Travel Blog
Tom Cruise at 42,000 Feet: On the Bliss of Watching ‘Mission: Impossible III’ on a Long-Haul Flight
by Michael Yessis | 08.28.06 | 6:36 AM ET
Not just once. Not twice. Not three times. But five times. “In a row,” writes Washington Post film critic Stephen Holden. “In a stinkin’ row!” And the experience has caused him to declare “Mission: Impossible III” his new favorite movie. Why? Holden writes: “I was in that zone of sleep-deprived agony that usually involves crossing international datelines and messing up the internal gyroscope for weeks at a time. I was in a cocoon of misery; I needed assistance, relief, deliverance. To the rescue: movies!”
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Yahoo! BuzzInside David Sedaris’s Paris: An Audio Tour
by Michael Yessis | 08.27.06 | 2:46 PM ET
On this weekend’s broadcast of This American Life, host Ira Glass visits writer and radio commentator David Sedaris in Paris. I caught part of the show in my car yesterday and Sedaris, who has been living in the City of Light for several years, gives Glass a tour of his favorite Paris spots which include, among other places, his local hardware store. The 10 minutes I heard were typical Sedaris—insightful, neurotic and funny. This American Life doesn’t stream audio from its Web site during the weekend the show is being broadcast around the country, but you can still catch it later tonight on individual stations. Find a station here or try KPCC at 7 p.m. PT Sunday night. Update: It can now be heard at This American Life’s Web site.
Dallol, Ethiopia
by Ben Keene | 08.26.06 | 9:32 AM ET
Coordinates: 14 14 N 40 18 E
Elevation: -157 feet (-48 meters)
If avoiding the heat is your goal, then Death Valley, California—the hottest location in the United States—might be one spot to avoid in late August. Dallol, Ethiopia is another. A small settlement in the
state of Afar near the Eritrean border, Dallol holds the record for the highest average annual temperature for any inhabited place on the planet. In addition to plenty of sweltering sunshine, this part of the African continent also offers an opportunity to see the first signs of a new ocean basin forming. Not far from Dallol in the Danakil Depression north of the Great Rift Valley, the only volcanic crater below sea level has remained silent since 1926 as the seabed it will one day occupy gradually widens.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist
by Michael Yessis | 08.25.06 | 7:58 AM ET
Today we debut a new weblog feature, the World Hum Travel Zeitgeist. Every Friday, we’ll take a snapshot of what’s on the minds of the world’s travelers and armchair travelers. This week we’re curious about Washington D.C., Italy and our ever-shrinking vacations, and not-so-curious about Paris Hilton. Let the Zeitgeist begin.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
* Beppe Severgnini’s La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
* 36 Hours: Washington, D.C.
Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
* The Shameful Rise of “Shrinking-Vacation Syndrome”
Book Most Left Behind in Hotel Rooms
Sky News/Travelodge survey (current)
* Paris Hilton’s Confessions Of An Heiress
Sleeping With Llamas and Popping Pills on the John Muir Trail
by Michael Yessis | 08.25.06 | 7:16 AM ET
Four teams of Fresno Bee writers and reporters are currently teaming up to hike the entire length of California’s John Muir Trail, and the paper has put together a multimedia presentation of their journey. Why the John Muir Trail, other than it’s in the Bee’s backyard? “It’s a 211-mile walk on the West Coast’s rooftop,” writes Diana Marcum, who hiked the first of four legs. “But it’s more than a footpath. There are routes in this world that connect more than places. The Orient Express, Route 66, the Appalachian Trail—all hold the stories of those who went before and the daydreams of those who want to follow. They hold, in short, the promise of a quest.” Mark Grossi and Mark Crosse are currently on the trail, and, like everyone on the team, they’re telling their story in real time with video, photos and a team weblog. Thanks for the tip, Jason.
The Science of Humor and Travel Writing
by Michael Shapiro | 08.24.06 | 6:53 PM ET
Editor’s note: Travel writer Michael Shapiro just attended the annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California. He was on the conference faculty and is writing about the gathering for World Hum.
“There were vast distances between punch lines,” a Florida newspaper wrote about Tim Cahill’s address at last January’s Key West Literary Seminar. So Cahill wrote to this unkind reporter and informed him he had a speech impediment. Cahill even had friends write to the reporter and tell him the same thing. So the reporter published a letter of apology and Cahill wrote again to inform him of the nature of his impediment: he grew up in Wisconsin and speaks slowly. Cahill’s remarks came Sunday at Book Passage during the conference’s closing panel, “Humor and Travel Writing.” Rolf Potts once called Cahill “the most disheveled non-homeless person I’ve ever met.” During Sunday’s panel Cahill retorted: “How does he know I have a home?”
Haines, Gross and the Possibilities of “Interactive Travel”
by Michael Yessis | 08.24.06 | 12:08 PM ET
In an interview with New York Times Frugal Traveler columnist Matt Gross I posted yesterday, we talked about the possibilities of “interactive travel,” including the lure of a journey dictated in real-time by online readers. “I would love to do that,” Gross responded. “It would be interesting to see what would happen in less traveled places like Central Asia. How many readers know a really good barbershop in Tashkent?” We’ll have to wait for that, but right now the Boston Globe’s Tom Haines is on an interactive journey, albeit on a smaller scale. He’s on a five-day trip through New England in search of the new, steered by the readers of his newspaper.
