One of my favorite Web sites ((Back in 2001, the site ran an essay of mine called Soup to Nuts, about a funny experience I had here in Bangkok, long before I moved to Thailand.)), World Hum — tag line: travel dispatches from a shrinking planet — has just launched a re-designed site. World Hum’s Jim Benning, Mike Yessis, and Valerie Conners discuss the re-vamping in this video.
New features include videos, bigger photos, and a column by Tom Swick ((A few years back, Swick wrote a good story about Cuenca, Ecuador — where I lived for a year — for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.)) There’s also a piece by Anthony Bourdain called “Subcontinental Homesick Blues,” about “why music can make a travel moment.”
The site also contains a new feature: “World Hum’s Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time.” The songs were voted on by World Hum contributors, and each song has a corresponding YouTube video. (You can see the entire list on one page here.)
I contributed a list of my top ten songs ((For the record, my top ten songs were:
1. “Born to Run,” by Bruce Springsteen
2. “This Must Be the Place,” by Talking Heads
3. “Range Life,” by Pavement
4. “Long May You Run,” by Neil Young
5. “Just Like Honey,” by Jesus and Mary Chain
6. “American Girl,” by Tom Petty
7. “Love Shack,” by the B-52s
8. “Passenger Side,” by Wilco
9. “Float On,” by Modest Mouse
10. “Good to Be on the Road Back Home,” by Cornershop.)) and then, once the voting was complete, I wrote a few sentences about Neil Young’s 1976 tune, “Long May You Run.” That song is at number 16 on the list. You can find what I wrote here (scroll down a bit).