Travel Blog
How Not to Panic When Your Circling Plane Runs Low on Fuel
by Jim Benning | 06.11.07 | 6:10 PM ET
The air traffic control system computer glitch that caused thousands of airline delays on the East Coast Friday also slowed down World Hum columnist Rolf Potts. He was aboard an AirTran flight from Atlanta to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport when the pilot announced a 20-minute delay. It would be the first of many announcements that day, and nearly eight hours would pass before Potts arrived in New York. I dialed him up today and asked him for a few gory details.
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Yahoo! BuzzMotel Nostalgia: In Florida, Searching For a ‘Glimpse of Paradise’
by Michael Yessis | 06.11.07 | 1:23 PM ET
Photo by cdale via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
The average cost of a hotel room in the United States has risen to more than $100 a night, but places around the country remain where you can find a room with a little character and prime location for less than that. Among them: Treasure Island, Florida. At least for a little while. Wayne Curtis ventured to the small town near St. Petersburg—and elsewhere in Florida—to search for and chronicle the endangered “towering landmarks” of the ‘40s and ‘50s. His story appears behind a subscription wall on The Atlantic’s Web site, but a terrific audio slideshow is available to all.
Flight Attendants’ Rep: ‘We’re Back to Pre-9/11 Passenger Attitudes’
by Michael Yessis | 06.11.07 | 12:35 PM ET
Translation: “[T]ension between airline employees and passengers is rising, and passengers are ruder and more volatile than in the past,” according to a USA Today story by Gary Stoller. Some statistics support the assertion. The Federal Aviation Administration “cited 1,738 ‘unruly’ passengers for illegally interfering with the duties of a flight crew during the seven years ended in 2006, or an average of 248 a year. From 1995 to 1999, there were an average of 198 per year,” Stoller writes. Reports of passenger misconduct from flight attendants and other airline workers to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System are also high, according to the story, and could be higher because many employees are not aware of the system.
New Addition to the Travel Lexicon: ‘Toeing the Line’
by Michael Yessis | 06.11.07 | 11:40 AM ET
In our ongoing quest to chronicle the comings and goings in the travel lexicon we bring you “toeing the line,” which The Atlantic’s Word Fugitive columnist Barbara Wallraff has declared the winner in a contest to determine “a word to describe the moment of undignified vulnerability that people in airport security lines experience when they have to take off their shoes.” Dick Engel of Bark River, Michigan submitted the winning entry, though I liked many other suggestions better. Among them: Shoemiliation, unshoddenfreude, pedrified, JimmyChoogrined, steparation anxiety and pedanoia.
Related on World Hum:
* New Travel Word of the Day: ‘Glamping’
* Don’t be a Touron!: New Additions to the Travel Lexicon
* Is It Time To Retire ‘Ugly American’ From the Travel Lexicon?
Think ______ is Great Now? Oh Please, You Shoulda Seen it in the ‘70s.
by Jim Benning | 06.11.07 | 8:53 AM ET
There’s at least one person in nearly every great place you travel to who will look you in your dazzled eyes and tell you in no uncertain terms that you really missed it, that you should have been there 5, 10, 20 years ago, when the place was truly magical and not overrun with people just like you. John Flinn calls it the Kathmandu Syndrome. As he defines it: “Every place used to be better, at least in the eyes of those who were there then. Now all these places are blighted, charmless, overcrowded and hopelessly touristy.” In a fine column in the San Francisco Chronicle, he explores this all-too-common expression of the hyper-competitive streak in some travelers.
Globespotters: IHT’s Correspondents Blog Paris, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Beyond
by Julia Ross | 06.11.07 | 8:20 AM ET
When foreign correspondents aren’t chasing down insurgents or dissidents, they’re wandering the back streets of their adopted cities, ferreting out the best croissant in Paris or bike path in Rome. A new travel blog from the International Herald Tribune—dubbed Globespotters—taps into this collective wisdom via posts from reporters in six world cities. In IHT’s words, it’s “an online resource where IHT reporters and editors (and readers too) share up-to-the-minute tips and recommendations about the cities where we live and visit.” So far, it’s a lively mix of local color and tips on things to do. My favorite: Joyce Lau’s take on the expat bacchanal that passes as Dragon Boat Festival in Hong Kong.
