World Hum Travel Movie Club: National Lampoon’s ‘Vacation’

Philadelphia Welcomed Record Amount of International Visitors in 2007

Denali National Park Buses Going Hybrid?

Baggage: Check It or Ship It?

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

Inside Slum Tourism

With mixed feelings, Rob Verger recently signed on for a tour of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. He looks back on the experience—and the photos he was allowed to take.

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.

10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts

Call it world music or global pop or the sound of the world hum. Ben Keene reveals 10 acts on tour that are sure to transport you. Plus videos.

A Journey Into ‘The Second World’

Some bureaucrats joke that they would never claim expertise about countries they had not at least flown over. In an excerpt from his new book, Parag Khanna argues that real global understanding can only come from serious travel.

‘The Worst Guidebook Writer Ever’?

Lonely Planet author Robert Reid reviews Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” and weighs in on the controversy surrounding it

Susan Jacoby on Americans’ ‘Hostility to Knowledge’

PS: Thanks to Marilyn at Intelligent Travel for pointing out that video a few weeks ago. Finally got to include it in a post!

Hi Joanna:

When I woke up this morning as dehydrated as the Carrot Man from “Lost in Space"--"moisture! moisture!"--I fired up my computer and landed like a horny lightning bug upon your blog.

I agree that your average American has trouble naming the 50 states, let alone even speculate what the CIA World Factbook is about.

One of my favorite American Abroad bloopers, was a vapid broad with breasts like mosquito bites who said of the Netherlands: “I’ve never been to Dutch.”

Anyway, when I sit around chewing the cud at hip bistros here in the cast-iron district of Manhattan, the wildly popular SoHo region, I sometimes listen in to healthily tan women and men, still smelling of sea salt and faraway places, bragging about their summer vacays. I feel as anachronistic as Paul Lynde or Charles Nelson O’Reilly boxed in and completely stumped on “The Hollywood Squares.” Now, I’ve never been to the Hamptons, so what gives?

I guesss I should pay way closer attention. I’ll buy an updated atlas and flip the bird at ignorance and isolation. When I watch a travel program, such as a flim featuring the migration patterns of storks on the Iberian coastline, I say wha? huh? I study the label of my replenishment fluid, feeling as aloof as a Japanese hitman.

The following recent article asks:

- Has the unbridled spread of commercialism and technology transformed us from small groups of active amateur participants and involved citizens to a large single mass of professional passive spectators and nonstop consumers?

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/opi_view.asp?newsIdx=16388&categoryCode=162

As a lifelong geography fan who has visited over a dozen countries and US states, I heartily agree with the likes of Susan Jacoby.  It mystifies me that, in what is called the “information age,” so little is known by so many.  Why, when it’s easier than ever to search for information on Google, do the majority of people tune in to sitcoms and Britney’s institutionalization?  I have grave worries about the world’s future, given the antipathy toward objective knowledge that I have encountered.