Posted by Seth on June 7, 2008 under News | 
Longtime ABC sportscaster Jim McKay passed away this morning at his home at the age of 86. One of Jim’s first roles on ABC was as host of ABC’s Wide World of Sports. The show saw him criss-crossing the world many times over. Among travel stories recounted about him today was that of Keith Jackson running past him sitting on a bench in Heathrow. McKay was sitting there, waiting to get a call for where his next destination was going to be. He had done six countries and eleven scenes in four days, and was about to add to the tally. It turns out that he didn’t actually enjoy the travel a ton since it meant being away from his family, but he continued to do it in spite of that.
If you can find a copy of the Bob Ley SportsCenter piece on Jim McKay online, I highly recommend it. I found a few other clips from this morning’s coverage online (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3), but the Bob Ley piece was phenomenal.
Really not all that travel related a post, but the man was huge and a testament to quality journalism, something that is missing more and more these days.
Posted by Seth on April 29, 2008 under News |
The editors of Southern Living, Coastal Living, Sunset and Cottage Living. They’ve published an article that I’ve now read four times, and I cannot believe that it ever made it to press. Then again, they’re in the business of publishing travel stories, regardless of how inane they are, so I guess they’re just doing their jobs.
The article itself isn’t all that bad. It gives some sample itineraries for 3-day trips to Charleston, SC; Santa Fe, NM; Destin, FL; San Francisco, CA and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. But the basis of the article is just ridiculous. The idea is to help people spend their $1,200 tax rebate. On travel. I’m sure that the government hopes that people spend it on something frivolous, but I’d think that maybe paying off the credit cards is a way better use of the money. Even more entertaining is the opening two paragraphs of the article:
From laid-back Florida beaches to guided mule rides in the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, our editors picked these getaways with the average American family’s tax rebate of $1,200 in mind.
We budgeted each trip for a three-night stay, meals and activities, but did not account for travel expenses.
That’s right, folks. Here’s how to spend your $1,200 refund, PLUS more money just getting to the vacation destination. Turns out that apparently travel is so expensive they can’t actually do a weekend getaway for $1,200 any more. Of course this isn’t actually true. There are plenty of weekend deals all summer long to places worth visiting that can be done for less. Apparently these travel editors aren’t really worried about that. And they actually leave plenty of budget room for flights and/or fuel to drive to the destinations, but it sure does read funny when they’re talking about budgeting a vacation and they don’t include the transit costs.
Of course, it wouldn’t be any fun if CNN.com let the folks writing the article have all the fun, so their editors tossed in their own little nugget at the top of the page:
Yeah…I’m a big fan of number three on the list.
This article makes about as much sense to me as the comment I saw on a message board last week:
In general, I think the real downturn is yet to take effect. Yes we have seen a big crisis in foreclosures, but this will have a temporary beneficial effect, as those people will now be freeing up their mortgage payment and can spend that on leisure pursuits.
That’s right, folks. Instead of looking for a new place to live after their home is foreclosed on, people are going to be spending their money on a vacation to Disney!
I fear for the future of society some times.
Posted by Seth on April 23, 2008 under News |
In addition to my reasonable obsession with travel, I’m also pretty into technology. Mostly it is based on the fact that I work with computers for a living and love playing with new toys that come out, and it also probably has something to do with the fact that I started playing on an Apple ][e 22 years ago. So, when I was given an opportunity to start contributing to a blog focused on travel and technology, I jumped at the offer. In addition to continuing my postings here – and on my straight technology blog for work – I’ll also be posting on TravelTechTalk.com going forward. I’ve already put a couple posts up there (link 1, link 2) and will continue to do so in the future.
Head on over and take a look!
Posted by Seth on April 13, 2008 under News |
In the case of some Lonely Planet books, the answer might be none. According to one Lonely Planet contributor, he actually wrote one of the books without ever visiting the country covered. Of course, all these revelations are made in another book that he is releasing, so it is likely that this is just more publicity for that. But it does raise the issue of how much faith we place in travel guides when heading out on a trip. Personally, I’ve been burned by Lonely Planet a couple times and no longer find that their guides match up with my travel habits/desires. Still, I depend on guides at least to get me started, and definitely to help me out once I’m on the ground somewhere. Of course, I also depend on the locals once I get “there” since they are likely to know more than a guide book from a few years ago.
Oh, and the Lonely Planet claims that the books seem just fine to them.
Posted by Seth on March 20, 2008 under News |
In another sign of the weakening value of the US dollar, currency exchange shops in Amsterdam have started refusing to exchange US Dollars for Euros. Basically they are worried that the dollar’s value will drop while they’re sitting on them, before they can trade them in at a central bank or otherwise sell them. So essentially the dollar is dropping in value so quickly that folks in Europe don’t want them any more.