Photo by Harris Graber via Flickr, (Creative Commons).The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From the Great White North to the Land Down Under
by Michael Yessis | 06.08.07 | 12:49 PM ET
This week travelers trek the length of the globe, from Canada to California to Mexico to Costa Rica to Australia. There’s also the inevitable Paris Hilton vs. Hilton Paris match up. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
In Napa, Wilderness Above the Wineries
* That’s Napa, pictured above.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Paris Hilton accommodations vs. Hilton Paris
* Christopher Reynolds pits the two head-to-head.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Mexico to (Miss) U.S.A.: Boooooo
* Readers have mixed feelings about the now-infamous boos.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
JetBlue Tries to Bounce Back From Storm of Trouble
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Air Traffic Control System Command Center
Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
An Island in Costa Rica
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
National Geographic’s Atmosphere
* Current podcast: Mount Everest Expedition
Average U.S. Hotel Room Price Tops $100
by Terry Ward | 06.08.07 | 11:01 AM ET
I’m toying with the idea of heading west on an American road trip this summer, but a short piece in today’s USA Today gives me pause. Gene Sloan writes that a milestone has been reached: According to Smith Travel Research, the average U.S. hotel room price now tops $100 per night. To be exact, it’s $102.79. Granted, that figure can vary drastically, depending on the market—from an average of $84 in Detroit to, gulp, $254 in New York City, Sloan writes.
U.S. Plans Temporary Waiver of Passport Policy*
by Michael Yessis | 06.08.07 | 8:42 AM ET
Travelers frustrated with the United States government’s glacial pace in processing passport applications may be getting a reprieve. Various reports this morning say the policy requiring all U.S. citizens to show passports when flying to Canada and Mexico will be suspended through September 30 while the government tries to catch up on paperwork. Travelers without passports will instead need to show another form of government-issued identification, and perhaps be subject to more scrutiny by border-security agents.
Update, 1:56 p.m. ET, June 11 : It’s official. The government made the announcement Friday.
Las Vegas Gets Its First Frank Gehry Building
by Jim Benning | 06.07.07 | 6:00 PM ET
And no, it’s not a one-third scale replica of his Bilbao museum for a new Spanish-themed casino and hotel. It’s not even on the Strip. But the 67,000-square-foot Lou Rivo Brain Institute—Gehry’s first in the city—is sure to become a tourist attraction. Construction began in February and it’s scheduled to open in late 2008.
‘Vamos a Cuba’: Should the Children’s Travel Book be Removed from Miami Schools?
by Michael Yessis | 06.07.07 | 5:39 PM ET
No way, I say. The fate of “Vamos a Cuba,” however, rests in the hands of a three-judge panel at the Federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Miami, which yesterday heard arguments regarding a Miami-Dade Country school board decision to remove the book from school libraries. According to the Miami Herald’s Tania deLuzuriaga, the controversy started when Juan Amador Rodriguez, a parent and former political prisoner in Cuba, complained that the travel book failed to accurately depict life on the island. The school board removed “Vamos a Cuba” in June 2006. A federal judge soon ordered the book back into the library, setting the stage for the current appeal process.
In Heyerdahl’s Wake: Across the Atlantic in a Reed Boat
by Michael Yessis | 06.07.07 | 4:46 PM ET
Three Travel Books: Cullen Thomas’s Picks
by Frank Bures | 06.07.07 | 2:12 PM ET
Cullen Thomas is the author of “Brother One Cell.” We just published an interview with him, and we also asked him for three travel book recommendations. Here’s what he told us:
Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum.
Thomas says: “I read this recently. Slocum is dry, steady, salt of the earth and sea. He doesn’t write with flair or with much emotion even, but the humility of his great, personal voyage, the utterly simple beauty of it, is sacred. And the window onto the world of the 1890s that he provides is often fascinating.”
Global Warming, Tourism Among Threats to Cultural Sites
by Jim Benning | 06.07.07 | 10:43 AM ET
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