What We Loved This Week: Idlewild Books, the Appalachian Trail and Flowers on the Turnpike

Travel Blog  •  World Hum  •  10.17.08 | 8:03 PM ET

imageWorld Hum contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.

Michael Yessis
The men’s room at the Grover Cleveland Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike, for its display of fresh flowers above the urinals. It’s rare to see anything fresh at a highway rest stop, and I must say, I found it a little shocking and a nice touch.

Jim Benning
Idlewild Books in New York City. I paid my first visit to the travel-themed bookshop near Union Square this week. What a great collection. I didn’t have much time—I picked up the new edition of “Best American Travel Writing” and some titles we gave away at our World Hum reading. But I’ll be back.

Valerie Conners
Shadow World, a web-based video project by artist David Kessler documenting life under the tracks of North Philadelphia’s elevated train. “Gritty” hardly begins to describe this forsaken region—it’s a place few would consider staying or staring at for long—and Kessler’s work offers an honest, unblinking look at the area and its residents. 

Joanna Kakissis
I lived in North Carolina for six years and never managed to step foot on the Appalachian Trail, despite hiking vicariously through the likes of Bill Bryson, Scott Huler and Eustace Conway (via Elizabeth Gilbert). So when I traveled to Roanoke, Virginia for an environmental journalism conference, I signed up for a field trip to go on a seven-mile hike to McAfee Knob on the trail’s Catawba Ridge section pass. The bouquets of crimson, orange, gold and green, and the view of the Catawba Valley, were stunning. My appetite whetted, I started planning big. Anyone want to take off three months and hike the entire Maine-to-Georgia trail with me? It’s only, uh, like 2,175 miles.

Joel Carillet
I’m a novice in Central America and have struggled to feel engaged in my limited travels within Costa Rica during the past month. Not to sound snobbish, but I was really missing Asia and the Middle East. But yesterday I crossed the border to Panama and soon was on a boat speeding toward Bocas del Toro. When we rounded a bend and my eyes fell upon the town, the edge of it stepping out into the Caribbean on stilts, I smiled. It exuded culture and calm, and I knew I was going to love this place.

Eva Holland
I loved pretty well everything about my visit to New York this week for the World Hum / Restless Legs reading event (not least, the company) but one moment really stands out. My flight home was delayed last night, and the waiting area had the tense, silent, disgruntled vibe that usually results—until the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner came on TV. John McCain and Barack Obama took turns roasting themselves and each other, and the hostility of the airport crowd dissolved into laughter for the final 20 minutes of our wait. The New York Times has video.

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