- Miami Vice and the reinvention of South Beach (USA Today)
- Bath Spa finally open for bathing (Times of London)
- British ‘Gap Year’ not just for students anymore (Guardian)
- The low-key French Riviera (NYT)
- Traveling without moving in Japan (NYT)
- Olfactory branding in hotels (LA Times)
- Charleston, SC (LA Times)

Washington Post writer David Nakamura passed the Japanese gourmet challenge for a piece in this weekend’s travel section, surviving a banquet consisting of course after course of potentially deadly pufferfish, or fugu. Fugu has the air of contraband in the US, where it is rarely served, but in Tokyo alone there are some 700 restaurants that specialize in it, and last year 500 chefs passed the rigorous training process required to prepare the delicacy. Nakamura visited a seminar where chefs are instructed in the finicky technique of separating the good – firm white fish – from the bad – neurotoxin-saturated organs and entrails. With typical Japanese precision, the most toxic parts of the fish are carefully labeled and disposed of by incineration, and the same applies to all those hundreds of fugu eateries across Japan. So does all this business-as-usual dampen fugu’s dangerous allure? Perhaps, as Nakamura ultimately feels emboldened to admit: “it tastes almost like chicken. “

In yet another great fusion of user-generated know-how and Google Maps, Bikely bike maps plot routes all over the globe (though primarily in North America and Europe, at the moment) used by cyclists who’ve been there, ridden that, and survived to recommend them. In crowded urban areas, where anyone on a bike knows that a few inches of well-paved road space are the only thing between you and the next open car door, that’s some valuable knowledge. All of the routes are carefully marked with waypoints, and some include helpful information about bike lanes, road surface quality and places to watch out for drivers that aren’t watching out for you. (via Treehugger)

The SF Chronicle is currently asking readers to nominate songs that inspire them to hit the road, for a poll of the best travel anthems. The staff’s top 10 are decidedly square, and sadly predictable (the B-52’s “Roam”? “Route 66”? Please...) The best suggestions will appear in print in a few weeks, so I suggest that you hie yourself over there and let them know what’s on your infinitely superior and artfully selected travel playlist. I’m working on mine…

Ever been stuck in transit with a dead iPod/ cellphone/ laptop/ BlackBerry, and no place to charge it? Boing Boing has a post today about a new wiki, AirPower, that’s collecting the locations of power outlets in airport terminals worldwide. It seems like finding a place to plug in your gadgets should be a simple enough task, but as I learned when stranded at O’Hare overnight last fall, outlet locations are usually pretty discreet and there aren’t many of them. Fortunately the cleaning crews eventually led me to them. The page seems to have just started, and there isn’t much info yet, but expect it to flesh out pretty quickly now that it’s been Boing Boing-ed. Of course, all the outlets in the world aren’t going to help you if you don’t have the right adapter.

Turn Here continues to expand their area of coverage, and taps into the recent trend of Eastern European and Balkan locales as hotspots. One of this week’s featured films is on Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, and nicely captures the energy of a city that’s remade itself since leaving the communist bloc almost 20 years ago.

Instead of destinations, the lazy-luxe indulgences waiting at the journey’s end were making the headlines this weekend. All of the seven deadlies were covered, with features on cushy hotels and B&Bs, food-centric travel, spas, Miami’s culture of beaches, bikinis and bottle service, and a report from the Observer on female sex tourists in the Caribbean. A piece on Marie Antoinette’s “Domaine”, her home away from Versailles, served as a nod to great sybarites past, and perhaps as just the tiniest note of caution.

- Sex, sand and sugar mummies in a Caribbean beach fantasy (Observer)

-Chasing the Perfect Taco Up the California Coast (NYT)

- In Northern Italy, a Crossroads of Culinary Arts (NYT)

- Where Marie Antoinette Played, Before the Deluge (NYT)

- L’Aube Safran: Provence Spiced Just Right (Washington Post)

- Marrakech Hammam: What’s the Scrub? (Washington Post)

- Miami’s new vices (Globe and Mail)

