Travel Blog
Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” Ride to Close for, uh, Synergy
by Jim Benning | 02.04.06 | 10:54 PM ET
For Disney aficionados, “Pirates of the Caribbean” is not just another theme park ride. It’s a classic attraction, and the last one in the park to be personally overseen by Walt Disney himself. Talk of changes to the ride inevitably make news. Which is why the AP is reporting that the Pirates rides at Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida will close in March so that characters from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” film can be added and special effects updated. Coincidentally, the rides will reopen this summer, just in time for the release of the film’s sequel, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” Fans are discussing the plans at Theme Park Insider.
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Yahoo! BuzzWorld Hum Reaches New Traffic Highs
by Michael Yessis | 02.04.06 | 3:15 PM ET
Thanks to everyone for helping make January the highest-traffic month in the history of World Hum. The stats: 405,891 page views, 139,020 visits and 37,980 unique visitors. We hope you’ll continue reading as we boost the frequency of our posts and add new features in the coming months.
A Brief History of Adventure Travel
by Michael Yessis | 02.04.06 | 2:17 PM ET
Yahoo! adventure guru Richard Bangs covers the history of adventure travel in just 874 words today in a New York Times piece. I’ll summarize in 86 words: First adventure travelers were merchants on expedition. Many accidental discoveries. Ericson, North America. Columbus, the Caribbean. Modern adventure travel began 35 years ago. Treks in the Nepalese Himalayas. Maoist revolutionaries emerge. Adventurers go to Bhutan. In the ‘70s, Afghanistan, Algeria and New Guinea. In the ‘80s, the Nile, Mount Ararat and Bali. Religious-based terrorism drives out adventurers. In the ‘90s, the Alps. Euro rises. Everyone goes to Thailand. Tsunami hits. Libya, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Panama become popular. For now. When in doubt, there’s always Costa Rica.
Americans, Finns and Danes Have Most Freedom to Travel Visa-Free
by Jim Benning | 02.03.06 | 7:38 AM ET
I’ve been spending the week in Grand Cayman working on a story and chatting with travelers and ex-pats from around the world. Twice I’ve found myself struggling to explain the United States’ ban on travel to Cuba to people understandably baffled by it. When they ask what I think, I find myself saying that whatever you think of Fidel Castro’s government, and I’m not a fan, you should have the right to visit the country and make up your own mind. Besides, the policy has proved remarkably ineffective. The man is still in power. All this was on my mind when I came across this AP headline on CBC.com: Citizens of Denmark, Finland, U.S. have most freedom to travel without visas. It turns out that citizens of these countries can travel to 130 countries without having to get a visa, according to a landmark report. Germany, Ireland and Sweden tied for a close second place, with their citizens able to visit 129 countries without visas.
Whither the Future of Low Fares on Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity?
by Jim Benning | 02.03.06 | 6:18 AM ET
According to a Reuters report in USA Today, the major airlines are considering this year whether to renew their agreements with the big online booking agencies. Apparently airlines are having a tough time raising ticket prices to cover rising costs. Now, the report states, they are “scrutinizing their books for places to trim expenses. For some airlines, ticket distribution is a significant expense and may well fall into that category.”
Hooters Casino Hotel Opens Today in Las Vegas
by Michael Yessis | 02.03.06 | 4:51 AM ET
First came the airline. Now comes what the folks over at the Best Week Ever are calling “a place for boobs to go.” The new Hooters Casino Hotel takes the place of the Hotel San Remo, just off the south end of the Las Vegas Strip, and will be hosting grand opening festivities all weekend.
Jam Band Cruises: “You Won’t Have People Selling Grilled Cheeses to Get Money to Get on the Boat.”
by Michael Yessis | 02.03.06 | 12:35 AM ET
But music fans are still laying out gobs of cash to be able to scuba dive with String Cheese Incident and play bingo with the Disco Biscuits. In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, Evan Serpick reports that musical cruises are a hot travel ticket.
