Travel Blog
Talking Malaria in Washington
by Jim Benning | 12.14.06 | 3:46 PM ET
Seriously. Reports the AP: “Declaring that malaria can be defeated, President Bush on Thursday added eight countries to a U.S. initiative aimed at combatting the disease in Africa and slashing its mortality rate by half in targeted nations.” Ghana, pictured, is among the eight nations. Malaria kills roughly a million Africans each year, many of them under five.
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Yahoo! BuzzStudy: Almost One in 10 British Citizens Is Living Overseas
by Jim Benning | 12.14.06 | 2:12 PM ET
Britons love the expat life. A whopping 5.5 million of them are living abroad, according to a new study, and many of them are young workers without families. The BBC has a compelling package of stories about the phenomenon. Among the highlights from the main story:
Bill Bryson Becomes Made Man in Britain
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.06 | 8:33 AM ET
The author of much-loved travel books A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country and others has been made an honorary Order of the British Empire. Congrats, Bill. No word on whether Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell will also be honoring Katz.
‘All Things Considered’ on the Future of Shanghai
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.06 | 8:18 AM ET
It’s a fast-growing megacity in a country on the rise, and as we’ve posted here and here and here, people around the world are wondering about the future of Shanghai, China, and what its impact will be on the rest of the world. This week National Public Radio’s ‘All Things Considers’ adds to the mix with a series on how Shanghai is handling its urban development. Almost 18 million people currently live in Shanghai. By 2020, that number is projected to rise to 25 million. Photo: Montrasio Media’s Flickr stream.
Recalling Hemingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast’
by Jim Benning | 12.13.06 | 4:02 PM ET
John Flinn on ‘the Coolest Six-Buck Souvenir I Ever Got’
by Jim Benning | 12.13.06 | 2:25 PM ET
San Francisco Chronicle travel editor John Flinn gets around. Not only was he recently on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but not long ago he was in Nepal and was robbed by a Maoist rebel—sort of. As Flinn recounts in Sunday’s paper, he was on a bus from the Tibetan border to Kathmandu when the weaponless Maoist boarded and demanded cash. Flinn knew that rebels had been funding their insurgency by robbing visitors, and at the urging of his English-speaking guide, he turned over 400 rupees—less than $7. But it gets better.
Is Times Square Turning Tourists’ Photos into Viral Ads?
by Michael Yessis | 12.13.06 | 7:48 AM ET
Most of us shoot snapshots or videos when we travel, particularly when we visit a photogenic place like New York City’s Times Square. Many of us even like to share them with our friends or on YouTube or Flickr—some of them, like the one above from ellievanhoutte’s Flickr stream, even make it onto travel Web sites. And when we do this with our Times Square images, we are becoming something we may not have envisioned: spreaders of advertising messages. That’s right. More and more, New York City tourists are being counted on by advertisers to be their viral messengers.
Airport Security Stiff-Arms Troy Smith’s Heisman Trophy
by Michael Yessis | 12.12.06 | 9:31 PM ET
It’s a big trophy, the Heisman. And apparently dangerous. Airport security wouldn’t allow Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith to carry his 25-pound hunk of bronze on the plane back to Columbus Tuesday, so he had to ship it home.
Tourism Suffers in Bethlehem, But Hamas Might Help
by Jim Benning | 12.12.06 | 2:23 PM ET
The Biblical town of Bethlehem should be a pretty big tourist draw for Christians right about now, but in recent years, Israeli-Palestinian fighting has sunk tourism. Gone are the tens of thousands of pilgrims who arrived each month before the Palestinian uprising in 2000. And now, with just a couple of weeks to go before Christmas, the town is barely decorated and you can still find “Islamic Jihad” graffiti around. But according to the AP, the Hamas government has vowed to pitch in $50,000 to spruce up the town for visitors. As Diaa Hadid writes, “Islamic militants may be in charge, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be Christmas this year.”