Driving from London to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia sounds like a risky, but fantastic adventure. But making that same drive in a tiny econobox with a one-liter engine? A fool’s errand. Yet in this year’s Mongol Rally, some 200 foolhardy teams will attempt to navigate 8,000-plus miles across Europe, several -stans, remote mountain ranges and part of the Gobi desert in a parade of Ford Pintos, Minis, Yugos and Trabants. The list of acceptable vehicles, The Hall of Crapness, with suggestions and commentary from rally participants, is downright hilarious – on the Citroën Ami 6: “Not just underpowered, hideous looking, too!” The idea for the rally grew out of the tale of two brits who purchased a run-down Fiat in Prague back in 2001 and decided to drive it to the most ridiculous destination they could think of. Though they didn’t reach Mongolia due to border problems, they swore to return and in 2004 the Mongol Rally was born, with the one-liter engine rule (or, this year, .125 liter for scooters or motorbikes) as an homage to that little rust-bucket of a “car.” Of the 43 teams that set off on last year’s rally, 27 made it to Mongolia, 14 reached Ulaanbaatar, one team was stoned by a Mongolian nomad, 3 teams were chased by armed bandits, and 3 teams had their car’s engine quite literally fall out on the road. But the official website is quick to point out: “Every team had a very memorable trip.” The rally is short on rules, and just reaching the journey’s end is considered victory enough. This year’s kick-off will take place at Hyde park in London, at 12 noon, tomorrow, July 22. For an idea of what the entered teams are facing, check out the Bad Colonies Motoring Collective’s extremely detailed page listing all their preparations, or patmofire’s video slideshow of his 2005 trip (we’ll forgive him the soul-stirring soundtrack, as arriving in Ulaanbaatar in one piece must have been very life-affirming, indeed.)




Elsewhere:
- The Mongol Rally (Wikipedia)
- Rally Mongolia 2006 (The Adventure Capitalists)
- “VW Bugs in the Mongol Rally” (Team Yakatak)
- Team Newyorkistan (New York’s first rally team!)
- “Mongol Rally is International Race in a Tight Space” (NPR)
- The Wrongolia Diaries (Team Wrongolia, 2005)

It’s Gawker Stalker for the common man. NY-based blogger Bryan Murphy will attempt to harness the panoptical power of the interwebs to play a real-world version of Where’s Waldo? among Manhattan’s summertime crowds this weekend. From 9am to 5pm on Saturday, July 22, Murphy will be wandering the island in his green T-shirt with “Bryan” on the front, and “Murphy” on the back. The first person to “find” him and introduce themselves will get a Dell laptop, and the last will receive an mp3 player. Anyone who tracks down Murphy in the intervening time may receive an “I Found Bryan Murphy!” shirt, or a whole salami. According to a piece on the project in this week’s TimeOut, Yahoo, provider of the prizes (well, everything except the salamis, those are from Katz’s Deli), may also be tracking Murphy on Yahoo Maps via a link with his cell phone. Says the moving target: “My goal on the 22nd is to be out and about – meet people who read my blog and found the project online (you), talk, take pictures, document the day, and enjoy myself. I want to see how many people actually heard about the project and get involved – actively and passively.” Get the full details, likely Bryan-spotting locations, and a 3-D image to help identify Murphy at his modestly named site: ilovebryanmurphy.com.

World Hum has got a lock on the extreme-cooking beat this week. Yesterday they posted about a new BBC TV show from chef and food writer Stefan Gates called Cooking in the Danger Zone about odd delicacies and crisis-zone cuisine the world over. Today, they have an update on Anthony Bourdain’s travails after getting stuck behind the blockade in Beirut last week.

The first episode of Danger Zone, ‘Afghanistan: food & reconstruction. Guns, kebabs and lambs’ testicles’ aired last night, and there are four more to come, focusing on topics such as the Korean dog meat industry, and how refugees in Uganda survive on UN food rations. There’s certainly a high shock-TV factor – an episode on food and cultural change in China has requisite “ewwwwww, gross!” moments of Gates eating scorpion kebabs and yak penis – but I think the idea of a show that goes beyond food stunts into what people eat, and how and why, especially in places where the kind of choice Westerners have is an unimaginable luxury, could be a real eye-opener. So far, the reviews concur. There are clips from the show in the dangerzonetv stream on YouTube, and Gates’ blog. Here’s one of the host munching on some freshly fried bugs in China:




In other daredevil-chef news, Anthony Bourdain was still in Beirut as of Monday. One of World Hum’s crafty posters picked up on a raging discussion on eGullet about Bourdain’s report to the NY Post on Friday. Bourdain, himself, ultimately weighed in from Beirut to apologize for any seeming glibness about the situation in Lebanon:

“I’m very aware of how flip my response to the Post was (made last Wednesday, very early in the crisis) as I sought to reassure family and friends that we were safe and okay and in good cheer. It was – at the time – very representative of the (outward) attitude of Beirutis themselves, who pride themselves on their resilience and their determination to “keep the party going.”

“A few days ago, this was a place where people were bursting with pride for the relative tolerance, progressive attitudes, and lack of conflict between groups. I was standing with a group: a Sunni, a Christian, and a Shiite, by the Hariri memorial when the gunfire started and the Hezbollah people appeared driving through city center and honking their horns in “celebration” for the capture/kidnappings. The look of dismay and embarrasment [sic] on all three faces…and the grim look of resignation as they all—instantly—recognized what would inevitably come next…it’s something I will never forget.”

