Bad news from the UN: A lack of snow on snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro. Shrinking glaciers in the Rwenzori Mountains. Disappearing Lake Chad and Lake Victoria. An almost 400-page report released yesterday by the United Nations Environment Programme contains the details—and many scary satellite photos.

Related on World Hum:
* Are ‘Climate Tourists’ Wreaking Havoc on Fragile Land?

Photo of Mount Kilimanjaro by pintaa via Flickr (Creative Commons).

In the Globe and Mail, Stephanie Nolen offers alternative safari destinations for travelers scared off by the recent post-election violence in Kenya. For those of us not currently planning a wildlife-peeping trip to Africa, though, the most interesting part of the story is Nolen’s scene-setting introduction: from the normally hustling (and now abandoned) Exchange, a Nairobi bar once haunted by Hemingway himself. She writes:

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Away from home and enticingly out-of-context, travelers often find love they couldn’t access in the routine of their lives. Sometimes that love is erotic. Sometimes it’s a love of love itself, as Alexis Wolff discovered in a lovely essay about Niger in The New York Times’s Modern Love column.

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Chalk up one Nobel Prize victory for travel writing! Okay, okay. Admittedly this year’s winner Doris Lessing is much better known for writing novels and short stories than for her travel memoir, African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe, about her return to her newly-independent childhood home after decades of government-imposed exile. But much of her best-known fiction, from debut novel “The Grass Is Singing” to the “Children of Violence” series, also focuses on the white settler experience in Rhodesia, and the details of place and time are vital to the story in each work.

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The Freakonomics guys aren’t the only ones this week with an eye on the future of travel. Forbes delivered a special report about “The Future,” which features some provocative speculation on travel in the year 2017 from World Hum contributor Elisabeth Eaves. Among her predictions: 

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Former NBA basketball star Dikembe Mutombo has turned to humanitarian endeavors in his retirement, particularly to projects in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo. He donated $15 million to build a hospital in Kinshasa, and Conde Nast Traveler’s Dorinda Elliot recently interviewed him about “the celebrity do-gooder thing” and how travel has influenced his life. “I went to South Africa in 1992 and learned about apartheid. Nelson Mandela had just been released, and we met with him in a secret place and visited the prison where he had lived,” Mutombo says. “There were people who didn’t want him to come to power, and his supporters were moving him every night to different safe places. From that trip, I learned a lot about struggle and freedom. We take so much for granted. People think of travel for work or play, but it can also be a lesson that will change your life.”

Related on World Hum:
* Suffering and Smiling: Vanity Fair Does Africa
* Carmelo Anthony and the Perils of In-Flight Publishing
* Magic Johnson Helps Launch Travel Agency

Vanity Fair’s Africa issue prompted World Hum contributing editor Frank Bures’s examination of the West’s efforts to “save” the continent. Beasts of No Nation author Uzodinma Iweala’s inspiration for a piece on the subject in the Washington Post this weekend was an encounter with a “perky blond college student” who yelled at him, “Don’t you want to help us save Africa?”

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The subject of our latest nearly up-to-the-minute interview with a traveler somewhere in the world: Chris Vourlias, a contributor to TravelGator.com. His response landed in our inbox this morning.

World Hum: Where in the world are you?

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The U2 singer, global activist and fly sunglasses wearer devoted his attention to Africa as guest editor of Vanity Fair. This week travelers, too, are taking great interest in the continent as well as in China, Savannah, “Glacier Girl” and the hot spot of Boise, Idaho. Here’s the Zeitgeist:

Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
10 out of 10 for Hong Kong
* The skyline (pictured) is No. 3 on the list.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Savannah, Ga.

“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Boise, Idaho

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Beijing: Forbidden No More
* The flood of stories about China continues.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hut-to-Hut Hiking in New England

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

Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
Suffering and Smiling: Vanity Fair Does Africa
* The issue’s best story: Binyavanga Wainaina’s Generation Kenya.

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘Glacier Girl’ Set to Complete Flight Begun 65 Years Ago

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The world’s urban population is surging, according to a United Nations Population Fund report released yesterday. By next year, an estimated 3.3 billion people will live in cities. By 2030, the number will rise to 5 billion. George Martin, the report’s author, calls the growth “unstoppable.” According to a New York Times story, the report predicts that the surge in population will likely occur less in mega-cities like Lagos, Nigeria than in “places like Gabarone, Botswana, whose population is projected to rise to 500,000 in 2020 from 18,000 in 1971.” Overall, Asia and Africa will see most of the growth. The “accumulated urban growth of these two regions during the whole span of history will be duplicated in a single generation,” according to the report.

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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reprised his Win a Trip With Nick contest this year, and he and the two winners—a teacher from Chicago, Will Okun, and a a Rhodes Scholar-elect, Leana S. Wen—have landed in Rwanda. 

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The exhilarating, otherworldly and perilous experience of flying within Africa promises to get safer in June with the inauguration of the African Civil Aviation Authority (AFRO-CAA). According to the AP, the AFRO-CAA will be modeled after the EU Aviation Safety Agency and the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency, and, among other things, will for the first time develop uniform technical standards across the continent. ‘“This will be a big step to improve safety in Africa,” said Harry Eggerschwiler, chief of operations for the AFRO-CAA. “When you go to international safety meetings you always hear ‘Africa, Africa.’ Well, we are now doing something about it.”