Obama, McCain and the Politics of a Vacation

After Beheading, Greyhound Kills Ad Campaign

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Travel in Mexico Getting More Expensive, Too

‘The Monster of Florence’: Murder and the Pursuit of Truth

Douglas Preston’s latest book, the true story of a serial killer in Italy, shows that the world is far from exhausted for those who want to travel deep. Frank Bures tells why. 

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

Affairs to Remember—On-Screen and Off

From “Roman Holiday” to “Before Sunrise,” Hollywood has understood the appeal of the overseas fling. Eva Holland explains the staying power of the big screen Euro-romance.

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.

Susan Sessions Rugh: ‘The Golden Age of American Family Vacations’

Elyse Franko asks the author of “Are We There Yet?” about the rise and fall of the family vacation, segregation in travel and how family trips are changing today

As a Woman, Can I Really Travel Without Much Fear for my Safety?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Break Bread and Brie in France

Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.

In Kolkata, the ‘Last Days of the Rickshaw’?

Very interesting article.  While it may be offensive to be pulled by a fellow human being, the rickshaw gives these men work and allows them to feed their family. Without the rickshaw they would not likely have work as they probably have a very basic education. These rickshaws will be converted to bicycle rickshaws just like elsewhere in northern India.

Everything we own or use comes to us via the sweat and hard work of others, from the clothes we wear to the houses we live in to the roads we drive upon. Perhaps rickshaws make us uncomfortable because we see, without filter, how much our quality of life depends on the very punishing work of laborors. I don’t think that a person pulling a rickshaw is any different from a person laying bricks in the hot sun.

Indian planners that I’ve talked with worry a lot about the diversity of speeds among the vehicles on the street.  This tension among vehicles with different speeds is the source of much of the endless jostling and honking of Indian traffic.  I suspect that behind the noble sentiments about human dignity is a desire to eliminate the only vehicle on the road that occupies most of a lane-width but moves at the top speed of a pedestrian. 

(Slow bicycles are a little more tolerable, from this point of view, because they take less width, and in any case bicycles are too numerous to be banned even if they wanted to.  In fact, it says something about the impenetrability of India that we haven’t seen more communication between western urban bicycle activists and the downtrodden men who ride old bicycles in the tense and shifting margins of Indian major streets, being honked at from all sides.)

That’s not to judge the decision one way or the other, but just to point out a key dimension to it that Trillin may have missed.

I don’t have much to say about whether or not the rickshaw should be banned, but there’s one thing I do know - Whatever promises will be made to these rickshaw pullers to compensate for their loss will be broken, and they’ll be left in the lurch. And National Geographic won’t be on hand to documenttheir plight.

Banning these rickshaw,s is i,m afraid just another sign of the so called (rising middle class indian)who want,s to embrace many western way,s and think,s the sight of these rickshaw,s is demeaning to their country,on the other hand paying their “servant,s"less than a dollar a day behind closed door,s is a tradition they will want to maintain.