With their borough getting a rush of media attention, Brooklyn-born and -raised writer Anthony LaSala and photographer Seth Kushner set out two years ago to document its culture, both homegrown and highbrow, through photo and interview portraits of a wide cross section of locals. The resulting project, The Brooklynites includes everyone from borough president Marty Markowitz, to Park Slope literati like Paul Auster, Jonathan Lethem, and Rick Moody, actors Steve Buscemi and Rosie Perez, performers Matisyahu and Casey Spooner, the guys who run the corner hardware store, bodega or bar in neighborhoods from Brighton Beach to Williamsburg, and pedestrians from all walks of Brooklyn life. It’s a pretty fascinating look at the diversity of New York’s most populous borough, and all the reasons why it could take Manhattan in a fight any day. (via Gothamist)

There was a bumper crop of worthwhile features in this weekend’s pages – including a special on Africa from the LA Times, and coverage of several who’d-a-thunk-it destinations like Johannesburg and LA’s Valley – so I’ll cut the preamble and get down to business. I give you the best of the bunch, in alphabetical order from Argentina to Zambia:

Argentinian Estancias: “Home on the Ranch” (Washington Post)
Baltic Beaches: “Heaven and Hel” (Guardian)
Bulgaria: “Yes means no – or maybe not” (SF Chronicle)
Cuban Cigars: “Cuba up in smokes” (Times of London)
Ethiopia: “Ethiopia’s rich culture, steeped in history” (LA Times)
Greek Islands: “Hopping mad” (Times of London)
Helsinki: “Helsinki’s Shining Season” (NYT)
Irish Cuisine: “Green cuisine” (SMH)
Johannesburg: “Johannesburg Rises Above its Apartheid Past” (NYT)
Nevada’s Route 50: “400 miles of blissful nothingness” (LA Times)
Newport, R.I.: “Where Summering is a Sport” (Washington Post)
Safari Styles: “Cull the right journey for you from the herd” (LA Times)
San Fernando Valley: “The Valley? Hip? Like, Totally!” (NYT)
Tanzanian Chimpanzees: “They’re just like family, only hairier” (LA Times)
Zambia – the Give-Back Vacation: “Outreach and its rewards in Zambia” (LA Times)

There was a bumper crop of worthwhile features in this weekend’s pages – including a special on Africa from the LA Times, and coverage of several who’d-a-thunk-it destinations like Johannesburg and LA’s Valley – so I’ll cut the preamble and get down to business. I give you the best of the bunch, in alphabetical order from Argentina to Zambia:

Argentinian Estancias: ‘Home on the Ranch’ (Washington Post)
Baltic Beaches: ‘Heaven and Hel’ (Guardian)
Bulgaria: ‘Yes means no – or maybe not’ (SF Chronicle)
Cuban Cigars: ‘Cuba up in smokes’ (Times of London)
Ethiopia: ‘Ethiopia’s rich culture, steeped in history’ (LA Times)
Greek Islands: ‘Hopping mad’ (Times of London)
Helsinki: ‘Helsinki’s Shining Season’ (NYT)
Irish Cuisine: ‘Green cuisine’ (SMH)
Johannesburg: ‘Johannesburg Rises Above its Apartheid Past’ (NYT)
Nevada’s Route 50: ‘400 miles of blissful nothingness’ (LA Times)
Newport, R.I.: ‘Where Summering is a Sport’ (Washington Post)
Safari Styles: ‘Cull the right journey for you from the herd’ (LA Times)
San Fernando Valley: ‘The Valley? Hip? Like, Totally!’ (NYT)
Tanzanian Chimpanzees: ‘They’re just like family, only hairier’ (LA Times)
Zambia – the Give-Back Vacation: ‘Outreach and its rewards in Zambia’ (LA Times)

You’re going to have excuse my francophilic posting this week–first the Tour de France, then some frenchy sounding chef–because today is France’s fête nationale, which we freedom lovers typically refer to as “Bastille Day”. While our national holiday celebrates some guys signing a piece of paper, and subsequent bureaucratic squabbles with the colonial overlords across the Atlantic, the French, with typical gallic flair, went us one better and get to party about a jailbreak, rioting, the toppling of a monarchy, and a whole lot of beheadings. Things kicked off in Paris this morning with a massive military parade on the Champs Elysées. If you don’t happen to be in Paris for the fireworks this evening, here are some guides to Bastille Day events across the US, many of which will carry on all weekend:

- “Storming Les Restaurants” (SF Chronicle)
- “Even Without the World Cup, the Party Goes On” (Washington Post)
- “Pastries and Pétanque” (Village Voice)

