A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media
THE ORIENT EXPRESS — ON TWO WHEELS
For the better part of a couple of centuries, two words and one train evoked the romance of travel like no other — the Orient Express.
Long before Ian Fleming and Sean Connery became famous with it through Fleming’s book and subsequent James Bond spy film “From Russia with Love,” this train from Paris to Istanbul was synonymous with romance, glamor and above all, luxury travel.
The Orient Express I’m talking about here is nothing like that. This isn’t propelled by hissing, screaming steam locomotives. In fact, it’s not a train at all.
It’s a bicycle tour.
Tour d’Afrique Ltd. is organizing an Orient Express bike tour that follows the route of the original train between Paris and Istanbul — 50 days (11 rest days, 239 on the bike), 2,500 miles, divided into four segments.
If you have the time — and about $8,500 — you can make the whole run with them. If not, they’ll let you ride the segment of your choice. It starts June 5 and concludes July 24.
For more details on the Orient Express tour, go to the Tour d’Afrique site here.
This tour is BYOB — Bring Your Own Bike.
There’s still time to sign up, but this is not the kind of trip you’re going to take on the spur on the moment, for physical reasons if no other.
Unless you train on your bike constantly (as I should, but do not), you need to spend some time preparing both body and bike for a journey of this magnitude.
Still, it sounds like an incredible journey, does it not? Something just tells I’ve got a new addition to my ever-lengthening list of dream trips.
And now, here’s this week’s Digest:
AIR
from the New York Times
Is Business Class the new black for the airline industry? International travelers who don’t want to splurge on First Class but don;t want to suffer in Sardine Class increasingly are striking a more comfortable, if pricier, balance.
from the New York Times
The airlines are feeling a lot better about the quality of their in-flight food. How much better? They’ve been going around major American cities, dispensing it from food trucks and even in bicycles.
LAND
from the New York Times
The NYT’s Michelle Higgins shares 12 tips for saving on the cost of gas this summer — and maybe saving your vacation.
from the Associated Press via USA Today
There are some tricks to booking a summer vacation package without feeling your checkbook has been hijacked. Here are a few of them.
from AP Travel via Yahoo!
When it comes to hiking and backpacking, less is more and light makes might.
SEA
from AP Travel via Yahoo! and the Columbus Foundation (British Virgin Islands)
Working replicas of two of the ships that Christopher Columbus led to the Americas will be on display this week in North Carolina. They were built as “sailing museums,” and they’re working their way up the Eastern Seaboard toward New York..
AFRICA
from The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya)
Not all the landmarks on heritage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade are to be found in West Africa. A group of African journalists take a trip back in time to a slave trading post in Tanzania. And that’s not all.
AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
On Kodiak Island in Alaska, life is bearable for the grizzlies, and you get to see them up close. Just remember who’s at the top of the food chain around here — and it isn’t you.
from the New York Times
Can you get in and out of a Rio de Janeiro weekend on $100? The NYT’s Seth Kugel shows you how it might be possible.
ASIA/PACIFIC
from AsiaOne (Singapore), the Taipei Times (Taiwan) and Bernama (Malaysia)
The Japanese tourism industry is trying to mount a comeback back from this year’s earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster, and it’s visitors from the rest of Asia who are leading the way.
from the Guardian (London UK)
If Indonesia’s Bali is alluring but too overrun with tourists and the traps thereof to suit your sensibilities, consider its endearingly under-developed alternative: Lombok.
EUROPE
from USA Today
It’s not just ocean-going cruise lines trying to outdo one another with hot new ships. River cruisers in Europe are now entering the can-you-top-this? sweepstakes with bigger cabins and much bigger windows for taking in the views.
from the Guardian (London UK)
Alexei Sayle is a remarkable man for two reasons. The first is that he’s been cycling around London for 30-plus years. The second is that he’s still alive. VIDEO
from Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Forget the beer, sauerkraut and schnitzel. The thing Germans really go ga-ga over is white asparagus. It’s a spring thing.