A slight book-tour deviation: Away to London for Travel Channel voice-over

by Rolf Potts on

Though you could never tell by looking at my book tour schedule for Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, I had a curious stop-off — London, England — slotted between book events in Kansas City and Chicago. I went there to record voice-over narration for “American Pilgrim,” my first-ever hosting gig for the Travel Channel.

Upon arriving at Heathrow Airport after a KC-Chicago-London transit, I was met at the arrivals gate by a burly Nigerian driver in a pinstriped suit, who chauffeured me via Mercedes to the London Olympia Hilton. That was about as glamorous as the experience got; after that it was all jet lag and hard work.

In fact, not only was it all work, for the most part I didn’t really feel like I was in England. Because it happened so quickly, I felt like my sound-recording experience could have just as easily happened in an underground bunker in Indiana. Apart from a couple of pub meals and a few rainy glimpses of London’s Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush neighborhoods out the window of my producer’s Citroen, I didn’t see much of England. Such is the reality of trans-Atlantic business travel. Indeed, after years of preaching (and practicing) slow travel, it was quite the jolt to try and experience a major world city in 48 work-filled hours.

Travel conditions aside, it was great to catch up with director Peter Wisdom and producer Jamie Broome and go into the studio to put the finishing touches on my debut TV hosting gig. Thanks to these guys, I had very a supportive and professional TV experience — both in shooting the episode in the United States in mid-August, and editing it in London several weeks later.
Though I mentioned in my last post that my journey into the world of television was due in large part to the Travel-Channel success of “qualified insiders” like Anthony Bourdain, I don’t think my Pilgrim show is going to make Bourdain nervous for his star status anytime soon. I mean, sure, my Thanksgiving-themed special looks great on the screen (and I did a decent enough job in front of the camera for a first-time presenter) but the subject matter simply isn’t hip and cutting-edge enough to, say, garner me sacks of mail from adoring female fans who want nothing more than to send me Polaroids of themselves in bikinis. Instead, this history-show about the travel conditions of the Mayflower Pilgrims is more likely to garner me mail from middle-aged male history buffs who take issue with my pronunciation of words like “Massasoit” and “Pokanoket.” In fact, as well-produced as it is, my show is a very old-school documentary rendering of American cultural history, to the point of being a tad sentimentalist in places.

And that’s just fine with me, actually. Instead of trying contrive something uber-hip out of my usual subject matter (vagabonding-style indie travel), I got to cut my TV teeth on a subject that — while fascinating to me — is not tied into some essential notion of who I am or what I’m supposed to represent. If I have any misgivings about the show, it would be (a) TV isn’t the best venue to communicate deep context or nuance (and hence it was hard to show how, while intrepid, the Pilgrims could really be intolerant jackasses sometimes); and (b) though we spent a day and a half shooting Indian perspectives on the Pilgrims, the initial edit didn’t contain much Native American point-of-view (though I’ve been assured that several minutes of Indian interviews were added in a second edit).

As for the sound-dubbing itself, it was actually a really cool process. I sat in a sound-proof booth across a window from my director, who cued me on when to lay in the narration, and how to give the words the right emotive energy. I’ve never worked with such high-tech equipment before, and it was wild to hear my own voice so crisp and resonant in the headphones as I tried to capture the right energy level for each section of the program. Sound editing is done by computer these days, and I could watch as the technician snipped little visual sound-wave chunks of my narration and placed them seamlessly into the show.

After a day and a half of this I was just getting over my jetlag and keen to get out and explore London — which was a shame, since I was due back in Chicago for more book tour events in less than 24 hours. So it goes!

If you watch the Travel Channel, keep an eye out for the debut of “American Pilgrim” on Thanksgiving weekend.

American couple brutally assaulted in Ecuador

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Two Americans spending a year in Ecuador were brutally attacked in the northern town of Esmereldas, according to a report from CNN. One of the victims, visiting Ecuador with his fiancée to celebrate their recent engagement, was reportedly stabbed 24 times, while his fiancée was beaten and sexually assaulted.

