Intelligent Travel

A Typo Too Far

In recognition of National Punctuation Day, we give you, IT readers, the latest news in travel and grammar: While good grammar is admirable, the Associated Press reports, it is possible to take your punctuation enthusiasm too far: under the name the Typo Eradication Advancement League, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson traveled across the country this spring as self-appointed typo vigilantes – “a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies,” said The Chicago Tribune - when they came across a rather offensive sign at the Grand Canyon’s Desert View Watchtower.

Upon “fixing” the sign (which involved moving an apostrophe and adding a comma, although they left the word “emense” alone) the two were arrested and charged with defacing historic property. As it turns out, the sign was a grammatically incorrect National Historic Landmark, hand-painted in the 1930s by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, designer of several desert structures (including the tower). In addition to paying a hefty fine of $3,035 and getting sentenced to probation, the two are now banned from national parks for a year.

Yikes. Authenticity 1, grammar 0.

Grammar mistakes can be particularly entertaining in new places. What grammar mistakes drive you crazy? Have you seen any good ones in your travels? Provide us with some entertaining stories or links in the comments below.

Read More: We blogged about Beijing's attempts to clean up their signage before the Olympics began. And the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks has a great collection of signs from around the world.

Photo: The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

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The Death of Postcards?

Our friends over at This Just In recently asked their readers "Do you still send postcards?" and got an avalanche of answers, overwhelmingly positive, even in this digital age. A big reason to send them is that kids enjoy receiving them. (My dad used to send funny postcards to my kids from Hawaii, and always drew a stick figure of himself on the beach or on top of a volcano or something.) But on a recent trip to Bermuda, my son found the postcard pickings very slim at the airport - most had only one view available, and it wasn't a very attractive one. So that makes me want to ask our readers: Are you finding fewer postcards on your travels? Are the choices better or worse than they used to be? Do you collect postcards or do you send them?

Photo: from Cartophilia, a wonderful blog devoted to maps, which has map postcards from most of the 50 states and many foreign countries, and is looking to trade.

A Bike Powered Bar? Brilliant

There are a few things that get us going here at IT, and bikes and beer happen to be two of them. So when we heard about the bike-powered bar now roaming the streets of Amsterdam from the good folks over at Treehugger, we were instantly intrigued. Here's the gist:

The Fietscafe is a mobile pub, for groups up to 17 people per bike, who can transport themselves by moving the pedals. Not all guests do have to cycle; the Fietscafe is provided with 10 free wheels, so you can change seats from time to time. You need a sober driver and of course, the best bartender looks after the beer and drinks.

No word yet on whether these mobile pubs are serving local, organic beer, but apparently they're sprouting up in London (where it's called the Pubcrawler, appropriately enough) and Minneapolis as well. All we know is that this brings a whole new meaning to designating a driver.

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A Metro Mosaic

While browsing the web, I noticed this eye-catching graphic on Prêt à Voyager's blog. Metro logos from around the world make a colorful display, reminiscent of the artistic airport silhouettes we blogged about earlier this year. I recognized at least eight* trains that I have ridden in my travels. Which ones have you been on? You can find each logo's location here.

*Washington, DC; London; Paris; Rome; Barcelona; Sydney; New Jersey; New York

Image via Prêt à Voyager

Extreme Staycations

Many have bemoaned the rise of the so-called staycation—if not in concept, than certainly in lexicon. (Disclaimer: Whether the fledgling economy deletes your vacation or not, I fully support treating your hometown as a destination.) Even so, my eyebrows are sufficiently cocked at what the Wall Street Journal recently proposed as an extreme iteration of the trend, a term I’d like to unofficially coin as the “fake-ation.”

The WSJ reports:

While more hard-pressed Americans are spending their vacation time at home lately, not everyone is happy about it. Barbecues and reruns don't match the thrill of travel. So some are going to great lengths to foster the illusion of a wayfaring vacation. They'll sample foreign tourism, wilderness camping, hotel living, and beach-going without ever leaving their living rooms.

In This Airport, I Thee Wed

Tired of killing time during a long layover? Why not get hitched? With soaring oil prices and fees for almost everything (from checking a bag to answering the call of Mother Nature), many travelers are saying "no way" to airport travel this summer. But some are saying, "I do," as the trend to get married in airport terminals around the world takes flight (yes, pun fully intended).

In a recent USA Today article, Harriet Baskas notes that couples tend to look for a wedding site that has a special significance, so for those couples who meet at an airport or on a plane, the terminal seems like a logical choice. One couple (the husband, a pilot) held an aviation-themed ceremony at Nampa Municipal Airport in Idaho. They "created wedding invitations resembling boarding passes and went to a local wine store to blend their own 'Plane Crazy Pinot.' Between the ceremony and the reception the newlyweds took a thirty-minute ride in the groom's Maule single-engine airplane and, at the end of the event, guests launched paper airplanes instead of throwing birdseed."

While the trend in the U.S. is growing (especially at LAX, where folks can get "California's 'confidential' marriage licenses, which are sealed from public access and review and do not require witnesses, California residency or a trip through LA traffic to city hall," according to USA Today), this quirky marriage trend is really taking off overseas. Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport has its own wedding planner, and over 500 couples got hitched at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport in Sweden, which offers both civil ceremonies and more traditional church ceremonies in the airport chapel. And after saying, "I do," couples hop right on their plane and head for their honeymoon.

Photo: Schiphol Airport weddings

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Cleaning the English Before the Guests Arrive

IT blogger Kristen Gunderson recently wrote about strange manifestations of English as a foreign language, and with the upcoming Beijing Olympics, she's not the only one who's detected "unorthodox” phrasing.