In a similar move, tailors in Thailand are now advertising their prices in Euros in an effort to stabilize their profits.
In other words, it is probably already too late to trade in your dollars, but if you haven’t yet, it is probably worth trying anyways.
I’m scared of our trip to Turkey and the UK later this year. Here’s dreaming of a recovery that just isn’t going to happen 
Posted by Seth on February 19, 2008 under News |
Well, new to most Americans anyways, and only maybe. Castro has resigned as the president of Cuba, which leaves a small amount of hope that the US will lift their ridiculous travel prohibition on the Carribean island. Of course, there’s a chance that the US won’t lift the restrictions and we’ll be relegated to religious and educational missions or illegal travel from the Keys by boat or from other Latin American countries. But a guy can dream…
Update (3:26pm 19 Feb 2008): Apparently there’s no chance that the travel ban is going anywhere anytime soon. According to John Negropronte, the Deputy Secretary of State, “I can’t imagine that happening any time soon.” Sounds like he needs a better imagination.
Posted by Seth on February 18, 2008 under News |
It isn’t often that a new country shows up on the world map, but when it does one of the questions that pops into my mind is if there are any cheap flight headed that way. Today the new country is Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia over the weekend and which most of the Western world is now recognizing as independent.
There is an airport in the new capital, Pristina (PRN), and the flights from London aren’t terribly priced, but I think I might have to wait until they work out the details on this, like whether it really is going to be independent or not and whether they have immigration stamps ready before I go booking the tickets.
Edit to add (4:14p 18 Feb 08): Of course, if this holds there is the small issue that Serbia may cut relations with the US, making travel there more difficult, so the number of available countries may stay net unchanged.
Posted by Seth on February 12, 2008 under Trip Reports |
Taking a look at my travel history, it looks like I’ve managed to make it to 30 countries in my 30.5 years. I’m not really sure if I should get credit for both Macau and Hong Kong. They are “Special Administrative Regions” of China, but both China, so maybe I’m still one short, but I’m going to take the credit for now. Even if they should really only be one, I’ve got two more new countries planned for later this year – Turkey & Israel – so I should definitely get a couple more countries filled in on the map then.
Posted by Seth on August 2, 2007 under News |
For one thing, they are a PITA to get processed right now. Waiting 14+ weeks is crazy. But that is a different rant.
My problem is actually with the embedded RFID chip in the passports. The US government pushed ridiculously hard to get these chips embedded in passports worldwide, based on the (false) assumption that they would be more secure and more difficult to forge. They aren’t, but that’s not even the worst part. Because they are now computerized, they are vulnerable to attack. RFIDs have long been known to be susceptible to skimming, where the content of one chip is copied and loaded onto another chip. As an added bonus, it is possible to modify the data before loading it on to the new chip. So take a passport, read some data off of it, modify it and then walk up to a passport station and see what fun ensues.
In the case of this guy, it may result in a ICE official who is none too happy with you. See, it turns out that there are some known issues in the file format used to store the copy of your passport picture on the RFID chip, so a minor change can result in a buffer overflow on the reader – the type of thing that is known to crash computers and leave them vulnerable to attack. So far he’s successfully crashed two different brands of readers, and he didn’t really have to try too hard.
I wish I was in Vegas tomorrow to go hear him speak about this, but, alas, I must slave away instead to fund the next few vacations.
Oh, and I did make sure to renew my passport a little early last time around, just to make sure I didn’t get one of the fancy new ones with the RFID chip in it. I’d hate to have to buy a leaded leather wallet for it. Hopefully things will be better in 8 years when renewal time rolls around.
Posted by Seth on July 4, 2007 under News, Trip Reports |
My father was not the Wandering Aramean, but he sure did travel a lot. And every time he left, it meant that there was a pretty good chance that I was going to get a present out of the deal. The cool pajamas from China is the gift that I probably remember best, but there were others, from France and Italy and South Korea and other places around the country and around the world. To me, they were more than just a special treat. They were also an introduction to the idea that there was a great big world out there, just begging to be experienced.
And then there were the stories. Every destination had one. Whether it was the nice inn-keeper in Brimfield, Massachusetts who kept the same room available for each visit – a bit of a home away from home – or being repaid for a transatlantic plane ticket, in cash, with Lira, filling up boxes of currency and having to walk back to the hotel carrying all of it, the stories that came along with the trips were a gift in their own right.
And so the travel bug was planted in me. The desire to see, feel, taste, touch, hear and truly experience as much of the world as I could. To create my own collection of stories (yes, I found a hotel in Minneapolis that gave me the same room for 5 consecutive months) about this great place we live on and see what troubles I could get myself in to (and out of) along the way.