(Image via akynou’s photostream)

Globe-trotting chef Anthony Bourdain arrived in Beirut yesterday to film an episode of his Travel Channel show “No Reservations” just in time to be stuck behind the Israeli blockade. But the ever-nonchalant bad-boy chef couldn’t even be rattled by the sound of bombs dropping in the vicinity. He phoned in to Page Six from his mobile office – downing mojitos in the bar at the Mövenpick resort – to give Richard Johnson a report from the, er, front lines:

“Our network, our friends and our families just want us out of here as soon as possible,” Bourdain told Page Six yesterday afternoon, as Israeli shells exploded in the distance. “We’re not getting a show out of this . . . I just wanna hang out and drink at the bar. The mojitos here are great.

“They’re bombing right now in southern Beirut. I can hear the explosions. The thing is, the people here are really, really nice and totally embarrassed by Hezbollah and horrified by the bombings.”

Previously:
- “No Reservations“

UNESCO is on a preservation spree this week, naming eight sites to its World Heritage list yesterday and an additional 10 today. Among this year’s honorees:

Harar, Ethiopia


The Strada Nuova, Genoa


World Cuteness Heritage: Sichuan Panda Sanctuaries, China (yaaay!)


World Party Heritage: Tequila, Mexico (¡olé!)



The UN’s cultural arm also spanked Dresden for its plans to build a bridge across the Elbe river, by threatening to drop the region from the World Heritage list if construction goes ahead. Dresden would become the first site to be de-listed since the organization began in 1972 (oh snap!). Better not mess with UNESCO.

Elsewhere:
- “UNESCO adds 8 sites to World Heritage list” (USA Today)


(Harar image via mszmpbk’s photostream)

Those left unsatisfied by France’s loss in the World Cup final on Sunday can take some comfort in the fact that the Euro-sport focus is now fixed firmly on the Tour de France, which is basically a month-long picture postcard of the French countryside. This year you can get a great overview of the 20 stages and terrain of the route in Google Earth. The official Tour de France site has put together a detailed map with info boxes about points of interest along the way (naturally), and cool 3D views of the tricky mountain stages still to come. Even if you couldn’t care who has the maillot jaune there’s guaranteed cheering on the Champs Elysées come the race’s end on July 23.

European Spa Towns:
- Baden-Baden: “Art and Nightlife have Baden-Baden Percolating Again” (NYT)
- Karlsbad and Marienbad: “A Tonic for the World Weary” (LA Times)

Croatia (for the nth time):
- “Going To: Dubrovnik” (NYT)
- “Coasting through Croatia” (Baltimore Sun)

Europe, but not Europe
- Slovakia: “It’s Europe, but not as you know it” ( London Times)
- Sardinia: “Sardinia’s Country Comforts” (Guardian)

Fanboy Travel
- Movies: “In Tijuana, the Real ‘Nacho Libre’” (Washington Post)
- Music: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotels for a New Generation” (NYT)

And they’re off. Today saw the first encierro of Pamplona’s San Fermín festival, that annual event in which several hundred drunken Spaniards and tourists decide that it will be a great idea to let several tons of pissed-off bovine chase them through the winding streets of the old city, with nothing more than Hemingway’s ghost and a little red neck scarf to protect them. Here’s Reuters’ overview of the first day:



There’ll be another encierro every day until the festival’s end on July 14th, plus parades with giant puppets, bullfights, and lots and lots of drinking and dancing in the streets.

Elsewhere:
- “American May Be Paralyzed From Bull Fight” (NYT)
- “San Fermín” (Wikipedia)
- “The San Fermín Festival Guide (City of Pamplona)

Gadling pointed me today to a very slick new vlog called Scourist, that’s filmed and produced by travel blogger Jon Rawlinson of the RAD blog. He’s been posting short, well-shot clips of his adventures in various parts of the world, most recently a multi-part series on Africa, with a new episode each day. The style is off-the-cuff: just dudes traveling through game parks, rivers and villages, doing “extreme” stuff like bungee jumping and white-water rafting, mocking their “extremeness,” and generally having an enviably good time. The latest finds Jon and his co-scourist in Etosha National Park in Namibia to scope out some wildlife.

Last weekend’s travel stories were slim pickings, no doubt due to writers and editors phoning it in before skipping out of town, but apparently on 4th of July weekend, we the people feel very, er, nautical – with seafaring stories washing up on both coasts.

- “In Turkey, Sailing into the Exotic on a Blue Cruise” (NYT)
- “Booty Call (Pirates of the Caribbean travel)” (NY Post)
- “A place of jagged beauty (cruising Norwegian fjords)” (LA Times)
- “Deep blues and more on the deep blue sea” (SF Chronicle)