Intelligent Travel

Zut Alors! Paris' Car-Sharing Program

Earlier this month, Paris’ beloved leftist mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced plans to begin a city-wide car-share program, which will be modeled after Paris’ current (and wholly successful) bike-share program, Vélib. All I can say is, “yikes.”

I just returned from a month–long séjour in France, and tested out a similar version of the Paris pedaling program in Lyon, which is actually where the idea of a cheap, advertising-subsidized plan was created. The concept, in my opinion, is pure genius. The program clears up traffic congestion, reduces carbon emissions, and allows tourists to get a more authentic look into the city’s culture. It’s amazing how much more of the city you can see when traveling above ground. Plus, I managed to avoid paying anything by returning my bike every 30 minutes and exchanging it for another one. (The first 30 minutes are free.) That, my friends, is also pure genius.

That said, the idea of using the same system with cars is daft. It turns a smart, eco-friendly idea into a messy, untested nightmare. Monsieur Delanoë should let this concept sink shamefully back to the drawing board.

Travels with the Mouse

Would you travel with Disney? More and more people are doing just that. Disney's tour-outfitter arm, Adventures by Disney, which began a mere three years ago with six tours, focused mostly in the American West, has expanded to 17 separate itineraries, including China and Australia. Senior editor Norie Quintos, the magazine's resident tour expert, recently returned from an Adventures by Disney trip to Italy with these thoughts.

"Authentic, immersive, and experiential," are how Ed Baklor, senior vice president of the Burbank-based company, describes the trips. These are all buzzwords I (and our magazine) love. And in truth, everyone on my tour—young and old—enjoyed themselves (including me and my kids, by the way). But it did get me thinking, can a Disney trip truly be authentic? And what is authenticity anyway?

Is it hitting the expected high spots (Colosseum, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo's David, and a gondola ride) with minimum waits in line because Disney had pre-booked admission? Is it the appearance of no, not Mickey, but another costumed character playing Venetian Marco Polo edu-taining the kids with tales of his voyages? Is it the hands-on pasta making lesson at a Renaissance castle in Tuscany? Or the appointment to create your own Carnevale mask in Venice? What about the opportunities to stop and shop at The Disney Stores in Florence, Rome, and Venice? Or the liberal gifting of Disney-logo pins and baseball caps and canvas tote bags to the guests?

Climate Change Voyeurism?

Now, we may not have had as many issues with the New York Times travel section's list of 53 Places to Go in 2008 as some of our peers, but the article that accompanied the piece,  which discussed trips for tourists "who want to see the effects of climate change for themselves" did seem to be a bit off. We at IT have had a lot of conversations about the paradox that exists when attempting to visit endangered places (as exemplified in the sinking of the Explorer last month), but something about this piece seemed less about experiencing a place and much more...voyeuristic. Check out this excerpt about trips to Greenland:

The most popular destination for Americans is the Ilulissat ice fjord, a 45-minute flight from Kangerlussuaq and the site of the fastest retreating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. A few years ago, the fjord was 25 miles long, but the melting of the glacier has lengthened the fjord to 31 miles, a change that has made it one of Greenland’s most visible examples of climate change.

The fjord is full of icebergs, calving from the bordering mountains of ice, and cruises to see the ice crack and fall are popular.

Now, we try not to frame everything in the context of carbon offsets, and certainly don't promote reining in your travel to avoid contributing to global warming, but the piece does little to acknowledge the ways this newfound tourism is impacting the area – and helping to further the climate change along.  In fact, it goes on to quote Dennis Schmitt, an American explorer who discovered Greenland's Warming Island, and whose view on the subject is slightly depressing.

“People sense the Arctic is going to change,” he said. “There is something in human nature that likes to watch things die, a morbid curiosity of human beings."

Word of the Day: FreeRice

IT was just sent a link to FreeRice, a site sponsored by Poverty.com that's working to make us smarter and help end hunger at the same time. We think that's pretty brilliant, so we felt compelled to pass it along.

It's a simple vocabulary quiz, but when you answer a question correctly, ten grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. In the month since the site's been up, 931,645,600 grains have been donated. We wish this had been around when we were studying for the SAT's.