Visitors Slow to Return to Bali
by Jim Benning | 02.02.06 | 8:40 PM ET
After a terrorist attack in Bali last October left 20 dead, experts predicted the island’s tourism industry would rebound within a year or two. That may yet happen, but at the moment, four months after the attack, the tourism business is still in a major slump, and owners are worried, according to an AP story on CNN. The numbers tell the story. Said the director general of Indonesia’s Tourism Ministry: “Just before the bombing, the number of tourists arriving every day had reached 5,000. Today it’s about 2,100.” If you’ve been reading World Hum, you already know that Bali-lover Liz Sinclair has been undeterred by the attack.
“Flight 93” Most Watched A&E Program Ever
by Michael Yessis | 02.02.06 | 1:06 PM ET
The second of at least four movies to be produced about Flight 93, the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, drew 5.9 million viewers to A&E Monday. More people watched the program than any other in the 20+ year history of the cable channel. A&E will replay the movie Saturday at noon ET and Sunday at 3 p.m. A major motion picture about the flight from director Paul Greengrass will be released in the spring.
7,083 Miles From Lagos to Detroit: An Epic Super Bowl Road Trip
by Michael Yessis | 02.02.06 | 9:15 AM ET
Kathy and Fred Richardson, two teachers from Lagos, Nigeria, are flying to Detroit, Michigan this week to attend Sunday’s Super Bowl XL between the Pittsburgh Steelers and their beloved Seattle Seahawks (the couple used to live in Tacoma, Washington). The trip will take 24 hours and cost about $12,000, which seems like a hell of a lot of money to travel to a city that can’t even entice its own citizens to hang around. John McGrath of the Tacoma News Tribune has the couple’s story.
Paris Hilton: Banned in Dubrovnik?
by Michael Yessis | 02.01.06 | 10:31 PM ET
So says the Daily Mirror. “She was rumoured to be visiting the Croatian city Dubrovnik later this year, but locals have demanded a news website ban all reports on her,” according to the report. “One person said: ‘We’ve had enough of hearing about what time Paris Hilton gets up. It’s nonsense.’”
Oslo Tops List of World’s Most Expensive Cities
by Michael Yessis | 02.01.06 | 10:59 AM ET
Norway’s capital unseated Tokyo, Japan, which had been number one on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s biannual survey for 14 years. Reykjavik, Iceland ranked third on the list, with Osaka, Japan and Paris, France rounding out the top five. The AP has a report on the survey.
Photo by Sarah Schmelling.
Kaplan: Journalism Can Learn a Lesson from Travel Writers
by Jim Benning | 02.01.06 | 7:58 AM ET
Travel writers don’t get much good press these days, and they aren’t held in very high regard by traditional journalists. When I worked in newspaper newsrooms, I never once heard a fellow reporter rave about a travel story or a travel writer. So it’s noteworthy that the latest issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, which is widely read by journalists of all stripes, features a compelling essay calling on journalists to learn a lesson or two from the great travel writers. “Journalism desperately needs a return to terrain, to the kind of firsthand, solitary discovery of local knowledge best associated with old-fashioned travel writing,” writes Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic. “Travel writing is more important than ever as a means to reveal the vivid reality of places that get lost in the elevator music of 24-hour media reports.”
Rolf Potts on the Key West Literary Seminar
by Jim Benning | 02.01.06 | 7:28 AM ET
The four-day January writing seminar has gotten more electronic ink than any recent travel-writers’ gathering I can recall. Thomas Swick blogged about it here. We noted a newspaper column about it. And now Rolf Potts has offered his own take. He had a grand time, but he had a few critical words, too. “I’d reckon that one weakness of the seminar was a total lack of political diversity among the panelists,” he writes. “At times, the panel discussions came off sounding like another episode of ‘Liberals Being Self-Congratulatory’ (the longest-running show in American letters).”
‘Brokeback Mountain’ Tourism: If You Film it in Canada, They’ll Still Go to Wyoming
by Michael Yessis | 01.31.06 | 11:23 AM ET
Like “Sideways” did last year and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy before that, “Brokeback Mountain” is inspiring a surge in travel. But people are going to the wrong place. The Oscar-nominated film about two cowboys who fall in love was filmed in Canada, but according to an AP story it’s inspiring travelers to head to Wyoming. That’s where the characters meet and fall in love. “When we tell them it was shot in Canada, they’re still interested in Wyoming,” said Michell Howard, manager of the Wyoming Business Council’s film, arts and entertainment office. “They don’t hang up and call Alberta. They’re intrigued in the story.”