National Geographic Debuts World Music Site
by Frank Bures | 08.24.06 | 6:10 AM ET
With apologies to Rob Fleming from “High Fidelity,” I admit a shameless love for world music—not just soukous, and not just whatever world music trend is trendy this week. I like it all, or at least I’m willing to give it all a try. That’s why I love perusing magazines like Global Rhythm and Songlines, and why I’m glad to see National Geographic has launched a world music Web site, complete with downloads, podcasts and good overviews of genres from around the world, from Rai to Reggae to Roma to Rumba. The site will be a fine addition to the Charlie Gillett show, which plays great stuff every week and which you can listen to online, and Afropop Worldwide, which you can only hear if you’re lucky enough to have a local station that carries it.
One Day, Two Men and 468 New York City Subway Stations
by Michael Yessis | 08.23.06 | 8:11 PM ET
Matt Green and Donald Badaczewski are currently in the middle of an attempt to ride the New York City subway system through all of its 468 stations as fast as possible. Fark.com classifies the endeavor as stupid; the New York Times finds it worth 743 words. Green and Badaczewski began at 6 a.m. this morning and have a MySpace page about their journey, which includes a brief history of endurance subway riding. “There is actually a Guinness record for subway riding, but it allows the rider to exit the system, using a bus or other means of transport to go from the end of one spur line to another, before re-entering the subway,” they write. “We have a strong philosophical opposition to this set of rules. If you’re going to spend that much time in pursuit of such a ridiculous and pointless goal, why cut corners? Plus, what kind of babes are going to dig guys who take the easy way out of such a manly challenge?”
‘High in Hell’: Chewing Khat in Djibouti
by Michael Yessis | 08.23.06 | 2:08 PM ET
In the latest issue of Esquire, Kevin Fedarko ventures to Djibouti to explore the world of khat—a legal “psychotropic shrub” that helps shape the culture of the country and the region. “Although banned throughout the U.S., parts of Europe, and much of the Middle East, khat is perfectly legal in a handful of countries lining both sides of the Red Sea, where it has become as much a national institution as vodka in Russia or wine in France,” Fedarko writes.
Making a Living as a Freelance Writer
by Michael Shapiro | 08.23.06 | 2:03 PM ET
Editor’s note: Travel writer Michael Shapiro just attended the annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California. He was on the conference faculty and is writing about the gathering for World Hum.
It would be Mick Jagger’s dream job. Drew Barrymore would like to be one too. Both have said that if they could choose another profession, it would be travel writing. They’re not the only ones. About 140 aspiring travel writers and photographers packed Book Passage last week to learn the tools of the trade. Halfway through the four-day event, I joined a panel entitled “Making a Living as a Freelance Writer.”
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More on “Shrinking-Vacation Syndrome”
by Michael Yessis | 08.23.06 | 1:05 PM ET
Work-life balance and vacation advocate Joe Robinson has hit the airwaves in the last couple of days, talking about Americans and their shrinking vacations. National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and KPCC’s AirTalk both featured Robinson, who discussed, among other things, “obsessive-compulsive productivity” and what it means for our country when workers’ vacation time is vanishing.
Potts Deals With Beggars
by Michael Yessis | 08.22.06 | 5:47 PM ET
Rolf Potts devotes one of his recent Traveling Light columns on Yahoo! to something almost every traveler will someday deal with: being hit up for money. “Indeed, after ten years of traveling in developing nations, I still have no hard and fast system on how to respond to them,” he writes. “Usually, whether or not I give depends on some combination of my mood, the appearance and persistence of the beggar, and whether or not I have small change. And, regardless of whether I give money or choose not to, I always end up feeling a little guilty.”
John Flinn on Telling the Travel Tale
by Michael Shapiro | 08.22.06 | 1:47 PM ET
Editor’s note: Travel writer Michael Shapiro just attended the annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California. He was on the conference faculty and is writing about the gathering for World Hum.
One of the joys of teaching at the Book Passage Travel Writers Conference is the chance to drop in on classes during your downtime. On Saturday morning John Flinn invited me to visit his advanced travel writing class. Flinn is the executive travel editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a graduate of the University of Bill Bryson and Tim Cahill.
The Heartbreaking and Surreal Times of ‘Anthony Bourdain in Beirut’
by Michael Yessis | 08.22.06 | 8:18 AM ET
The Travel Channel aired Anthony Bourdain in Beirut last night, the story of what happened to the “No Reservations” host and his crew when they were stranded in Beirut, Lebanon last month during the early days of the war between Israel and Hezbollah. “It’s not a hard-news account of what happened to Lebanon or what happened to Beirut,” Bourdain says at the beginning of the show. “I think at best it’s a little bit of what Beirut was and could have been. What it felt like to be there when things went sideways. This is not the show we went to Lebanon to get.” Nevertheless, Bourdain returned with one of the more compelling travel shows—or any television show, for that matter—of the year.