Go, get smart and help feed the hungry. 

Into the Wild: Tourist Attraction?

Photo: Marc Paterson

Chris McCandless, the 24-year-old vagabond who hiked into the Alaskan wilderness alone with a ten-pound bag of rice in 1992, never made it out of the wild, but the abandoned bus where he died of starvation just might—that is, if some Alaskans have their way.

The Toronto Star has the scoop: Alaskans are now bracing themselves for an influx of “McCandless pilgrims" (such as Marc Paterson, pictured) inspired by the release of the Sean Penn-directed film, Into the Wild, to trek the Stampede Trail, seeking out the infamous city bus where McCandless perished. Local residents in Healy, Alaska, are brainstorming ways to deal with the “unwanted tourist attraction.”

Among the suggestions is airlifting the bus from its site, either to the start of the trail where it would be more accessible or nearby to a park in Fairbanks. The Star explains:

About 100 visitors, mostly young men, make the trip to Healy (population 1,000) each year. Many making it into the bus shoot videos for posting on YouTube and snap photos for Facebook, often imitating the iconic pose of the skeleton-like McCandless in Krakauer's book, which showed the young man grinning as he leaned against the bus, days before his death.

The McCandless pilgrims carve their names into the rusted sides of the bus. Paterson signed his just beside the door. And they leave messages in aged notebooks; [Jon] Krakauer, McCandless' mother and Penn have all left notes.

Supersize Dubai

The Costco theory of tourism—Bigger is Better!—often flies in the face of sustainable travel. And unfortunately, it's a trend that's becoming almost as prodigious as the projects it promotes.

In a recent article in The Guardian, Leo Hickman reports on growing evidence supporting the bigger-faster-better model of tourism (see: Las Vegas, Cancun, Benidorm):

"Not since the 1970s have we seen such epic tourism projects. The spark for much of this about-turn is the success of Dubai, the holiday jewel of the Middle East, that has risen rapidly out of the deserts of the eastern Arabian peninsula and, in just over a decade, become one of the world's highest-profile tourist destinations, luring six million visitors a year."

Dubai certainly epitomizes the trend: with its intention to build the latest version of the world’s tallest building, its indoor ski runs, and its plan to build a theme park twice the size of Disneyworld. But it isn’t the only place looking to cash in on this new rash of unnatural, gargantuan tourism projects—there are plans in the works for a monstrous steel and glass pyramid on top of the Alps’ Klein Matterhorn and an artificial sandy beach in Andermatt, Switzerland. Even Iran is stepping up to the plate with its $2.4 billion “Flower of the East” development, set to open on Kish in 2010 with a “seven-star” hotel.

Pico Iyer Challenges First Class Flyers

In a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed aptly titled "Globalism at 35,000 feet" writer Pico Iyer asks, "How much would you pay to enjoy six hours away from your fellow humans, in a chair that reclines? $1,500 an hour—or even more?" Baffled by the ludicrous price of a business class flight, Iyer wonders why anyone would pay $9,600 for a business class ticket from New York to London when coach sets you back just $500. Here's the crux of his critical (and very amusing) article:

It begins with the inequity of prices. Those paying thousands for the upper deck of the jet effectively set up a gated community in the air, in which people from other classes are not even allowed to visit their restrooms. It continues with the startling inequality of services—and the unsurprising fact that the countries that often score highest for quality of life (Singapore, Australia, New Zealand) also are the ones that offer the most comfortable coach habitations in the sky.

Death and Delta

IT generally has bad things to say about airlines, but this week Emily offers an ode to Delta:

Three weeks ago, my grandfather passed away, which sent my family members—including me—scrambling for last-minute fares to get home to Utah. Thanks to Delta Airlines' considerate service, my immediate family got home inexpensively and easily—a blessing, especially in our time of need. Here's how Delta helped:

1. My parents were in Houston the day we found out. Their original flight home to Utah was supposed to depart the following day, but Mom called Delta to see if they could get on an earlier flight. With no questions, Delta booked my parents on the first flight out that afternoon, for no change fee.