In anticipation of the 2008 games, representatives from the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program have been scouring the city on a mission to “cleanse” the streets of quirky English signage. Beijing’s new language policy is more than a little reminiscent of the Singapore Government’s Speak Good English Movement, in which Singaporeans, most of whom speak a variation of English tinged with Malay, Tamil, and Mandarin called "Singlish," are vigorously encouraged to speak more like Brits and Americans.

My life as a PhD student (Linguistics) is usually pretty dry, but every once in a while a storyline comes along that makes all the diphthongs and relative clauses worth it. Often it has something to do with a small community rising up against oppressors to declare their language just as valid and dynamic as any other. What can I say, I like drama.

Carry Your State Pride on Your Arm

For me, a cross-country road trip is just about the only good use for a car (that, and perhaps hauling furniture and unwieldy goods). Sure, the prices at the gas pump are soaring, but that doesn’t make the romance of a Kerouac-style journey any easier to dismiss. Think charming roadside diners, on-a-whim detours, ridiculous billboards, delightfully tacky souvenirs…ah, summer bliss.

But wait, you don’t want shot glasses and magnets for every state you traverse? Fret not, at least those of you ladies in the crowd, for Star 50 Handbags has a solution to your souvenir conundrum. Their Star 50 Collection offers special-edition totes and clutches inspired by iconic state attributes, from the Arizona Rattler or Arkansas Diamond Digger to the Connecticut Commuter, Utah Sport Tote, and Washington, D.C., Blossom. Artist and fashionista Amity Cooper dreamed up the line, drawing on her love for travel and ’40s and ’50s nostalgia.

So when you return from your journey, you can pick and choose which state(s) you want to commemorate (though, admittedly, Cooper hasn't quite spanned the country yet, more bags are always in the works). Even better? Star 50 donates a portion of its annual proceeds to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “Every Star 50 handbag reflects some of the greatest features of a state, so we’re very interested in preserving the best attributes of the places you live in or visit,” explains Star 50’s website.

Not particularly in the market for a handbag? Star 50’s website is still worth a gander for its trove of state facts, many of which helped inspire the designs of each bag. For instance, I’m well aware of Iowa’s Strawberry Point, home to the world’s largest strawberry (in the form of a big strawberry sculpture perched atop the city hall) and a regular pit stop of childhood treks to my grandparents’ house in northern Iowa, so I would be proud to carry an Iowa Sweetberry clutch. But I had no idea that Iowa’s arch-nemesis (at least in terms of misspoken state names), Idaho, has hosted a tug-of-war contest held over a pit of mashed potatoes since 1927.

Speaking of geo-trivia, don’t forget about Traveler’s highly addictive WorldWise quizzes.

Photo: courtesy Star 50 Handbags

Marilyn's Miscellany: Pub Camping

From The Guardian's travel section:
One advantage to camping in the U.K. is that you can pitch your tent and head for the pub. Alastair Sawday offers his picks of great bars near equally gorgeous campsites, so you can "stagger straight from tavern to tent." There's Llanthony Priory, a 12th-century abbey in Wales near the River Wye with a pub in the cellar and a campsite nearby. If you prefer a step up from camping, you can stay in the abbey hotel, bunk in an old stone barn or rent out a wing of a working farm. The Three Horseshoes, a former coaching inn located in the peaceful Somerset countryside, serves local organic produce as well as local ales and ciders, and you can camp nearby at Batcombe Vale, designated an Area of Outstanding Beauty.  Other pub camping choices include Devon, Cornwall, Yorkshire and Dorset.

From Chris Elliott's blog, elliott.org:
Don't buy airline ticket vouchers online! It's a scam. Don't fall for it. Some of these vouchers are being offered online at discounts of up to 80 percent off the face value of the ticket, but when you try to use them to pay for a flight, the airline can't validate the voucher numbers, and you lose. 

Brave New Traveler explains why it's useless to boycott the Beijing Olympics:

Any talk of what “China must do” only increases their resistance and hardens their position. Chinese youth have been educated in this system and, watching the news, one understands why they are behind the furor.

The Chinese government has raised a generation on nationalism. To them, this is just another example of Western interference and hypocrisy.

Photo: Boathouse on the River Wye by Saxonfenken via Intelligent Travel's Flickr pool.

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Go Team! (To Chicago or Tokyo or Madrid or Rio...)

Even though the Beijing Olympics are practically upon us, the International Olympic Committee is always focused on the future. The IOC just recently announced the shortlist for the XXXI Summer Olympiad, to take place in 2016. Four hopeful cities, Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro are now vying for the ultimate sports blazon: being an Olympic host. So we took a moment to handicap the contestants.

Rio is the only candidate in a country which hasn't yet hosted the event, but it is no stranger to big sports competitions, having successfully staged the XV Pan American Games last year. A winning bid for Rio would also mark the first time for the event to be held in South America. Chicago and Tokyo have both won previous bids—Chicago's bid, however, was transferred to St. Louis to coincide with the World's Fair that year (1904)—and the Japanese capital served as host to the Games in 1964. A Madrid win would come 24 years after Barcelona bore that torch for Spain's first Olympics in 1992.

If sports tourism is your thing, you'll be happy to know your destination choices will be narrowed down in October of 2009, when the winning city is announced. In the meantime, you can enjoy more statistics and catch up on bid standings here and here. And if 2016 is too far ahead, and your team-spirit cravings need more immediate satisfaction, you can start planning right away for any of these upcoming global sports events after the jump: