Travel Blog
Jon Stewart on Osama bin Laden’s Latest Tape
by Jim Benning | 01.26.06 | 11:30 AM ET
The host of The Daily Show wasn’t impressed. “Nothing new, really,” he cracked on Tuesday’s show. “It was like Madonna’s last album. Somewhat derivative, if you will.”
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Yahoo! BuzzBernard-Henri Lévy Fever: Catch It
by Jim Benning | 01.26.06 | 10:10 AM ET
Rejoice! Man Takes Revenge on Loud and Obnoxious Traveler Talking on a Mobile Phone!
by Michael Yessis | 01.25.06 | 1:02 AM ET
Short of the criminal act of grabbing someone’s mobile phone and hurling it across Concourse C, this just might be the best way that we’ve ever heard of to get revenge on an insufferable phone user. It comes from Jane L. Levere’s story in today’s New York Times about the rise in rude behavior among travelers.
World Hum’s Not-So-Exclusive Interview with a Defiant Queen Mary 2 Passenger
by Jim Benning | 01.24.06 | 9:18 PM ET
When we heard that passengers aboard the Queen Mary 2 were threatening to mutiny after propeller problems led to canceled port stops, we began linking to news reports. Then this afternoon, 61-year-old Brian Adler of Manchester, England posted a comment to our site—from the very wired QM2 itself. He wasn’t a happy cruiser. “The ship is very bumpy due to reduced employment of stabilisers to maintain speed so that the 1500 boarding at Rio will not be inconvenienced at all,” he wrote. “Many passengers have been seasick.” After exchanging e-mails with Adler, we dialed him up via satellite phone. (“Queen Mary 2,” a ship operator answered in a suprisingly chirpy British accent before patching us through to his cabin.) Adler spoke to us as the ship steamed toward Rio de Janeiro, where he is considering joining other passengers in staging a protest Friday before disembarking and returning home.
World Hum: Sorry to hear about the cruise.
Adler: It’s very sad, really, the way things have turned out. We just needed a bit of cooperation from Cunard and everything could have been sorted out.
What Country’s Citizens Take the Most Foreign Trips?
by Jim Benning | 01.24.06 | 12:38 PM ET
The answer is surprising. Germany is number one, and changes are coming to the number two and three slots. According to an interesting Reuters report on CNN, “Last year, Germans alone accounted for over 86.6 million trips abroad, with Britons in second place (65.3 million) and Americans trailing in third (58.3 million).”
Queen Mary 2 Mutiny Update: “They Say There Is Anarchy!”
by Michael Yessis | 01.24.06 | 5:34 AM ET
They’re still restless aboard the Queen Mary 2. BBC News has solicited feedback (scroll to bottom) from cruisers aboard the ship and others affected by the QM2’s problems, and at least one respondent has quite the inflated sense of the enormity of their plight.
Bird Flu Isn’t Hurting Asia Travel
by Jim Benning | 01.24.06 | 2:25 AM ET
Back in October, we noted that small numbers of Westerners were changing their Asia travel plans because of concerns over avian flu. (Some, for example, had decided to avoid rural areas in Southeast Asia.) Three months later, the travel industry is thriving in Asia as the Lunar New Year approaches, according to the AP. Said one travel company director in Vietnam, “According to the figures from hotels, they’ve never known such a high occupancy rate.”
Mutiny on the Queen Mary 2?
by Michael Yessis | 01.23.06 | 10:41 AM ET
The AP is reporting that some passengers cruising aboard the Queen Mary 2 are threatening to remain on the ship at its next port of call to protest a last-minute itinerary change.
Think Buying Airline Meals is a Pain? Soon, We Could All Be Paying Just to Check a Bag.
by Jim Benning | 01.23.06 | 8:32 AM ET
I know major U.S. airlines stopped offering free hot meals on many domestic flights a while ago, but I’m still having a hard time adjusting. My e-mail confirmation for an upcoming American Airlines coast-to-coast flight declared “FOOD FOR PURCHASE.” What might that be? Cold sandwiches, an airline representative told me. It’s not the end of the world, I know, but such cutbacks are sucking what little pleasure there is left in flying right out the cabin door. According to James Gilden’s story, On Most Airlines, the Frills Are Gone, in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, we can all expect the sorry trend to continue in 2006.
Vanity Fair on Air Marshals: “Are We Safer With or Without Them?”
by Michael Yessis | 01.23.06 | 7:11 AM ET
The magazine’s February issue has a chilling story about U.S. air marshals, our gun-wielding protectors in the skies. Richard Gooding paints the Federal Air Marshal Service as a bureaucratic mess, and does some first-person reporting that shows just how easy it probably is for a would-be terrorist to spot a marshal, which could greatly increase in-flight dangers.
The Lost Liberty Hotel: “Part Political Statement and Part Pipedream”
by Michael Yessis | 01.23.06 | 1:05 AM ET
A group of activists—heroes or wackos, depending on your point of view—descended upon Weare, Vermont this weekend in an effort to rally support to turn U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s 200-year-old farmhouse into an inn they plan to call the “Lost Liberty Hotel.” The Ayn Rand-inspired objectivists and Libertarians that make up most of the group are protesting the Court’s recent decision favoring government power to take private property by eminent domain. What better way to make their point, they say, than attempting to seize the private property of one of the Justices who voted to make such an action possible?
Cuba Stories on Public Radio’s “The World”
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 4:18 PM ET
Lonely Planet’s Don George: Doing What He Loves to Do
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 2:47 PM ET
Lonely Planet’s “rather grandly titled” global travel editor is profiled in today’s USA Today as part of a series on top travel jobs. Reporter Jayne Clark happened to catch him visiting a Northern California spa. Post-treatment, apparently having rinsed the rice bran and plant enzymes from his body, George tells her, a grin crossing his face, “Few people can say that they love what they do, and few do what they love. I’m getting paid for this. Can you believe it?” We can, and we know we speak for roughly 6.5 billion people when we declare: We’re envious. George was featured in a World Hum interview last year.
Rick Steves: “If the Bed is Too Short, You Are Too Long”
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 1:50 PM ET
I didn’t come across anything I didn’t already know about Rick Steves in yesterday’s Bellingham Herald profile, but I loved this quote about the bed. It perfectly summarizes Steves’ relentlessly upbeat approach to travel—an approach we could all benefit from when inevitable travel disappointments arise.
Nome, Alaska
by Ben Keene | 01.20.06 | 1:16 PM ET
Population: 3,592 (2004 est.)
Coordinates: 64 30 N 165 25 W
Everybody makes mistakes—including cartographers. Take a closer look at the state of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. In the mid-19th century, a British mapmaker transcribing a naval chart apparently misread “? Name” as “C. Nome,” thus giving this small Alaskan city its appellation. And although a group of miners attempted to rename the settlement Anvil City in 1899, the United States Postal Service insisted on Nome, after the cape on the Norton Sound. Which begs the question: Did North Dakota and Texas arrive at Nomes of their own due to similar errors?
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