Choc-a-blog

We've made no secret of our love for chocolate, but it's been a while since we dedicated an entire entry to our favorite indulgence. So, we thought to ourselves, what better time to do so than Valentine's Day? While your devoted bloggers have their fingers crossed that boxes of their favorite hometown cacao products will await them when they check their mail this evening (Purdy's Peanut Butter Bars for Jessie, Idle Isle Almond Cream Toffees for Emily), we have learned (thanks to the glory that is the linkblog known as Growabrain) of some unusual chocolate products that will surely be enjoyed tomorrow in various corners of the globe.

Korea: Chocolate-covered seaweed and kimchi.

Hong Kong: Chocolate mahjong.

Florence: Chocolate soup.

The Name Game

Ottawa: The Venice of the South

Stefan Caiafa (Traveler designer, traveler extraordinaire, world citizen, photographer, and general polymath) chose to sprinkle some of his many pearls before our delighted snouts this week, with an erudite post about city nicknames:

What's in a name? Much, of course. But what's in a nickname often says more. Take Venice, the enchanting Italian tangle of canals and gondolas, as an example. Once called La Serenissima (The Most Serene, a title originally used for the ruling doges), Venice itself has become a nickname for countless cities encompassed by water. Wikipedia lists almost 50 such centers, including Venices of the North (Amsterdam, Ottawa, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg), the South (Tarpon Springs, Florida, and Zakynthos, Greece), the East (Bangkok, Thailand and Udaipur, India) and West (San Antonio, Texas). Some countries single out a specific city with a Venice reference meant to entice prospective visitors (Suzhou, China, and Recife, Brazil, are often marketed with the doges' hometown in mind).

Canada is the New Estonia

Indefatigable web-troller Marilyn Terrell came across a fascinating diagram that documents the above unlikely statement along with all other uses of the phrase "is the new" from various media sources (including the New York Times, the Telegraph and the Village Voice) from 2005. On the surface, a list of claims like "Subaru is the new Saab" and "House Music is the new Dylan," has nothing to do with travel (which, apparently, is our beat here). And we're not sure claims like "new is the new new" or "black is the new black" (along with "tartan," "cruelty" and "vegan") have anything to do with anything. But we were intrigued by the potentially itinerary-changing consequences of the following statements:

"South Korea is the new Hong Kong."
"Ohio is the new Florida." (Does that make Columbus the new Palm Beach? And they say there's no global warming.)

IT's Music Review

IT was feeling rather energetic today until we started listening to "Delta Sleep" from Kelly Howell's new Relieve Jet Lag CD. Its soothing music layered with "precision-engineered sound waves" put us to sleep at our desks, which we suppose was the point. The two-CD set includes three pieces of music: "Delta Sleep" (60 minutes of Delta waves), "Theta Relaxation" (30 minutes of Theta and Alpha waves), and "Beta Refresher" (30 minutes of High-Beta and Gamma waves). The first two songs are meant to put you to sleep, and they do.

On Your Marks

We wouldn't blame you if you thought all National Geographic Traveler staffers do is eat, rent houses on craigslist and eat again. We would correct you, though. We do other things. Really. For instance, researcher Ingrid Ahlgren watches TV. In particular, she's been known to keep a regular date with CBS's world-touring reality series The Amazing Race. She writes:

I was sad to see fellow Rhode Islanders, Duke and Lauren, eliminated recently on Amazing Race. (Who will I root for now? I really miss BJ and Tyler, the happy hippies from last season.) I perked up a little, though, after reading a press release about the Real Race, an adventure vacation in Australia that pits teams against each other in an Amazing Race-style contest. Here's an excerpt:

On the 7th of August, a group of experience-seekers began what would be the holiday of a lifetime.

The Norway Way

National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Andrew Nelson dropped into Jessie's office last week with the summer issue of Nordic Reach magazine, folded open to a small item near the back called "Dos and don'ts for an American visiting Norway." We were fascinated, though by the end we didn't really know what we were supposed to think, about Norwegians or their opinions of Americans. So, we're posting some choice excerpts. Interpret as you like.

Do:

"Try not to walk on your toes, and if you're a woman: Walk like a man."

"Know when to use a backpack and when not to. If in doubt: Don't… The only absolutely safe time to wear one is (a) if you're going on a hiking trip in the mountains or (b) if you're a kid on your way to school."