The couple has been blogging about their trip here , and this is what they had to say about the recent attack:

“Britt and I were brutally attacked last Thursday. His condition started out as very serious and has gradually gotten even more so. He is in intensive care following three surgeries, and before the last one, last night, I was informed by the head surgeon that there is no certainty that he will survive. That being said, he was conscious and talking last night, and I have continued to be amazed by his strength.” (punctuation added)

We here at Gadling wish the couple, who have flown back to the US for further treatment, nothing but the absolute best.

So, the traveler wonders, is Ecuador still safe? As someone who traveled in Ecuador for four months, I can attest that I never once threatened for my safety, but I also know that the area near the Ecuador-Colombia border is not exactly somewhere I’d like to raise kids.

But please remember that Ecuador is– along with the vast majority of travel destinations– still an incredibly safe place to visit. Unfortunately, we can never completely eliminate the risks associated with traveling in a foreign country (or with staying at home), but the smart traveler will stay abreast of the security situation, get the low-down from locals, and avoid spending time in dangerous areas, especially at night.

So maybe you don’t feel like visiting Ecuador just this second. When you change your mind, check out Gadling’s Guide to Ecuador here.

Catching the travel bug: Midair malaise

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Catching the Travel Bug, Gadling’s mini-series on getting sick on the road, prevailing and loving travel throughout. Five of our bloggers will be telling their stories from around the globe for the next five weeks. Submit your best story about catching the travel bug in the comments and we’ll publish our favorite few at the end of the series.

It was 1989. In an effort to build flight time after earning my private pilot’s license in college, I managed to convince my boss at the hobby shop where I worked that it might be a good investment for him to loan me the $5500 I needed to buy a two-seat 1946 airplane called a Luscombe.

After tiring of touring around the local airport, shooting ‘touch-and-goes’ well into the night and giving rides to share the fuel costs with everyone I knew or even the strangers I sat next to in my classes at W.S.U., I decided to venture out on a cross-country flight.

What better excuse than the annual Luscombe fly-in which was held at a beautiful airport near the mountains in Columbia, California. The event attracted over 100 of the durable little airplanes and their owners, allowing the pilots and spouses a chance to socialize about two things they were sure to have in common: a love of flight and an interest in a small part of aviation history.

I flew out to Seattle the day before so I could join up early in the morning with another Luscombe that was attending the event. Since my airplane didn’t have a baggage compartment, I stuffed the full size suitcase, tent, portable VHF radio, Sony Walkman and a bag of groceries into the right seat of the airplane, strapped down so nothing interfered with the second control stick on the right.

We were to meet up at 6 a.m. on an early May morning before heading south toward San Francisco. Seattle isn’t known for it’s good weather in May, and this morning was no exception. A low layer of clouds hovered over Puget Sound, and if I weren’t following an experienced Northwest captain out of the area, I’m not sure I would have been comfortable flying an airplane with virtually no navigational equipment that day.

I stuck close to the other airplane as we worked our way around the Tacoma area, listening on the pilot-to-pilot frequency while a half dozen Cessnas were reporting their locations to each other and patrolling up and down I-5 to report on the local Seattle traffic conditions.

As we crossed into the state of Oregon, the clouds lifted and we made our first fuel stop. The formation flying made the trip go by in no time, and I was really enjoying the experience. I would follow the captain for another few hours before he had to make a detour towards San Francisco to visit his sister before arriving at the fly-in.

We parted ways as we flew past Mount Shasta and I broke off to land at another airport for refueling. The airplane held 14 gallons of gas, enough for at least two hours of flying. I dug into some yogurt and a breakfast bar before leaving again.

The final stop before Columbia was a little residential airpark in Cameron, CA that sold fuel. I visited with one of the residents who told me that Columbia was just another two hours south.

Up to this point I had been either following another airplane or navigating from town to town using my map, since I had no navigational instruments and my compass had a rather persistent tendency to only point east regardless of my true heading.

