Austria and Germany took the second and third spots in the annual Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index. The index measures 14 factors in an attempt to pinpoint which countries have the most “conducive environments for developing the travel and tourism industry.” Here are all the rankings. (via Jaunted)

Related on World Hum:
* U.N.: Iceland Rocks. Sub-Saharan Africa? Not so Much.

Switzerland loves its tunnels nearly as much as its timepieces, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that the country crowned the world’s longest on Friday. The AP reports the 21-mile rail link will cut train travel between Germany and Italy from 3 1/2 hours to less than two. The opening of the $3.5 billion Loetschberg Tunnel after eight years of construction is good news for Swiss locals, who hope it will ease heavy truck traffic in their mountainous land.

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That’s some high praise, and it’s Rory MacLean’s take on the Swiss writer who died in 1998. An English translation of Bouvier’s book “The Way of the World,” about the 19 months the author spent traveling through Europe and Asia with a friend in a Fiat in the 1950s, has just been published in the UK. 

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Travelers this week looked to Las Vegas, Seville, the Grand Canyon, Tallinn, Riga and Charleson, S.C., and wondered whether to avoid Oslo (too expensive) and Atlanta (too busy). Here’s the Zeitgeist: 

Most Read Weblog Category
World Hum (this week)
Las Vegas

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Las Vegas: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack

World’s Busiest Airport
Airports Council International (2006)
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
* Chicago’s O’Hare and London’s Heathrow finished second and third respectively.

Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph (current)
Seville’s the City for Piety Animals
* This also gets another of our groan-inducing headline of the week awards.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Charleston, S.C.

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Switzerland Invades Liechtenstein

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Another Wonder for Grand Canyon?
* As we like to say, what would Edward Abbey think?

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Wi-Fi Bus Crosses the Border
* It’s “likely the first international cross-border Wi-Fi-enabled bus line.” It connects Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia.

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

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

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And chaos, well, didn’t ensue. Apparently this wasn’t the first time the Swiss army has accidentally crossed into Liechtenstein during a training mission. “It has happened before,” Liechtenstein government spokeswoman Gerlinde Manz-Christ told ABC News. “Nobody really realized it.” The Guardian notes the 170 or so Swiss soldiers were carrying rifles with no ammunition on their mission last Thursday, though they did have their “obligatory Swiss army knives.”

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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A little hungry this week, are we? A little impatient, too, it seems. So let’s get right to it. This week’s Zeitgeist takes us through Italy, Indonesia, India, New York City, Mexico City, the Riviera Maya, Russia, Austin and all the way across the United States.

Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* We like this book.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
The Global Gourmet
* This is the last story ever filed for the New York Times by the late R.W. Apple.

Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Michael Hess: The “On the Road” Google Maps Mashup

Most Popular Food and Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt Opens In NYC

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The Bulwer-Lytton contest celebrates intentionally horrible writing. Specifically, entrants are challenged to compose “the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” Today, the 2006 winners were announced and, oh my, did they ever produce some horrible prose. But horrible in a highly-entertaining way. Jim Guigli took home the grand prize with a 63-word doozy about a hot dame and a super burrito. My favorite selections, though, were those that tasted of travel writing.

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I love snowboarding, but I probably love kicking back afterward even more. There’s nothing like that feeling of exhaustion and satisfaction after a long day on the slopes, when it’s time to soak in the hot tub, reward yourself with a great meal and relax by a crackling fire. So I was happy to see MSNBC.com offer a list of the top 10 scenes to do just that. Aspen makes the list (Hollywood stars, great restaurants). So does Killington (check out the Wobbly Barn and the Pickle Barrel) and Lake Tahoe (casinos galore). Internationally, Cortina in Italy and Argentina’s Bariloche are included. And so is Chamonix-Mont Blanc, my personal favorite. MSNBC cites its “location on the crossroads of France, Italy, and Switzerland that makes it a natural multicultural mecca for serious skiers and serious partiers.”

The ranks of Germany’s wandergesellen—skilled craftsmen who wander around the country in search of work—are growing as a result of high joblessness and a nationwide construction slowdown after the frantic first decade of reunification. “The first year of the walz must be spent in German-speaking territory, which includes Austria, Switzerland and the Alsace-Lorraine region of eastern France,” writes Carol J. Williams in the Los Angeles Times. “But after the indoctrination year, the wanderers are allowed, even encouraged, to range as wide in the world as their earnings can take them.” According to wandergesellen code, the men must remain 50 kilometers away from home for at least three years and a day.