Weekly Travel Scorecard [03.14.10]

The train reversed down the tracks, its engine facing backward, and passed the collected Swiss tourists, cameras ready. It returned a few minutes later, the steam engine facing forward this time as it pulled four aged, wooden passenger cars. Here was our ride, a relic of the Hejaz railway,…

I spent my day yesterday leaning against a rusty fence on the beach outside Phuket International Airport, wrapped in a sarong to hide from the sun, screaming my head off as these unthinkably huge international type airplanes landed about 100 feet behind my head. It was incredible! It was…

Although I was disappointed to see the LA Times backslide again this week, I was really happy to read solid travel narratives in several less-usual suspects. In particular, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Miami Herald, where there seems to be a commitment to running one really solid travel…

I don’t have much more to say, except that in addition to promoting animals in captivity Sea World now blames the recent orca trainer attack on the trainer and her ponytail!

Or so says Earth Island Institute:

SeaWorld is blaming the victim — their trainer who let her ponytail swing into the…

I was washing my face in the Bangkok airport bathroom last night and looked up to see my nipples trying to drill a hole through my shirt – what the hell?It wasn’t cold or anything, in fact it was about 100 degrees, so why all the noise?  And more importantly, were they sticking straight…

A wave of molasses, bursting from an exploded steel tank at thirty-five miles per hour, smothered two city blocks in Boston’s North End on a warm January in 1919. The strange disaster killed twenty-one and injured 150; an elevated train track buckled, a train derailed, buildings collapsed and a…

While the average consumer of travel journalism may feel besieged by the mediocrity of mainstream “vacation” media, it’s a piece of widely distributed hipster travel reportage that takes the prize for the most disturbing and dangerous rhetoric  in recent months.

The Vice Magazine Guide to…

As print newspapers fight to stay alive, travel sections lose pages and steadily increase service journalism while operating under more scrutiny than ever. In support of our paper/e-ink colleagues, here’s the Sunday print travel news that’s fit to post about.

I’m of two minds about this…