Travel Blog
BHL Goes to Israel
by Terry Ward | 08.09.06 | 5:22 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzAnthony Bourdain’s Beirut Show to Air
by Jim Benning | 08.09.06 | 4:10 PM ET
We’ve written about Anthony Bourdain’s recent experience in Beirut— the globe-trotting chef was there taping an episode of his show No Reservations when fighting broke out. (He was safely evacuated.) At the time, he wasn’t sure whether the episode would ever air. Now comes word that it will indeed be broadcast on the Travel Channel Monday, Aug. 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Remarked the Travel Channel’s Pat Younge, “This special is not about a celebrity chef in peril, but an opportunity to show unique footage of the Beirut that existed before the hostilities broke out—an unfinished portrait of the Beirut that Anthony wanted to show the world.”
“Girls Gone Wild,” the Ocean Cruise?
by Jim Benning | 08.09.06 | 1:53 PM ET
As scary as that sounds, the idea is apparently being discussed. It’s mentioned, though only in passing, in a profile of the video company’s founder in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times Magazine. I can see the TV commercials now: Scantily clad women frolicking—I mean, “going wild”—in the ship’s pool to Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life.” Many rightfully thought that song was an awful choice for Royal Caribbean’s commercials (as one Slate reader put it: “Nothing says maritime comfort like a song about shooting up junk”). It would be perfect for “Girls Gone Wild” cruises: “Here comes Johnny Yen again / With the liquor and drugs / And a flesh machine / He’s gonna do another strip tease.”
Twenty Secret Great Places Revealed!
by Jim Benning | 08.09.06 | 12:15 PM ET
Backpacker magazine’s cover immediately grabbed Bill Stall’s attention. “The Last UNKNOWN Places,” it screamed. “5 Hidden Paradises Where Nature Still Rules.” He bought the magazine in a millisecond. And then, as he writes in a thoughtful op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times, he began questioning the whole enterprise—the cover’s promise, the story inside by Tracy Ross. [W]ait a minute,” he writes. “Ross and Backpacker were tipping off the crowds, weren’t they? Hidden paradises aren’t hidden once they’ve been touted to the whole world on the cover of a magazine.”
Mumbai vs. Bombay: “Will Bollywood become Mumblywood?”
by Michael Yessis | 08.09.06 | 11:53 AM ET
“On Language” columnist William Safire is the latest to dig into why and how places around the world change their names. He covers the big recent switches—Bombay to Mumbai, Burma to Myanmar, Upper Volta to Burkina Faso—most of which have been inspired by efforts to eliminate remnants of their colonial past. But Safire also looks at another interesting part of the name-change game: The product angle.
Xeni Jardin Hacks the Himalayas
by Michael Yessis | 08.09.06 | 6:21 AM ET
This week National Public Radio’s “Day to Day” is broadcasting Xeni Jardin’s four-part series about how Tibetans are coping with encroaching technology. Jardin traveled through Tibet, India and China, and her reports explore “how Western ‘hackers’ are building low-cost communications networks to bring phone and Web service to displaced Tibetan refugees—and how native peoples are trying to hold onto their culture in an interconnected world.” Jardin has supplemented her stories with photos and audio on the NPR Web site, and extra commentary and video on her personal page.
Four World Hum Stories Honored in 2006 Best American Travel Writing
by Michael Yessis | 08.08.06 | 4:36 PM ET
Tony Perrottet’s The Joy of Steam was selected for inclusion and three other World Hum stories were picked as notable travel writing in this year’s edition of Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Travel Writing anthology. The noted stories are Terry Ward’s Girl Power in the Land of the Maharajahs, Porter Shreve’s Derelicts in the Sinai and Rolf Potts’s The Art of Writing a Story About Walking Across Andorra. Tim Cahill edited the latest edition, which also features stories by Pico Iyer, David Sedaris, Heidi Julavits, Caitlin Flanagan, Gary Shteyngart and Tom Bissell. The book goes on sale Oct. 11.
Number of U.S. Students Studying Abroad Triples
by Michael Yessis | 08.08.06 | 1:17 PM ET
About 175,000 students earned college credit abroad in the 2003-2004 school year, triple the number from 20 years before, according to a story in today’s Washington Post. The Post emphasizes the local angle. Study abroad programs are particularly popular in the Washington D.C. area “where so many students come to study international affairs,” and one local college, as we mentioned here previously, requires study abroad in order to graduate. But writer Susan Kinzie points out that it’s not only a local phenomenon.
