Tag: Travel

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Misc.

World Hum: Acquired by the Travel Channel

I’m a little late in mentioning this, but I wanted extend my congratulations to Jim Benning and Mike Yessis, editors of World Hum — they recently announced that the site has been acquired by the Travel Channel. As Jim and Mike write:

Since we started World Hum in 2001, we’ve tried to explore travel in all its facets and publish compelling travel stories. It’s been enormously fun and gratifying, yet there’s so much more we’ve wanted to do with the site. Juggling day jobs, we just haven’t had the time or resources.

Now we will. We’re delighted to announce that World Hum has been acquired by the Travel Channel. The people behind the Travel Channel are building a lineup of shows and websites that celebrate travel and the journey. World Hum is now a part of that.

As for us, we’re not going anywhere. Thanks to the Travel Channel’s commitment, we’ll edit the site full-time, publishing the kinds of stories you’ve come to expect from World Hum. In fact, we’re going to publish more of them. You’ll see some changes to the site in the months to come. We’re going to experiment with audio, video and other ways to tell travel stories.

For more information, see this Budget Travel interview with Mike.

Long-time newley.com readers might remember that World Hum published a story of mine called “Soup to Nuts” way back in 2001. (I’m happy to report that, six years on, I’m now a proficient chopstick user.)

Categories
Misc.

Weekend at the Beach

Sandals, Shell, Sand

A and I just returned from a lazy beach weekend in Pranburi, south of Hua Hin, on the Gulf of Thailand. Here’re some pics.

View from Our Bathroom
The view from our outdoor bathroom.

Our Balcony
Our balcony.

Ship-Shape
A squid boat.

Here’s the full set of images.

Categories
Misc.

The Frugal Traveler’s American Road Trip

The NYT's Frugal Traveler: American Road Trip [Not My Image]

Last year he traversed the world. This year he’s sticking closer to home.

The New York Times’s Matt Gross — aka their Frugal Traveler — has just set off on an American road trip. He’s spending the next three months criss-crossing the lower 48. Here’s his first dispatch, a characteristically compelling account of leaving home. You can follow him online — stories and videos will appear ever Wednesday — at www.nytimes.com/frugaltraveler.

And don’t forget to send in your travel tips. Matt writes:

To make this journey a success, however, I’ll need the help of you, my readers. Like my round-the-world trip last summer, all I know is that I started in New York City and will end up in Seattle. Where I go in between is up to you. You know the scenic drives and the shortcuts; the clean motels and untrammeled campgrounds; the swimming holes and the picnic spots; the festivals, the fairs and the parties; the brilliant local rock bands and the minor-league sports extravaganzas; the truck stops, the diners, the farm stands and the church suppers; the weird museums and the roadside attractions; the historical sites, the nature walks, gallery openings and fireworks displays. Send me your suggestions, and if they’re on my way and within my budget, I’m there!

Categories
Misc.

Macau: Gambling on Gambling

Macau Casino

My newest globorati post is about the gambling boom in Macau.

Categories
HOWTO

How to Take Travel Pictures

How to Take Travel Photos

Here’s a nice feature from Fodor’s. It’s called How to Take Travel Pictures Like a Pro:

With the assistance of author and photographer Jeff Wignall, Fodor’s has put together an invaluable guide to shooting great travel pictures: Nearly 100 easy-to-follow tips, with accompanying photos, covering every aspect of travel photography.

Categories
Misc.

Bhutan: Opening Up?

Bhutan: Opening Up? [not my image]

Here’s a great IHT story by Somini Sengupta about outside influences creeping into Bhutan.

Once, Bhutan guarded itself from the world outside so ardently that it allowed in satellite television only seven years ago. Today, globalization is officially sanctioned, and it is rushing in fast.

Today, at least here in the capital, outside and inside coexist.

Tall white prayer flags grace the side of a hill as offerings of good will to what Buddhists call sentient beings, even as the naughty rhymes of Snoop Dogg throb at the disco.

Categories
Misc.

Pattaya Reborn

Pattaya, Thailand

My latest Globorati post is about how developers and hoteliers in the resort enclave of Pattaya, Thailand are aiming to shed the city’s bad-boy rep.

Categories
Misc.

Stowaway Cat

Astronaut Cat

cbcnews:

A New Brunswick woman is wondering how she made it through Saint John Airport security and all the way to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., with a live cat in her suitcase.

Mary Martell discovered Ginger, the family pet, in her luggage after a two-hour plane ride to Toronto and an hour’s drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake. The cat apparently snuck into a bag while Martell was packing.

Martell said her bag was scanned at the airport, but she was not stopped.

“They had asked me, when they put … the luggage through the X-ray, whether I had a turkey,” Martell said.

“[Security] kept going back and forth with [the suitcase],” Martell said. “I was adamant. ‘Look, I have no turkey.'”

(Emphasis mine.)

Categories
Misc.

Taiwan’s “Leisure Farm” Resorts

tainan

I have a new post at Globorati. It’s about “leisure farm” resorts in Tainan county, Taiwan.

Categories
Misc.

Mt. Chimborazo: All the Rage on the Interweb

Ecuador's Mt. Chimborazo [not my image]

According to the trend watchers over at BuzzFeed, Ecuador’s Mt. Chimborazo is currently all the rage in the blogosphere. That’s because the Andean peak is technically the tallest mountain in the world due to the fact that it sits on the equator’s bulge. (That’s when you measure distance from the center of the earth, not elevation in terms of sea level, mind you; a little hill in the Himalayas that starts with an “e” and ends with “t” still holds the most famous title.) Wikipedia has all the counterintuitive deets:

So, despite being 2,581 m (8,568 ft) lower in elevation above sea level, it is 6,384.4 km (3,968 mi) from the Earth’s center, 2.1 km farther than the summit of Everest.

Got it?

Okay, okay, so maybe Chimborazito wins on a technicality, but I’m just happy to see my beloved Ecuador in the news for something other than its chronic political instability.