “Well-Traveled” series this week, and it’s a good one. Lee Smith journeyed to Beirut, Lebanon, for a month beginning in late December. He was searching for “the talk.” He writes: “This last year or so, New York has reminded me of a Cairo shopping mall I used to frequent where the soundtrack was always playing a recitation of the Quran. It was disturbing not because I think there should be separation between the sacred and consumer items, but because a society that keeps re-circulating the same sound to confirm and consolidate what it already believes about itself is a troubled one. By convincing themselves that the rest of their country was tragically, dangerously stupid, my New York neighbors effectively isolated themselves from the rest of the country. At any rate, I wanted to be somewhere where you can hear the talk over the soundtrack, and Lebanon seems right.” Smith weaves his experience with a look at the complex political landscape, which, considering the headlines coming out of the region this week, makes for an excellent read. The five-part series began Monday and continues all week.
How I Moved to Argentina and Became a Not-So-Famous Model
by Jim Benning | 03.09.05 | 8:57 PM ET
Swimming Through Iceland
by Jim Benning | 03.07.05 | 8:59 PM ET
On a recent visit to Iceland, Jason Wilson decided to swim his way around the country by visiting its countless middle-of-nowhere swimming pools. He had many reasons. As he explains in a terrific story in Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, he was inspired by Icelanders’ love of water, and by a John Cheever short story about a man who, in a fit of suburban desperation, decides to swim home one day from one pool to another. Wilson was also inspired by memories of the time he spent exploring Iceland as a younger man, when he sometimes found himself basking in a Reykjavik pool at the end of a long night. “It is these visits to the pools that remain perhaps the most vivid—the feeling of dipping from cool air into hot water, settling in, chin deep, as steam rises around my head, and feeling as though the days will never end,” he writes. “In my mind, they are like the elusive fountain of youth. I am not so young and aimless anymore, but for some time I’ve dreamed of swimming around Iceland, of breast-stroking and doggy-paddling from swimming pool to hot spring to swimming pool, slicing through a river of hot water that has gurgled up from the center of the Earth.” Registration is required to view the article.
Celebrity Travel Watch: Mel Gibson
by Jim Benning | 03.04.05 | 9:05 PM ET
In our ongoing yet admittedly lackluster effort to track the travel habits of the rich and famous, we bring news that actor-director Mel Gibson has purchased a Fijian island for use as a “private getaway.” It looks as if Gibson got taken for a ride, though. While he apparently paid $15 million for the island, a Fijian tribe says the land was previously sold for 2,000 coconut plants. We’re no coconut farmers, but you could buy a lot of coconut plants for $15 million. But seriously, the real problem is that, although Gibson bought the island from a Japanese company and the purchase has been approved by Fijian authorities, a Fijian tribe insists the island belongs to them. They’re planning a fight.
Around the World Update: Fossett Returns, and So Does Bly
by Michael Yessis | 03.04.05 | 9:04 PM ET
At 1:50 p.m. CST yesterday afternoon, Steve Fossett landed in Salina, Kansas, to complete the first-ever solo flight around the world without refueling. It took him 67 hours, 2 minutes and 38 seconds to complete the trip. That’s more than five fewer days than it took USA Today writer Laura Bly to travel around the world by commercial aircraft. She landed at 7:15 p.m. EST Monday evening to finish an eight-day trip inspired by the 100th anniversary of “Around the World in 80 Days” author Jules Verne’s death. So how did the adventurers celebrate their accomplishments? Fossett basked in a champagne shower from his patron, Virgin Airlines chief Richard Branson. Bly, who chronicled her entire journey on the USA Today Web site, settled in with her husband for a glass of red wine and a Trader Joe’s barbecue chicken pizza.
Don George on Travel Writing
by Jim Benning | 03.03.05 | 9:07 PM ET
On the eve of the publication of his new book Travel Writing, LonelyPlanet.com editor Don George sat for an interview with Rolf Potts. The former Salon.com editor reminisces about his start in travel writing and recommends a handful of other travel books, including Paul Theroux’s “The Great Railway Bazaar,” Bruce Chatwin’s “In Patagonia” and Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard,” which he describes as “a masterful combination of intensely personal exploration and intensely vivid description, infused with a searing, soaring humanity, spirituality and intelligence.”
Fossett Enters the Homestretch
by Michael Yessis | 03.02.05 | 9:08 PM ET
Adventurer Steve Fossett, who is currently attempting to make the first nonstop solo airplane flight around the world without refueling, reached Hawaii late Wednesday night. According to the latest Reuters report, if all goes according to plan Fossett will touch down in Salina, Kansas, Thursday afternoon. The 60-year-old millionaire former markets trader is flying an experimental plane powered by a single jet engine.
Hunter S. Thompson to Paul Theroux: “We’ll Offer a Course on Writing”
by Jim Benning | 02.27.05 | 12:36 AM ET
Globe-trotting author Paul Theroux offers a thoughtful and fond recollection of his friend Hunter S. Thompson in today’s Guardian.
R.I.P. Uli Dickerson
by Jim Benning | 02.25.05 | 11:39 PM ET
It’s not often that a newspaper’s obituaries page takes notice of the death of a flight attendant, but Uli Derickson had one extraordinary journey aboard a TWA flight that sealed her place in history. In 1985, Derickson was among the crew flying from Athens to Rome on Flight 847 when two Lebanese men hijacked the plane, leading all on board on a terror-filled journey across the Middle East. Through it all, Derickson worked to protect the passengers, shouting “Enough” until the hijackers stopped beating one man, and finding ways to protect the identity of Jewish passengers. Astonishingly, according to Jon Thurber’s excellent obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Derickson was targeted for her efforts long after the hijacking. “She returned to her New Jersey home with her husband, Russell, a retired TWA pilot, and her son, Matthew,” the article states. “But unfounded reports, including some in the mainstream news media, that she had given the hijackers names of Jewish passengers on the flight brought threats from extremist groups. When the truth about her efforts to shield Jewish passengers was verified, she received threats from others. The family relocated to Arizona.” In the late-1980s, Lindsay Wagner played Derickson in a TV movie about the ordeal, “The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story.” Derickson had been fighting cancer. She died last Friday at the age of 60.
