travel Archives

Guilt Trip

I just finished reading Elizabeth Becker's Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, and I kind of wish I hadn't — not because it isn't good, but because it opened my eyes to some of the significant negative impacts of international travel. I don't like having to feel bad about traveling, dammit! But it's hard to ignore the author's persuasive arguments about the immense environmental, economic, and historical damage we're doing through our unquenchable thirst for global travel experiences. You probably won't be too surprised to hear that cruises are among the most environmentally damaging kinds of international travel [...]

Going Places

I'm about to hit another milestone of Kindle ownership: taking it on its maiden voyage. And I can't wait! I subscribe to a lot of magazines, which tend to pile up when things get busy, so long flights are a glorious chance to sit down with a six-inch-high stack of them and plow my way through one after another, planting them in seat-back pockets as I go like Johnny Appleread. So don't get me wrong, I'll definitely be bringing some magazines, because there's nothing quite like the guilty pleasure of leafing through makeup how-tos and fashion don'ts at 30,000 feet. BUT. [...]