Chandler Burr on the ‘Scents of Place’
by Michael Yessis | 12.12.06 | 8:57 AM ET
We’re believers in the power of the smell to color a journey, whether it comes from a whiff of full-bodied, slightly sweet jet fuel; the legendary stench of durian; or sample-size lotions from some far-off hotel. The Emperor of Scent author Chandler Burr believes, too, and he’s written a fine essay about it in the December issue of Conde Nast Traveler. “The process of travel is imbued with, drowned in, smell,” he writes. “The smell of my first passport, which was that of book (new paper, binding glue) and fresh plastic (the thick photo lamination). The smell of jet fuel and the synthetic carpet of the airport, the lonely nose of concrete-and-Formica of the train station, the scent of seawater and engine oil and metal of the ship. In between check-in and jet lag, there is smell. It tells us where we are. We may shuttle from airport to airport and stay in luxury hotels from Shanghai to Seattle, but local smells still reach us, marking these places as indelibly as light.”
Good Riddance, Pinochet
by Jim Benning | 12.11.06 | 7:43 PM ET
Observes Marc Cooper in today’s Los Angeles Times: “Not with little irony did the gods choose to reclaim former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on Sunday, which was International Human Rights Day.”
Surf’s Up in Cleveland
by Jim Benning | 12.11.06 | 3:20 PM ET
While we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of the classic surf movie “The Endless Summer,” the New York Times is profiling the quirky—some might say completely unhinged—surfers in Cleveland, Ohio who ride waves in freezing Lake Erie even as icicles stick to their wetsuits. In short, people who could benefit from a truly endless summer. “Cleveland surfers believe they are the last remnants of the original surf culture in the 1940s and ‘50s, when surfing was still a renegade sport of social misfits who scouted virgin breaks, surfed alone and lived by a code of friendliness to newcomers and respect for the water,” writes Christopher Maag. “They keep their best surf spots secret. They consider themselves part of an underground society. And they hope to keep it that way.”
Welcome to the Age of the ‘Aerotropolis’
by Michael Yessis | 12.11.06 | 8:24 AM ET
Call it Airworld 2.0. The airport of the future is here—think Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport—and it’s all about the “aerotropolis.” Word Spy traces the first use of the word aerotropolis—“a city in which the layout, infrastructure, and economy are centered around a major airport”—to 1994, but according to the New York Times Magazine’s Year in Ideas issue, the concept truly arrived in 2006. For a thorough look at the worldwide rise of the aerotropolis, check out Greg Lindsay’s terrific story in Fast Company earlier this year. “The aerotropolis represents the logic of globalization made flesh in the form of cities,” he writes.
Wanted: New Micronations
by Michael Yessis | 12.11.06 | 8:10 AM ET
Simon Sellars, co-author of Lonely Planet’s Micronations, has launched a contest inviting people to invent a small nation of their own. Why, I asked Sellars, does the world need another micronation? “Because the big boys have had their turn—and have failed miserably,” he says. Enter at Sellars’s site Sleepy Brain. Winner gets a free copy of the book and, perhaps, enough motivation to actually start his or her own micronation.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Cuba, Cabo and Chinese Restaurants
by Michael Yessis | 12.08.06 | 9:06 AM ET
And some travel icons shall take over the Zeitgeist. This week travelers are looking to Rick Steves, Pico Iyer and, once again, to Bill Bryson for their travel fix. Let’s go, but let’s not take Comair Flight 5463.
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Travel With Rick Steves
* And don’t forget: It’s time again for Rick Steves’ European Christmas.
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Pico Iyer: On Travel and Travel Writing
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The East Is West: The Best Chinese Restaurants in Southern California
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New Hope for Legal Travel to Cuba?
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Airline Luggage Complaints Remain High
* This year could be the worst for lost, delayed, damaged or stolen baggage since 1991.
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How to Remove Tourists from Your Photos
