Travel Blog
In: Televised Emergency Plane Landings. Out: Televised Car Chases.
by Michael Yessis | 12.21.05 | 12:31 AM ET
This evening, the American cable television viewing public was once again riveted by an emergency plane landing. In September, it was a Jet Blue flight in Los Angeles. This time, a Midwest Airlines flight with landing gear problems and 86 passengers on board touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport as cameras rolled. CNN has the story—and the landing footage.
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Yahoo! BuzzEmirates and Qantas to Boeing: We’re Going to Need a Bigger Plane
by Michael Yessis | 12.21.05 | 12:10 AM ET
Boeing had already announced plans for its new 787 models, the first of which are scheduled to begin flying in 2008. Now Emirates Airlines, Qantas Airways Ltd. and other airlines are telling the Chicago-based aerospace giant that they’re interested in a stretch version of the plane, according to an Associated Press report today. If plans proceed for the proposed 787-10, it would carry about 300 passengers and have a range of roughly 8,900 miles.
Transit Strike Hits New York. (Insert Whistle Here.) “Taxi!”
by Jim Benning | 12.20.05 | 2:03 PM ET
Island Nation to U.S.: Give Back Our Only Jet!
by Jim Benning | 12.20.05 | 1:37 PM ET
This has to go down as one of the wildest travel-related stories of the year. The Pacific island nation of Nauru is asking the United States to return its only passenger jet—the Air Nauru 737—which it lost in court recently to a U.S. government credit agency. Without the plane, the island must charter jets so that its 10,000 residents are not isolated from the rest of the world. But that’s just the beginning. “Nauru lost the plane after a failed legal attempt to put the U.S. on trial in a bizarre case involving spies, terrorism and North Korean defectors,” the Australian reports.
Adam Gopnik, Blogger
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.05 | 9:53 PM ET
Farewell to L.A.‘s Ambassador Hotel
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.05 | 6:02 PM ET
Not too long ago I took a drive east along Wilshire Boulevard from Koreatown to downtown, a part of Los Angeles that many people seem to be avoiding these days. It’s just too painful for a lot of them, Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, recently told the L.A. Downtown News. The reason: That’s where the demolition of the Ambassador Hotel, a Los Angeles landmark since 1921, is currently taking place.
Kerouac’s “On the Road” Manuscript to be Displayed in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 5:38 PM ET
A yellowing, 36-foot section of the original “On the Road” manuscript scroll will be displayed at the San Francisco Public Library from Jan. 14 to March 19, along with Kerouac-related books and photographs.
“Kerouac wrote the novel over a 20-day span in 1951, typing on 12-foot rolls of tracing paper so he didn’t have to pause to load paper in his typewriter,” an AP story on ABC News explains.
The AP story also notes:
After Kerouac died from alcoholism in 1969, the single-spaced manuscript, which has become yellow and brittle with time, changed hands several times. Some said it spent time in a dorm room closet before it turned up at the New York Public Library. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay bought the scroll in 2001 at an auction for $2.43 million.
Related on World Hum:
* Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” Mansucript Moves to Florida
Listening to ‘Layla’ in Tehran? Not on Radio or TV.
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 3:08 PM ET
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decreed that Western and indecent music cannot be played on the country’s radio and television stations. What artists will be affected? MSNBC.com reports: “Songs such as George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper,’ Eric Clapton’s ‘Rush’ and ‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles regularly accompany Iranian TV programs, as do tunes by saxophonist Kenny G.” Needless to say, I’m with Ahmadinejad on banning Kenny G. Indecent, indeed. But Eric Clapton did some nice stuff back in his Cream days, and I’m afraid that’s where the ultraconservative leader and I must part ways.
Eating Fajitas in the Land of Snails
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 1:37 PM ET
I was powerless in the face of my addiction. The moment I saw the Mexican restaurant in Lyon, France, I knew I had to eat there. I also knew the food would be awful. My story about it, Worlds Collide, appears in Sunday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Into Chiapas
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 1:31 PM ET
Tom Haines concludes his two-part series on Mexico in Sunday’s Boston Globe. This week’s story focuses on Chiapas and the plight of the Zapatista rebels. Last week, we wrote about part one.
Which is Larger: Greenland or Africa?
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.05 | 9:59 PM ET
The San Francisco Chronicle published its annual geography test today, or as its creator John Flinn calls it, a “geography / travel / interesting factoids-I-found-on-the-Internet quiz.” It’s 50 questions long, including the one in the headline above, and it’s quite challenging. If you’re stumped, the answers are here.
Chasing Authenticity
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.05 | 3:13 PM ET
The travel essay returns to the pages of the New York Times today, with Matt Gross writing about the search for authentic travel experiences. Sure, it’s been done before, but Gross frames the quest against a recent wave of ironic and inventive books about travel: Joel Henry’s Guide to Experimental Travel, Dave Eggers’s novel You Shall Know Our Velocity and the guidebook to a non-existent nation, Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring. It’s an interesting read.
Armed Indonesian Soldiers Seize Tiny Island with Tasty Waves
by Jim Benning | 12.16.05 | 3:08 PM ET
They took over the island of Mengkudu in the Indonesian archipelago after villagers on a neighboring island claimed the Australian running a surf camp there wouldn’t allow them to visit. According to a news report, David Wylie, 54, had obtained permits to run the camp, which has been open since 2001. But an army colonel involved in the operation said Wylie had yet to obtain other necessary permits. “My troops raised the Indonesian flag when they arrived on Mengkudu,” the colonel said. “It is ours.” The camp’s future wasn’t clear, but the colonel said of Wylie, “[W]e do not want to kick him off the island.”
Horse Latitudes
by Ben Keene | 12.16.05 | 12:51 PM ET
During the first few centuries of transatlantic voyages, seafaring Europeans overcame danger and uncertainty crossing mysterious stretches of ocean with goods, people and animals. Back then, before the advent of satellite technology and sophisticated navigational instruments, they were at the mercy of currents and winds. The belt of parallels between 30 and 35 degrees north and south of the equator was especially unpredictable and came to be known as the horse latitudes.
European Tourists Murdered Near Tulum, Mexico
by Michael Yessis | 12.16.05 | 12:47 PM ET
Two travelers, Martha Taults of Barcelona, Spain, and Matias Mazzeti of Italy, were hacked to death last week by machete-wielding attackers and left near a road outside of Tulum, according to a Reuters report. Mexican police are looking for clues. They say violent crime is rare in the area, even among the luxury resorts in Cancun, 80 miles up the coast.