Travels with Douglas Coupland: Blogging Tales From the Road
by Michael Yessis | 08.08.06 | 8:12 AM ET
It’s a shame the New York Times has posted Douglas Coupland’s Time Capsules blog in its pay-only section, TimesSelect. His documentation of, among other things, 15 years on the road as a Famous Author on Book Tour, deserves a much wider audience than I imagine it’s getting. It’s a highly-entertaining mix of photos, links, lists and Coupland’s insightful, pop-culture infused writing. And, as expected from the man who coined the term poverty jet set, he’s sharp and observant when it comes to travel, particularly the minutia of travel.
‘Young and Restless’ Travel Column Debuts
by Jim Benning | 08.07.06 | 1:52 PM ET
Terry Ward debuted her promising new monthly column for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s travel section Sunday, aptly titled “Young and Restless.” The first piece focuses on the pleasures and challenges of studying French in Toulouse. Among the highlights, she recalls her early conversations with Emmanuelle, the 48-year-old woman she lived with: “[W]e found ourselves laughing at our ‘Franglish’ over steaming bowls of verbena tea. We pondered the irony of my ‘L’oreal Paris’ cream that I bought at an Orlando Wal-Mart, and her ‘Vichy New York’ cream purchased from a pharmacy in Toulouse.” Terry is a contributing editor of World Hum and has written about France for the site. Terry’s stateside now, but for how long nobody knows. She is young and restless. As she told me today, recollecting her time in France, “I wanna go back.”
Photo courtesy of Terry Ward.
Wanderlust-Inspiring Travel Books for Kids
by Jim Benning | 08.07.06 | 1:27 PM ET
World Hum contributor Jerry V. Haines, whose travel book reviews are usually found in the Washington Post, offers a terrific overview of a number children’s travel books in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Some of the titles provide advice and information and others offer vicarious travel thrills. “The goal,” he writes, “is to encourage a sense of wanderlust and a desire to learn how other people live.” A fine goal, indeed.
“Cubans Want to Meet You”
by Jim Benning | 08.07.06 | 1:10 PM ET
Here’s a line you won’t find in many American newspapers: “I lived in Havana for nearly a year without permission from the United States.” It opens Lisa M. Wixon’s thoughtful op-ed piece in Sunday’s Washington Post about Cuba today and post-Fidel. Among her many points: “Cubans Want to Meet You. The White House proclaims it can’t ‘assess’ the ‘situation’ in Cuba because it’s a ‘closed society.’ The society would not be so closed if the current administration hadn’t tightened restrictions that ban Americans from visiting Cuba and meeting locals. More egregious is the U.S. economic embargo, which has served only to empower Castro while impoverishing Cubans. The Cubans aren’t sore at the United States; they just want to enter the 21st century already.” My guess is that thousands of other Americans who have traveled to Cuba without U.S. permission feel the same way. But they’ll never admit to visiting the country for fear of getting fined.
Club Gulag: Inside Post-Soviet ‘Extreme Tourism’
by Michael Yessis | 08.07.06 | 7:41 AM ET
Care to stay the night in a former KGB prison in Latvia? How about a weekend in an abandoned gulag 100 miles above the Arctic Circle? Or do you just want to make like a Volga boatman, pulling a barge up the river? According to The Age, the night at the KGB prison is already a hot destination for masochistic tourists. “On some nights, for extra money, they call out the guard, and the shivering guests can witness a mock execution, with the ‘corpse’ being flung like a sack of potatoes into a lorry before being driven away, presumably for a reviving cuppa,” Allan Hall writes. “Once past the humiliating stripping and donning of prison garb, the gruelling physical exercise regime, the interrogation and the solitary confinement cell—for those that answer back to Ivan—there is dinner. It is a delicious melange of stale rye bread, pickled fish heads, pressed meat from some unidentifiable mammal, pickles and black, sweet Russian tea.”
Time Out Beirut: “Beirut’s Favourite Entertainment and Listings Magazine is Now Suspended”
by Jim Benning | 08.07.06 | 1:40 AM ET
The publisher of Time Out Beirut writes on the magazine’s Web site: “They are killing our city, but will not kill our way of life. Over the last three months Time Out Beirut has provided the Lebanese and tourists with an nightlife and entertainment scene that rivals any western city. We will be back and we will carry on our mission for reporting the real side of Lebanon and Beirut. We are hoping for a fast recovery and rest assured we will come back, stronger and bolder than ever. It is in our Lebanese character to do so. July, our latest issue, is a testimony to life in Beirut just before this man-made catastrophe, please have a look and read our magazine to find out what the world missed—This issue has become a collectors item as a testament to what Beirut has become.” (Via the New York Times.)
From a Beheading to a Fiesta: Two Takes on Mexico Travel
by Jim Benning | 08.05.06 | 1:39 PM ET
The other day, we linked to an AP story about tourists canceling trips to Mexico over fear of violent crime and concerns over political protests. The story was picked up in newspapers across the United States. I thought it was an important story to point out, but I have to say, it’s been bothering me a bit.