But this leg would be over the western portion of the Sierra Nevada mountains, over Yosemite park. I soon discovered how difficult it was to match up the lakes and mountains depicted on my map with what was on the ground below me.

I’d pass over a lake and then try to find it on the map with little luck. There were so many lakes and mountains, it was hard to be sure just where I was. I elected to stay a bit further east, so I would know the airport would likely be off to my right side after two hours of flying.

I began to doubt the wisdom in my routing as time went on. To make matters worse, something was happening to my stomach. A sharp pain hit me above my seatbelt, as if I had just swallowed an ice-pick. It’s funny how quickly the blame came together in my mind to identify the breakfast bar as the culprit. It might make more sense to blame the yogurt, but I knew that breakfast bar was bad news.

As the pain became debilitating and I was feeling nauseous, I discovered that not only was I completely lost, but the batteries in my handheld radio had died.

Fortunately I had come prepared, with an extra set of eight AA cells to pop into the radio. But doing that wasn’t exactly easy. As I flew along, heading south, indicating east, I had to take apart 4 philips screws in my lap, looking down while bouncing over the afternoon bumps that naturally occur over the mountains. I had the Terra radio apart in my lap as I opened the new AA batteries that were packed in their theft-proof plastic.

And then it hit me. I was going to eject one breakfast bar and a cup of yogurt in the next ten seconds. The only question was, where?

I frantically looked around the cockpit. There was no plastic bag, only a duffel bag and my suitcase. I had no choice. I threw open the side window of the airplane and leaned my head out the tiny window, knowing that I would have to explain the mess that ran down the left side of my airplane when/if I made it to my destination. Perhaps it would blend in with the green strip running below the window on the otherwise white airplane.

After this traumatic event and still trying to fly an airplane that had an annoying habit of pulling to the right while I snapped the batteries in place and slipped a few screws into their holes, I began to assess my chances of finding the airport. I checked the time. Two hours exactly. I needed to turn west and hope for the best.

At this point, I was ready to land in whatever flat spot I could find. The “E” was visible on the fuel tank that was mounted above and behind my head and I knew I needed to be on the ground as soon as possible.

I tried to call out on my weak hand-held radio.

“Columbia traffic, Luscombe 71808, anyone in the pattern at Columbia?”

I’m not sure what I would have said if someone responded.

There was no reply.

As populated as the state of California is, the Sierra Nevada mountains looked like the Alaska range. There were no airports, roads or gravel bars below. And it was getting dark.

Maybe it was lucky that darkness had fallen. I scanned the horizon and then it hit. The brightest airport beacon I’ve ever seen. It was an old fashioned airway beacon that was used to navigate from point to point in the 1930’s, back when airplanes were equipped about as well as mine. But was it located on an airport?

I grabbed the full sized pillow next to me and put it in front of my stomach while I leaned forward, trying anything to relieve the pain. I focused on that beacon, descending at 1000 feet per minute and traveling at an excruciatingly slow 95 miles an hour.

I wondered how the landing would be. I crossed over the airport at 1000 feet, looking for the windsock below. I was relieved to see the giant letters written down the runway.

C-O-L-U-M-B-I-A

Whew.

I made an exceptionally abbreviated pattern. I can’t remember how the landing was, but I do remember turning off the runway, and heading straight for the parking area. I spun the tail around, shut the engine off and plopped out onto the grass beside the fueling pit.

I laid flat
on the ground, holding my stomach. This must be food poisoning I thought. Fortunately I was early enough to arrive – the first airplane, in fact – that there were no witnesses to the mess I made beside the fuselage.

I got up and placed a call on the nearby pay phone to my relatives who were my backup search and rescue team if I failed to check in. And then I set up my tent and collapsed inside for the night.

I felt fine the next morning, and as I cleaned off the side of the airplane, I vowed to keep this little incident to myself.

110 Luscombes showed up that year and I made a lot of friends, learned so much about my airplane and joined in some large formations of planes on missions to find the best pancakes in the area or to pass above the clearest lakes in the country.

