Travel Blog
Air Travel and the Cooties
by Terry Ward | 09.12.06 | 2:10 PM ET
It always grosses me out when the person next to me on a plane is wheezing into their handkerchief and sneezing up a storm. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t been that guy on more than one occasion, of course. The sniffling airline passenger seems even less innocuous, however, after a report on a recent study in Tuesday’s Washington Post. Writes Rick Weiss: “The decline in U.S. air travel that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks delayed the onset of that year’s annual flu outbreak and slowed its spread around the country, according to a new analysis that could help health officials decide whether to impose flight restrictions in the event of a global flu pandemic.”
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Yahoo! BuzzBestTravelWriting.Com and the New Solas Awards
by Jim Benning | 09.12.06 | 1:10 PM ET
Travelers’ Tales has launched a series of new travel-writing awards and an accompanying Web site. The annual Solas Awards feature cash prizes. The site, BestTravelWriting.com, is “a lively new site for stories, gossip, news, and information about the world of travel writing,” in the words of TT. It features a weblog, awards submission details and a number of stories.
Colin Thubron and the “Shadow of the Silk Road”
by Michael Yessis | 09.12.06 | 8:02 AM ET
He’s among the best travel writers working today, and this Sunday The Times of London began a series of three excerpts from Colin Thubron’s new book, Shadow of the Silk Road. Thubron, whose Behind the Wall landed at No. 23 in World Hum’s countdown of the Top 30 travel books, travels through China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, and the first excerpt finds him en route to Tibet.
What Would an Honest In-Flight Announcement Sound Like?
by Michael Yessis | 09.12.06 | 7:30 AM ET
The Economist asks that you to “stop your sudoku for a minute and listen” to the flight attendant. “At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority,” the announcement goes. “Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.” Warning: You’ve got to watch a commercial to read the rest of the announcement, which is not for the uneasy flier. Via Jaunted.
The 9/11 Anniversary: World Hum Looks Back
by Michael Yessis | 09.11.06 | 7:00 AM ET
Five years ago, on the morning of the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington D.C. and the air near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, World Hum was barely four months old. I was living in San Francisco, and Jim was making his way through Southeast Asia. “This isn’t the way you’re supposed to feel when you travel abroad,” Jim wrote in Terror in America: A Letter From Thailand, which we posted the following day. “You’re supposed to be immersed in the exotic, pleasantly buzzed, delightfully lost, happily, if temporarily, in exile. You’re supposed to shuck off your old self, lose track of the news back home and try on an utterly foreign way of life.”
Mariane Pearl on Traveling the World with Her Son
by Jim Benning | 09.11.06 | 6:50 AM ET
Adios, Savvy Local Concierge. Hello Third-Party Product Pushers.
by Michael Yessis | 09.11.06 | 5:49 AM ET
Yes, it looks like the days of the all-knowing, time-tested concierge are on the wane. On the heels of a story about airlines outsourcing their call centers to India comes this piece in the Wall Street Journal about hotels hiring third-parties to handle their concierge desks. Unaware travelers, unfortunately, seem to be the losers. “These third-party concierges may have an agenda beyond making guests happy—namely, selling enough tickets to turn a profit for their employers,” Hannah Karp writes.
Booking a U.S. Flight? Simply Call India.
by Terry Ward | 09.08.06 | 1:32 PM ET
Last week, I called United Airlines to check my mileage balance in hopes of booking an impromptu award flight. I was calling in the wee hours, when phone traffic was presumably lower, and, as I had hoped, my call was quickly connected from the automated system to a real person. After several attempts at pronouncing both the dates of my proposed departure and the destination city (Toulouse), I realized that I had been connected to an operator in India. To be sure, it’s nothing new these days—American companies across the board are cutting costs by outsourcing to the Subcontinent, and the airlines are no exception.
