Travel Blog
R.I.P. Eric Newby
by Michael Yessis | 10.22.06 | 5:43 PM ET
Eric Newby, author of the classic travel book “A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush” and other works, passed away of natural causes Friday evening in Southern England. He was 86, and lived an adventurous life.
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Yahoo! BuzzWorld Hum Wins Lowell Thomas Gold
by Jim Benning | 10.20.06 | 1:50 PM ET
The Society of American Travel Writers announced the winners of the 2006 Lowell Thomas Awards today at its convention in Santiago, Chile. In the Internet publication category, which happens to be our favorite, we’re delighted to report that World Hum took top honors, winning the gold award. Lonely Planet took the silver and NewYorkology took the bronze.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beauty and the Borat
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.06 | 7:35 AM ET
The most gorgeous city in the United States—that would be San Francisco—steps into the Zeitgeist spotlight this week, along with Hawaii, road tripping, airlines of all sorts and the nemesis the government of Kazakhstan, Borat.
Top United States City
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
San Francisco
* The city has finished first in the magazine’s survey in 18 of its 19 years. Guess readers can’t get enough of this view.
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Affordable San Francisco
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
RealTravel
Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Oprah Winfrey, Amanda Congdon and the New Golden Age of the Cross-Country Road Trip
Most Popular Food & Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Airline Will Cater to Smokers
Top Ranked Travel Podcast
Podcast Alley (October)
808Talk
* 808 is the area code for Hawaii, which seems to have already rebounded after the recent 6.7 earthquake.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* The New York Times has the first chapter of Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top International Route Airline
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
Singapore Airlines
* The carrier has also topped its category for every year of the magazine’s survey but one.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum
A Week in the Life of American Airlines
Santander Department, Colombia
by Ben Keene | 10.20.06 | 7:25 AM ET
Now Available: The Best American Travel Writing 2006
by Jim Benning | 10.19.06 | 5:18 PM ET
The latest collection of the popular Houghton Mifflin travel writing anthology hit bookstores this month and is now available from online booksellers. The book, we’re delighted to note, features Tony Perrottet’s World Hum story The Joy of Steam and honors three other World Hum stories as notable travel writing. Tim Cahill served as this year’s editor.
Can Slow Travel Save the Planet?
by Jim Benning | 10.19.06 | 2:36 PM ET
Paul Theroux, among others, has written of his preference for train journeys over air travel: “Although it has become the way of the world, we still ought to lament the fact that airplanes have made us insensitive to space; we are encumbered, like lovers in suits of armor.” That passage from The Old Patagonian Express, published in 1979, came to mind as I read a compelling new story on Alternet about air travel, its role in global warming, and potential solutions to the problem. The story notes a UK study showing that the predicted rise in air travel in the coming decades is bad news for the environment: “[F]actoring in the projected growth of air travel, carbon emissions would have to be reduced to zero in manufacturing, ground transportation and private households to meet the British government’s 2050 green goals.” So what’s the solution?
Wired Posts Travel Guide for Second Life
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.06 | 7:25 AM ET
The Wired Travel Guide: Second Life—a guide to the fast-growing virtual community Second Life—reminds me of faux guides to Molvania and Phaic Tan. It reads like a guidebook and is organized like a guidebook, but the entries seem just a little off. For instance, according to the Wired guide, these are the major ethnic groups you’ll find in Second Life: “Blingtards, Elves, Furries, Geeks, Goreans, Goths, mechas, Steampunks, grad students looking for a grant project.” Unlike the faux residents of Molvania and Phaic Tan, though, these people actually exist, albeit in a virtual state.
A Week in the Life of American Airlines
by Michael Yessis | 10.18.06 | 7:20 AM ET
CNBC airs a two-hour documentary tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT chronicling a week behind-the-scenes at American Airlines. Peter Greenberg hosts, and he—and the program—are getting good reviews. “Some of his access is surprising,” writes The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Robert Philpot. “Greenberg doesn’t just canvass cockpits and executive suites, he climbs onboard with passengers to discuss their comfort level, how much they paid for tickets, or how they used their frequent-flier miles.” Philpot gives the program a B+. Florangela Davila of the Seattle Times writes that “it’s the little gems of information—the weight of a jetliner at departure versus arrival—that will stay with you. And tonight’s portrait might have you thinking twice before ranting the next time your flight is delayed.” CNBC has posted eight video clips from the show. No sign of them on YouTube yet.
Lonely Planet’s ‘The Perfect Day’
by Jim Benning | 10.17.06 | 3:14 PM ET
Most of us, when pressed, could describe our ideal day in a city we know well. It might begin with breakfast out and strolling along a favorite street. It might culminate with dinner and a trip to a favorite club to take in some live music. In between, we’d see something of the town, check out a particular neighborhood or two. That’s the concept behind Lonely Planet’s new book, The Perfect Day. It features short, perfect-day scenarios in 100 cities around the globe, from Kuala Lumpur to Philadelphia. Each city gets one page with several paragraphs and a photo. It’s a fun read. Of course, the perfect days described are perfect only for the people who wrote them, so part of the pleasure in flipping through the book is arguing with the selections for a given city.
