That’s what the editor of the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases proposes. Such a tax—“less than the cost of a single piña colada!”—would go toward fighting neglected tropical diseases, which are a “high burden” in the region.

Related on World Hum:
* Dengue Fever, Revisited

Among the targets: those aboard luxury yachts off islands like St. Vincent. Reports the Los Angeles Times: “Most of the hundreds of incidents collected from 30 countries and territories over the last four years involve dinghy and outboard motor thefts or burglaries of boats while passengers were ashore. But guns and knives are being used more frequently, and dozens of incidents involving beatings and stabbings are among the crimes reported.”

Photo by lyng883 via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Travel tips are easy to find on the Internet, but some are better than others. Each week, we’ll bring you World Hum-approved travel tips from around the Web.

1) Play the odds. “Travelers can minimize the risks by choosing islands like Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao or Trinidad and Tobago, all located so far south that they are rarely hit by major storms.”—The Washington Post

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Elisabeth Eaves recently visited the Caribbean island of St. Vincent to voluntour with the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. The scuba diver spent her underwater time identifying and cataloging glassy sweepers, barracuda and other assorted fish, all for the benefit of ecology and science. “These days, lots of organizations send travelers on ‘voluntours,’ wherein you pay for the privilege of doing a short stint of conservation work—on turtle hatcheries in Central America, bear-tracking missions in the high Andes, or wildlife parks in East Africa, to name a few projects,” she wrote in a series of stories for Slate. “What do-gooderism I possess is tied to Jacques Cousteau fantasies. Maybe, just maybe, I can contribute a tiny little bit to marine biology.” So what does she think about voluntourism now? I asked her a few questions via e-mail.

Voluntourism, like all trends, is being scrutinized. Some suggest it’s not all it’s cracked up to be—that many outfits put profit ahead of doing good work, that all the money people spend on costly voluntourism vacations could be put to much better use. Any thoughts on that?

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Trench Town, the tough Kingston neighborhood made famous in Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry, got some love from the New York Times today. Tens of thousands of visitors are expected in the Caribbean during the next two months for the Cricket World Cup, and Marley’s old neighborhood is one place that could see an increase in visitors. “In Trench Town, where street gangs battle over turf and where people live in shacks about the size of the garages at the glorious homes in the hills, expectations for the cricket tournament are high,” the Times reports. “Community leaders will have tour guides at the ready to take visitors around a neighborhood they say has a proud past.”

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They’re turning people back at the Canadian border, shrinking the payout for blackjack in Las Vegas and seeing through your clothes in Phoenix. Those stories—plus journeys to Alaska, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Sweden and Mulholland Drive—are intriguing travelers this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist.

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Going to Canada? Check Your Past

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Las Vegas: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack
* Casino are starting to pay only 6-5 for blackjack. What’s next? No doubling down?

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Full-Body X-Ray Security Scanner Debuts
* The first passengers asked to submit to a full-body X-ray, apparently, “didn’t bat an eyelash.”

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Escapes Under $500: Go to Puerto Rico’s Second City
* That would be Ponce.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
The Cold Show in Fairbanks, Alaska

Most Read Travel Story
World Hum (this week)
Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘100 Places Every Woman Should Go’

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Wayfaring

Best Waterfront City
Project for Public Spaces
Stockholm

Travel Story of the Year
Solas Awards (2007)
Fishing With Larry by Tom Joseph
* Here are all the prize winners.

Most Competitive Country
World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitive Index
Switzerland
* What is this? “The index is not a ‘beauty contest’, or a statement about the attractiveness of a country. On the contrary, the index measures the factors that make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism industry of individual countries,” said Jennifer Blanke, Senior Economist of the World Economic Forum.

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What will Stephen Colbert be doing on his week off? The Colbert Report host dead-panned to Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” Thursday night: “Jon, I’ll be launching an intense seven-day investigation into the Royal St. Barts Golf Club and Resort, the Caribbean’s ritziest retreat, so my travel agent would have me believe. But I’ll lay down for a one-on-one Swedish massage with a masseuse who isn’t even Swedish. And then, parasailing: Is it really the coolest thing ever? A grueling five-hour examination. Then, I’ll access one riding stable whose occupants live like animals. The Royal St. Barts Golf Club and Resort: It’s the one Stephen Colbert exclusive you can’t afford...boy, you can’t afford.”

Related on World Hum:
* Jon Stewart on the Zagat Prison Guide
* Jon Stewart on Osama bin Laden’s Latest Tape

If you’re an American flying from the U.S. to Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean and want to return home, we hope so. The new passport rule, otherwise known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, goes into effect today, requiring that you carry one. Predictably, many travelers are now rushing to get their own little blue book, prompting newspaper headline writers to break out their favorite egg-related verb. Meanwhile, U.S. territory Puerto Rico stands to gain from the new rule: Passports are still not required of U.S. citizens, a fact that Puerto Rico is spending $36 million to promote. So how many new passports do officials expect to issue this year?

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When my passport expired late last year, I shelled out nearly $150 in expedited fees and overnight shipping envelopes to have a new one rushed my way. If Morocco hadn’t been calling, however, perhaps I would have waited for the Bahamas to pick up the tab. Nassau Paradise Island is spending big bucks on newspaper ads—I saw one in the Orlando Sentinel—touting a new gimmick to keep passport-shy Americans coming: 19 member hotels are offering to reimburse the cost of passports in exchange for a minimum two-night stay.

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From Los Angeles to Big Sur, travelers have California on their minds this week. Supermodels, Walt Disney World, St. John and Sealand, too. Here’s the Zeitgeist:

Top-Ranked ‘Zeitgeist’ City
Hub Culture (2007)
Los Angeles
* The Walt Disney Concert Hall (pictured) and other attractions have helped turn L.A. into a city of the moment.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Big Sur Without the Crowds

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Ghostly Squid Boats of San Pedro

Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
For Sale: World’s Smallest Island Nation
* The price for Sealand? $100 million, by one estimate.

Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2007 by Bob Sehlinger with Len Testa

Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Paulina Porizkova: A Model Traveler

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Dance of the Flight Attendant
* A clever comic by Jen Wang.

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Few regions of the world are as dependent on tourism as the Caribbean. “Nonetheless, the literature on Caribbean tourism is surprisingly critical,” writes Orlando Patterson in an interesting opinion column in the New York Times. “Foreign anthropologists complain about the ‘tourist gaze’ and the distortion of local cultures; local chauvinists declaim that ‘tourism is whorism.’” Patterson, a professor of sociology at Harvard, calls these charges “largely puerile.” Tourism, he suggests, “enhances residents’ awareness of indigenous cultures, and it supports large numbers of entertainers.”

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High Times profiles top spots for the perfect “stoner vacation.” Making the list: Ibiza (hosting the first annual World Marijuana FIlm Festival); Negril, Jamaica ("Pot Paradise"); and, naturally, Amsterdam ("Not only is it home to arguably the best marijuana in the world, but it’s also the freest in its attitudes toward smoking pot").