Running from Migra at a Mexican Park
by Jim Benning | 09.08.06 | 1:32 PM ET
We’ve been chronicling our planet’s slow but steady descent into a vast collection of theme parks, from the theme park economy at Cambodia’s Killing Fields to our news item yesterday about Myanmar’s theme park temple complex. Just when we think things can’t get more absurd comes a Houston Chronicle story about a park in Mexico that simulates the experience of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, on the run from migra. Visitors to the park north of Mexico City pay $15 to slog through bogs, ride in a truck and hear the sounds of gun shots and the shouts of immigration officers.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist
by Michael Yessis | 09.08.06 | 7:02 AM ET
Looks like we’re a little grumpy this week. Our snapshot of what’s on the minds of travelers and armchair travelers reveals we’re concerned about “Ugly Americans,” bad-mannered Chinese and our poor service on American Airlines. What will get us out of this funk? Perhaps 36 hours in Grand Rapids, Michigan? Here’s your zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
* Rethinking the Ugly American
No. 1 World Music Album
iTunes (current)
* The Life Aquatic by Seu George
Most Complained About U.S. Airline
Air Travel Consumer Report (June 2006)
* American Airlines
Most Popular Site Tagged “Travel”
del.icio.us (recent)
* Kayak
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
* Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
* Chinese travelers’ bad manners earn a chilly reception
Most Viewed Dispatch
World Hum (this week)
* Tony Perottet’s The Joy of Steam
Most Viewed “Travel & Places” Video
YouTube (this week)
* U-StampIt Productions: “This is a sample video for three co-hosts and their upcoming show on Italy”
Most Viewed Weblog Country Category
World Hum Weblog (this week)
* China
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
* 36 Hours: Grand Rapids, Mich.
The Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” Button Travel Zeitgeist Search
* “What I did on my summer vacation”
And, finally, a tribute to the Crocodile Hunter
* In honor of Steve Irwin and International Khaki Day, we’ll be flying the khaki today. R.I.P. Crocodile Hunter.
Got something that deserves to be included in next week’s World Hum Zeitgeist? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Chinese Government to its Traveling Citizens: No Spitting!
by Michael Yessis | 09.08.06 | 5:52 AM ET
There’s been a lot of coverage about the rise in Chinese tourists. And much of it centers on their bad manners, though the Chinese do have at least one high-profile defender. Now, to help its citizens make a better impression around the world, the Chinese government is producing an etiquette guide for its citizens traveling abroad. Among the tips: don’t spit, don’t litter and don’t speak loudly in public.
Nicholas Shumaker in Havana: ‘I Felt Like a Character Straight Out of Midnight Express’
by Michael Yessis | 09.07.06 | 10:17 PM ET
Are Burma’s Ruins the Next Disney World?
by Terry Ward | 09.07.06 | 8:58 PM ET
Burma (or Myanmar) has long been on my list of dream destinations. And urgings from fellow travelers to get there sooner rather than later are resonating all the louder after reading a frightening yet fascinating piece in today’s Los Angeles Times. In a country notoriously corrupt and cut off from the rest of the world, some of the greatest ruins on the planet—the temple complex at the ancient city of Bagan—are at serious risk of turning into a “temple theme park,” writes Richard C. Paddock. And this is no mousy attempt at attracting tourists.
The Art of Pool Crashing in Las Vegas
by Michael Yessis | 09.07.06 | 8:02 AM ET
Las Vegas pools reflect the city in general: they’re loud, over-the-top (flat screen TVs in the cabana!) and a showcase for sun-drenched people in itsy-bitsy clothing—or, sometimes, no clothing at all. So, of course, they’re in high demand. So much so that they attract a lot of pool crashers. Locals climb fences, pose as employees and hoard used room keys from hotels up-and-down The Strip to get into the best pools. One person, according to a great AP story by Kathleen Hennessey, spent seven hours in a ballroom before trying to sneak into a pool unnoticed.
How Corrupt is Your Country? Try Counting Your Diplomats’ Parking Tickets.
by Michael Yessis | 09.06.06 | 2:41 PM ET
That’s what economists Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel did. In what The Undercover Economist author Tim Harford called “a flash of inspiration,” Fisman and Miguel decided to see which countries’ diplomats at the United Nations in New York racked up the most parking tickets. They reasoned that, because diplomatic immunity put the diplomats in a consequence-free environment, it would be a great experiment to measure personal morality on a country-by-country basis.
