Gwyneth Paltrow’s Spain travel show to hit PBS in September

by Abha Malpani on

Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrity chef Mario Batali, food book author and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols (who *gasp*doesn’t have a Wikipedia page!) will star in a show called “Spain…On The Road Again”, documenting their travels across Spain.

I like all these celebrities but would watch it just for Paltrow, who by the way sounds like she speaks fluent Spanish. The show is food-centric so they really couldn’t have chosen a better country to start than Spain.

I’m a bit disappointed with the name of the show though: 1) Extremely uncreative (“On The Road” are probably the 3 most commonly used words in travel, and, being a food/travel show, you’d think there would be some reference to that in the title, 2) Why the “again”?

Anyway, what’s in a name, eh? It’s a 13 part series that was shot in 2 months across the country. You can watch a sneak preview of the show here.

Sometimes I wish I was an actor just so I could have my own travel show when I felt like it. No, vlogging is not the same. Sigh.

Amazing Race 13 cast revealed: Yeah!

by Jamie Rhein on

Joy! Rapture! A bit of excitement is heading to Sunday night TV on September 28 at 8 PM on CBS. Yes, folks. The Amazing Race returns. This round is season 13.

The cast has been revealed and is now up at the Amazing Race website. Thanks to Jaunted for giving me the heads up when I received my daily Jaunted missive yesterday.

There’s a link in the Jaunted post to the L.A. Times travel blog, “Daily Travel and Deal.” Here, editor Maret Orliss, senior programming manager for Los Angeles Times Events presents her impressions of each couple after chatting with them in person.

As usual, there are the team combos that we’ve come to know and count on for good TV:

  • The blondes
  • The parent/child where someone wants to bond more with the other
  • The incredibly competent couple who gets along so well that you’re left wondering what the hell is wrong with your own life
  • The couple whose non-stop squabbling is something you recognize, or if you’re lucky, leaves you feeling like the couple in the above example.
  • The older couple who is too sweet for words and have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever winning
  • The sibling pair who think that each of them are the best thing since sliced bread
  • The pair who is sure they will win because of they are so much better qualified than any others. Duh.

I’ll miss seeing two of the couples from last season when I tune in. They are:

Kynt and Vyxsin, the Goth pair who I consistently rooted for, and Donald and Nick, the grandfather/grandson team who came in second. Don was the oldest contestant to do so well and watching the two of them was TV worth watching.

Here are the countries the teams hoped to see by being Season 13 contestants, according to Orliss’s reporting. As we watch this season, let’s see if any of them get to go to the country of their dreams.

  • Latvia
  • Argentina
  • Italy
  • Greece
  • New Zealand
  • Egypt or another African country
  • Tibet
  • Nepal
  • Mongolia
  • Fiji
  • Israel

Click here for the video clip of “Meet the Cast.” As Phil Keoghan, the host of the show says, one reason to tune in week after week is that this is a chance to see “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

Daily deal – 6 piece luggage set for $40

by Scott Carmichael on

My daily deal for today is another of those great Woot! sales. Their one day offering for Sunday is a 6 piece “mediocre” (their words, not mine) Beverly Hills Polo Club luggage set.

Included in the set are the following pieces of luggage:

  • 21″ Upright
  • 24″ Upright
  • 27″ Expandable Upright
  • 15″ Tote
  • Garment Bag
  • Toiletry Kit

The bags are available in black, brown, navy or red. I suggest picking a color that will “stand out”, so you don’t become just another one of the thousands of bags coming down the luggage carousel. The bags are made of “lightweight aerospace material and high-density polyester fabric” and you get a 90 day limited warranty. As with all Woot deals, shipping is just $5.

With these bags, you should have enough storage space for a family of 3 or 4 (for their stuff, not for putting them in the bag!). As always with a deal through Woot!, once the inventory is gone, so is the deal. If you are looking for some cheap luggage, don’t delay, or you might miss it!

The Gadling tour of JetBlue’s new Terminal 5 at JFK

by Jeremy Kressmann on

As Grant reported earlier this month, JetBlue is in the final stages of construction for its brand new home at Terminal 5 of New York’s JFK airport. This morning Gadling had the chance to take a sneak peak of the new facilities in advance of the building’s official opening on October 1st.

