World Hum’s Most Read: Aug. 23-29

What We Loved This Week: Las Vegas, Maui and the Street Art of Sao Paulo

R.I.P. ‘Staycation’

‘The Internet is About the Best Thing to Happen to Geography Nerds Since the Sextant’

A Tourist With a Shovel and a Hoe

When she arrived in Kenya to volunteer with the Maasai, Daniela Petrova looked down her nose at tourists there to have a good time. But was her own motivation much different?

How Should I Spend My Time in Spain?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Paul Theroux: Invisible Man on a Ghost Train

Jim Benning asks the author of “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” about his new book, aging and the challenge of disappearing in the age of the BlackBerry

Eat Ceviche in Lima

Grab a Cusqueña and get comfortable. As Nicholas Gill explains, a trip to a Peruvian cevichería can be an all-day immersion in good conversation and raw seafood.

Unsentimental Journeys: Wrestling With Paul Theroux

Bronwen Dickey considers “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Great Railway Bazaar”

My Travels, My Feet

After taking one too many headless torso shots of herself, solo traveler Sophia Dembling started snapping photos of her feet around the world, from the Grand Canyon to Red Square

Seven Reasons to Have a Foreign Fling

Sure, having an overseas romance is fun. But Terry Ward points out seven other benefits to cross-border love, mon petit chou.

Great American Road Trip (Prematurely) Declared Dead

I just drove from Connecticut to New Orleans, for Jazzfest.  It cost me close to $700 for fuel for my van, but I had a blast!  I had planned to travel with two friends, who chickened out at the last minute.  Their loss.

If a road trip is too hard, try a baloon trip. Read a couple of days ago about somebody who flew 200 miles across the Oregon desert sittig on an armchair attached to baloons.

I’ve been wondering for the past year or two if American road trips no longer interest Americans. Like many others I read Kerouac several years ago, read Steinbeck, Heat-Moon and so on… And finally got the chance at 31 y.o. to spend a few months living in a ‘73 VW bus while driving the country. It was a dream.

Well, half of the dream. I also am a writer and photographer and have, thus far, failed to interest publishers or agents enough to take on this book.

Sure the reasons could be many, but I’ve also wondered if one very big reason is our collective, cultural turn toward sensational, awe-striking gossip has killed the desire for an “old-fashioned” topic such as American vagabonding.

My logic was that if love stories/movies/poems/songs continue to be written and consumed, then something so stayed as roadtripping this country would be too.

I still don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that book published. But...I do know no one can ever take the experience away from me. It’s all been worth it.

This is an amazing roadtrip.

The Last Great American Roadtrip

http://moroadtrip.us

Check it out.

For videos of my trip to New Orleans, go to:  http://www.tripfilms.com/profile.do?userID=773