Mapping the World: Is Accuracy Possible?
by Michael Yessis | 10.17.06 | 8:03 AM ET
Probably not, according to this BBC story. Map-makers are in a constant battle to juggle scale, distance and the curvature of the earth, not to mention often having to shrink Africa down so it can fit in the frame. The 1477 Ptolemy atlas that was sold for $3.9 million at Sotheby(tm)s in London last week shows where we’ve come from—that map has “England butting the Bay of Biscay and Scotland floating in the German Sea”—and where we’re going.
Readings by World Hum Contributors
by Jim Benning | 10.16.06 | 2:42 PM ET
Two of our esteemed contributors will be out and about in the coming days and weeks doing readings. World Hum books editor Frank Bures will be appearing at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison on Friday. He’ll be reading his story from the new Travelers’ Tales collection What Color is Your Jockstrap? Funny Men and Women Write from the Road. Meanwhile, contributor Jeff Biggers will be doing readings from St. Louis to Los Angeles and beyond in support of his new memoir, In the Sierra Madre, which is based on a year he spent with the Tarahumara in Mexico’s Copper Canyon. For a list of all his appearances, click “Continue reading.”
A Tribute to London’s Speakers’ Corner
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.06 | 7:35 AM ET
In Sunday’s Washington Post, Mary Jordon has a terrific feature on Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner—one of the inspirations for World Hum’s feature of the same name. “Once a place where the condemned were hanged—and perhaps, some say, because they were given one last chance to say a few words—the northeast corner of Hyde Park has since the late 19th century been sacred ground for free speech,” she writes. “There are other noteworthy patches in the 350-acre park—the Nanny’s Lawn, the Lovers’ Walk—but it is only here near Marble Arch where the unsung, along with legends from Winston Churchill to Karl Marx, have come to have their say.”
Japan’s “Freeters” Take Manhattan
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.06 | 6:40 AM ET
Freeters are “a Japanese version of slackers,” and according to a great story in Sunday’s New York Times, they’re escaping their home country’s societal pressures by running off to New York City to explore the arts. “In Tokyo bookstores, guides like ‘Finding Yourself in New York,’ and ‘The ‘I Love New York’ Book of Dreams’ fuel the fantasies of those [who] follow in [D.J.] Kaori’s footsteps,” writes Sheridan Prasso. “In an indication that a phenomenon has truly taken off, there’s a contrarian title, ‘Even If You Live in New York, You Won’t Be Happy.’” According to the story, more Japanese live in New York than any city outside Japan.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Triumph and Tragedy
by Michael Yessis | 10.13.06 | 8:02 AM ET
This week we’re paying tribute to literary feats, vintage air travel and the victims of tragedies in Moscow and New York. Here’s the Zeitgeist:
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk
* Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature Thursday, and it sent his travel book to the top. No similar bump for Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones. After its nomination for a National Book Award, its Amazon ranking among travel books stands at No. 26.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
Rick Steves’ Europe: Packing for Women
Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Fueling Desire
* The best story ever about jet fuel as travel aphrodisiac.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum
R.I.P. Anna Politkovskaya
Most Dugg World News Story
Digg (this week)
Aircraft Crashes into NYC Building
Most E-mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Cabbies, culture clash at Minn. airport
Traveler Buzz Video
Yahoo! Current Traveler (today)
Vintage Airline Commercials
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Pulled Pork, Pulled Corks in North Carolina
World’s Most Expensive Restaurant
Forbes (2006)
Aragawa, a steak house in Tokyo’s Shinbashi district
* The cost for one person to dine? $368. Yikes. Now, for the not-so-rich among us…
The Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” Button Travel Zeitgeist Search
Best budget restaurant in Tokyo
Got something that deserves to be included in next week’s World Hum Zeitgeist? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Electronic “Tagging” of Air Travelers Set For Trial in Hungary
by Michael Yessis | 10.13.06 | 7:17 AM ET
First came the news that passports will soon be embedded with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips. Now comes word about “Optag,” an experimental tagging project at University College London that will assign RFID chips to all passengers at Hungary’s Debrecen Airport. “The basic idea is that airports could be fitted with a network of combined panoramic cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of people around the various terminal buildings,” Project leader Paul Brennan told the BBC. He says tagging passengers would aid airport security. Needless to say, privacy issues are also a concern. If the tests are successful in Hungary, Brennan says the technology could be deployed in airports elsewhere in the world “within two years.”