Although there’s still much to be accomplished in the next 6 weeks, the building is already shaping up as a winner. JetBlue has built a showpiece home for its growing brand – a building that in many ways looks poised to usher travelers into a new era of domestic air travel. It was equally refreshing to find a totally new (dare I say revolutionary?) approach to the airport culinary and concession experience – one that is sure to please the palates of picky New Yorkers and fellow travelers from across the U.S.

With a project this ambitious, JetBlue has also built themselves very high expectations for their new terminal’s success both in the press and with their passengers. But as we saw with the opening of London Heathrow’s new British Airways terminal earlier this year, there are inevitably some kinks that need to be worked out. Here’s hoping everything goes smoothly for JetBlue at launch.

So what exactly did we find during our visit? Follow the link below to get the full overview, and make sure to check out our gallery too for the full Terminal 5 experience.

%Gallery-30298%Departure Hall
As I entered into the main departure hall from the AirTrain, I was immediately struck by the room’s massive size and scale. Combining the latest in cutting edge design, the interior is large, airy and brightly lit with huge windows allowing in plenty of natural light. There was certainly no shortage of check-in kiosks, which are strategically placed in large groups throughout the hall. Though it hasn’t completely disappeared, there’s much less emphasis on check-in desks, clearly an attempt by JetBlue towards a more streamlined, online check-in process.

Also impressive was the attention given to the usually agonizing TSA-screening. Instead of one or two open lanes crammed up against a wall, Terminal 5 is equipped with 20 some-odd security checkpoints – a nod to the central role this process now plays in our post-9/11 lives. Will all these 20-something lanes be open when you head to the airport? That remains to be seen – but the fact the infrastructure is in place is a good sign.

Terminal Atrium and Concessions
After passing through security, travelers are greeted with a huge open atrium. The showpiece is clearly the huge circular string of flat-screen monitors, which hovers like some futuristic alien mothership above the large open space below. The monitors just had JetBlue branding on them today, but I imagine they will be used to potentially display flight info and perhaps some interactive art installations in the months and years ahead.

The edges of the atrium are also home to what is sure to be one of the more talked-about features of the new Terminal 5 – its restaurants and stores. If you’ve ever eaten a flavorless $10 sandwich at the airport before, you’re going to be in for a shock. JetBlue has what looks to be some great restaurants planned, including a hybrid sushi/noodle bar, a Spanish tapas bar (Tapas?! At the airport!?!) and even an old-school French bistro.

Even better, there looks to be a nice assortment of shops, including one of only three outlets of Japanese retailer Muji in the United States. While nice places to eat and shop might not be a dealbreaker when you choose an airline, it certainly goes a long way towards “re-humanizing” the domestic air travel experience.

The actual gate areas were nice – each has its own fully-digital flat-screen display to provide information and destination weather. Very nice, but nothing revolutionary. The terminal is largely decorated in neutral colors with a blue-ish carpeting reminding of JetBlue’s color scheme. I also particularly liked the panoramic views from the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which afford sweeping views of the take-off and landing of other planes at JFK.

Baggage Claim and Wrap-Up
Before wrapping up my Terminal 5 visit, I payed a quick visit to the baggage claim below. The massive carousels are set far apart from each other to avoid overcrowding. It’s hard to review a baggage claim area until you actually use it though – the jury is still out on this one until we see if everyone is getting their luggage back come October!

And with that I ended my tour of Terminal 5. As I passed by designer Eero Saarinen’s retro-futuristic TWA Flight Center on my way out, I couldn’t help but wonder. Saarinen envisioned air travel as the future of the country’s transportation hopes and designed his building to match that dream. But Saarinen probably never anticipated the spectre of 9/11 and its impact on an already battered airline industry, cutting costs and tossing traveler amenities. JetBlue’s Terminal 5 seems very much an attempt to return to aviation’s glory days, and one can only hope that they succeed.

Urban mapping creates multi vision foldable maps

by Grant Martin on

Ever get sick of carrying around a huge guidebook with ten different maps of your favorite city, with each pertinent map flagged so you can flip all over the place when you’re searching? Urban mapping thinks that they have the solution for you.

Remember that 2d-3d technology that they created 60 years ago where you can print on various angles on a document and see a different image when you look at the picture from a different angle? Apparently it’s good for more circus tricks and cracker jack prizes.

Urban mapping has used the technology to overlay multiple maps onto one canvas — neighborhood, street, subway, what have you — look at the map from a different angle and you’ll see a different layer. Sound useful? Check out the map in action below: