Travel Blog
Retro Travel Technique: Checking for Bedbugs
by Jim Benning | 03.22.06 | 12:55 AM ET
Yes, according to MSNBC.com, checking for bedbugs in hotel rooms was common years ago. Given that the bugs were recently reported spreading across New York like a swarm of locusts, and that a couple made headlines recently by suing a New York hotel for $20 million after allegedly suffering hundreds of bites, scanning for bugs just might become all the rage once again. So how to search for them? The site offers tips. Among them: Check the mattress, especially near the tag, where bugs hide, and examine the headboard for little black spots. To keep from bringing the critters home, store your luggage off the floor.
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Yahoo! BuzzWant To See the Northern Lights?
by Jim Benning | 03.22.06 | 12:41 AM ET
Doug Lansky offers tips on CNN.com: “As with rainbow spotting, there are no guarantees. The key ingredients are a cloudless sky, little or no moon and luck. For the best odds, head near or above the Arctic Circle from October through March.” He also includes this interesting tidbit: “Every 11 or so years, the northern lights are known to appear way below the Arctic Circle. In 2000 they were visible in El Paso, Texas. Wherever you are during the winters of 2011 and 2012, be sure to look up at night.”
Germany’s Ostfriesland Hotel to Charge Guests By the Kilo
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.06 | 10:58 PM ET
The cost: half a euro per kilogram. At current exchange rates, that’s about $.60 for every 2.2 pounds. A bargain if you’re tiny. Not so much if you’re jumbo sized. And that’s hotel proprietor Juergen Heckrodt’s point. “I had many guests who were really huge, and I told them to slim down,” the owner of the three-star establishment in Norden told Reuters. “When they came back the year after and had lost a lot of weight they asked me, what are you going to do for me now?” Heckrodt hopes his gimmick will help inspire Germans to become healthier.
Flight 187 in the Hizzouse!
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.06 | 9:54 AM ET
Jet Blue, you and your seat-back satellite televisions are no longer on the cutting edge of in-flight entertainment. Pilots at Miami International Airport have told FAA officials that their communications are being disrupted by hip-hop music being broadcast from a pirate radio station called Da Streetz.
Carnival Cruise Ship Rescues 28 Cuban Migrants
by Michael Yessis | 03.21.06 | 5:52 AM ET
According to the Houston Chronicle’s Cynthia Leonor Garza, the Cubans—25 men and three women—were found off the coast of Jamaica last Wednesday and brought on board Carnival’s Conquest cruise liner. The migrants, she writes, soon will be taken into custody on a U.S. Coast Guard boat so that immigration officials can interview the migrants and hear asylum claims. It’s the second time in a month that the Conquest has picked up Cuban migrants on the open seas.
Great Barrier Reef Takes 30-Mile Hit From Cyclone Larry
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 11:46 PM ET
Experts say the damage inflicted on the Great Barrier Reef by Cyclone Larry on Monday may last for 20 years. “[T]he worst damage is limited to a fraction of the sprawling, Japan-sized reef network—and it’s far from the places where nearly two million tourists a year gaze in awe at the coral’s vibrant colors and fish life,” according to an AP report. Northeast Australia may not be out of harm’s way just yet. According to another AP report, a new storm, Cyclone Wati (pictured), is brewing in the Coral Sea.
Does Travel Put a Strain on Travel Writers’ Relationships?
by Jim Benning | 03.20.06 | 12:57 PM ET
At Written Road, Jen Leo asks travel writers just that. Most commenting so far suggest they’re making it work.
John Cusack’s Next Role: Travel Writer
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 12:57 PM ET
The short news item isn’t online, but Entertainment Weekly reports that he will play an “inquisitive travel writer who investigates a notoriously creepy hotel room.” It’s adapted from notoriously creepy writer Stephen King’s short story “1408.” Let’s hope it’s a return to form for Cusack, who hasn’t been in a movie I’ve cared about since the excellent adaptation of Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity.”
Sunday Newspaper Travel Highlights
by Jim Benning | 03.20.06 | 12:42 PM ET
In the Washington Post, T. R. Reid, author of the terrific Confucius Lives Next Door, visits a spa in India.
Interview with Guidebook Writer Joe Cummings
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 11:04 AM ET
Joshua Berman recently spoke with the prolific “travel guru” for Transitions Abroad.
Australian Residents, Tourists Brave Cyclone Larry
by Michael Yessis | 03.20.06 | 12:19 AM ET
The storm reached Category 5 status just before making landfall Monday near Innisfail, Australia, a popular jumping-off point for travelers heading to the Great Barrier Reef. Meteorologists say that Larry’s winds reached up to 290 kilometers per hour (about 180 miles per hour), making it one of the most savage storms ever recorded. Preliminary reports indicate a lot of property damage but no fatalities. CNN, among others, has details. It’s too soon, however, to tell how the Great Barrier Reef fared.
A ‘Creative Persons Utopia’ in the Dominican Republic?
by Jim Benning | 03.20.06 | 12:08 AM ET
Last December, we pointed out a New York Observer profile of Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, noting that he and several other celebrities, including musician Moby and interviewer Charlie Rose, were involved in a land purchase in the Dominican Republic to build some sort of utopian community for artists and writers. It was all rather vague, and we wondered whether the project was still alive. Now comes confirmation in the March 20 issue of the New Yorker, in a feature story not available online, that just such a project is in the works.
Do We Really Need to Worry About Toothbrush Germs When We Travel?
by Jim Benning | 03.17.06 | 4:35 PM ET
Every so often, you see people hyping products designed to fight germs or bacteria while traveling, such as portable toothbrush sanitizers. I suspect I dislike germs as much as the next guy, but I’m skeptical of the need for such products. In all my travels, I don’t think my toothbrush has ever made me sick. So I was happy to see USA Today’s Jayne Clark ask the experts about a range of products, from a portable toothbrush sanitizer to an airline seat cover, aimed at fretful travelers.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Please Enjoy Your Local “Irish Pub Concept.”
by Michael Yessis | 03.17.06 | 11:04 AM ET
No matter where you are this St. Patrick’s Day, chances are high that you’re near an Irish pub. That’s no accident. “In the last 15 years, Dublin-based IPCo and its competitors have fabricated and installed more than 1,800 watering holes in more than 50 countries,” Austin Kelley writes in a fascinating story this week in Slate. “Guinness threw its weight (and that of its global parent Diageo) behind the movement, and an industry was built around the reproduction of ‘Irishness’ on every continent—and even in Ireland itself.”
The Bloody Good Saga of Tourism Australia’s Latest Advertising Campaign
by Michael Yessis | 03.17.06 | 10:20 AM ET
Tourism Australia recently debuted a new advertising campaign that turns on the slogan, “Where the bloody hell are you?” Very cheeky. Very Australian. And quite offensive to the ears of the members of Britain’s Broadcast Advertising Clearance Center. (With an uptight, bureaucratic name like that, it probably doesn’t take much to offend.) Last week, the group banned the campaign from the country’s televisions because it uses the word “bloody,” which, according to The Age, is the 27th most offensive word to the BACC. That’s behind bollocks (No. 6), bugger (No. 21) and sodding (No. 24).