I swapped planes with the guy parked next to me, a J-3 cub, and we chased each other around for the day while exploring the area. His compass worked fine, interestingly.

For four days, my secret was safe.

Then the Continental Luscombe Association would close up the event with an awards ceremony. I certainly wasn’t expecting to win anything, unless they had the “rattiest Luscombe” trophy perhaps.

But they handed out awards for the oldest pilot and even the youngest pilot at the event. Since I was 19, I accepted that plaque with a big smile.

Finally, they announced something called the “hard luck trophy.” An award given to the pilot who had the most difficulty getting to the fly-in.

Oh, boy. I knew I had to keep my mouth shut.

A pilot stood up and told about his experience flying through a bit of snow on the way there. Then he sat down.

“Anyone else?”

There was silence.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to confess.

I hadn’t realized how amusing the experience was until I was describing the vomit-hiding characteristics of a wide green strip down my airplane.

The only thing I had to worry about for the flight home was how I would get the three foot tall “hard-luck” trophy into my already stuffed airplane.

Then it dawned on me. I could make a little more room by leaving the box of breakfast bars behind.

Photos by Russell Croman

Epilogue: read about the fate of that little Luscombe and where it is now.

Check out Kent’s other flying stories in Gadling’s Cockpit Chronicles feature.

2008 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award Winners

by Abha Malpani on


The 2008 Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition recently announced its winners. In its 24th year running, the competition attracted 1,356 entries in 24 categories from which 81 winners were selected. The competition, named after American writer and traveler Lowell Thomas, is today considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in the world of travel journalism. The entries were judged by members of the Missouri School of Journalism Faculty.

National Geographic and the Boston Globe took most of the awards, and freelance writer/photographer Christopher P. Baker won the Lowell Thomas travel journalist of the year. Other than him, and bronze winner of the same category — Sarah Wildman, all other winners are part of established travel titles such as the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, and a bunch of other American news titles.

You can find the list of gold winners with relevant links to their stories at the LA Times Daily Deal travel blog; the LA Times won a gold for the best travel section. A list of all the winners (gold, silver, and bronze, across all categories can be found on the Society of American Travel Writers website.

So, if you’re looking to read some good travel-writing, spend some time going through the links of the winners. The full list of winners has the titles of the winning stories so you can dig them up to read. I thought I would go through them all and give you my top three, but there are just too many good ones! Perhaps a good time-spend idea for a Sunday afternoon.

European lawmakers object to full body scans at airports

by Jeffrey White on

Gadling’s been following the slow implementation of so-called “whole body imaging” machines at US airports for some time now.

Machines have been either installed or are coming soon to Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Las Vegas, Reagan National, JFK, LAX, Baltimore, Denver and Albuquerque.

To review, these machines use pretty strong x-ray technology, where millimeter waves are bounced off a passenger’s body, producing a very accurate image of his or her body without clothes. The goal, of course, is to get a better view of whether a passenger is concealing something at security.

Not surprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union has been all over this one, saying the technology at the very least should be a last resort, used only when a passenger qualifies for an intrusive search.

The ACLU has some allies on the other side of the Atlantic.

The European Union has suggested that it would go along with the machines in its own airports. But this week, a group of EU lawmakers brought the matter back for debate, objecting to the scanners for much the same reason that the ACLU does: It violates the privacy of passengers.

One British MP called it a “virtual strip search,” according to the Associated Press.

It’s hard to say just how many EU lawmakers are against the machines, but Brussels is continuing to debate the program.

The European Commission, which is the executive branch of the EU, said on Tuesday that the legislation it is considering that would install these machines at airports respects established EU safety and privacy rules.

The body scanners were installed in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport last year, and few passengers reportedly complained, instead liking the speed at which lines moved because of them.

I personally think that that argument will eventually propel these machines into wider use. More travelers are likely to be happy about quicker lines and not having to remove shoes, coats, etc. than be concerned whether some security worker is going to see what kind of underwear they have on.

This is especially true in Europe, as Europeans in my experience have considerably less modestly issues than Americans.