Technologically, Estonia seems “like a planet from a Flash Gordon serial.” Economically, it’s strong and growing. And in Tallinn, the nightlife is “fun and welcoming,” and boasts “what I can say were—without fear of hyperbole—the most jaw-droppingly beautiful women I have ever seen in my life.” Those are the observations of Chasing the Sea author and World Hum contributor Tom Bissell writing in The New Republic. But Bissell, who traveled to Estonia twice in 2006, was not completely blinded by what he saw. He writes: “I wondered: Was Estonia’s stylishness actually some geoeconomic version of keeping up with the Joneses of the Western world?” His excellent story examines Estonia’s history and rise to become one of the European Union’s most successful new members.

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Coordinates: 59 22 N 24 48 E
Population: 401,502 (2005 est.)
Novel as it may seem, some places in the world are actually attempting to make their governments more efficient and their societies more open. Across the Gulf of Finland, not quite fifty miles from Helsinki, the Estonian cabinet conducts its paperless meetings entirely online in the capital city of Tallinn. Nearly four times larger than the country’s next biggest city, Tallinn is the center of an electronic society as well as an e-government. Internet access is considered a constitutional right and throughout the city blue traffic signs with the @ symbol direct citizens to hundreds of free Public Internet Access Points (PIAPs). Every school, along with 82 percent of home computers, is connected to the web, supporting the results of a recent survey showing that over half of the population uses the Internet nationwide.

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.

And the nations with the world’s largest economies finished down the 178-nation list. Way down. Germany ranked 81st, Japan 95th and the United States 150th. The New Economics Foundation, which bills itself as a “think-and-do tank,” says its inaugural Happy Planet Index “moves beyond crude ratings of nations according to national income, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” The new index, they say, produces “a more accurate picture of the progress of nations based on the amount of the Earth’s resources they use, and the length and happiness of people’s lives.” A BBC News story quotes Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, as saying that the index “was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life’s environmental impact.” Layard continues: “Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier.” So which countries besides the island nation of Vanuatu are happiest? Colombia and Costa Rica round out the top three. Burundi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe finished at the bottom.

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Sunday’s New York Times arrived with another travel edition of T Style Magazine inside, and it’s mostly what you’d expect from a style/travel magazine: it’s full of stories by and about celebrities and celebrated writers. I haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet, but I did notice a secondary theme: sex. Or maybe it’s just travel writing that would really entertain a teenage boy. 

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