The world was all aflutter this week with the news that the Royal Baby (caps required) was born. Prince George Alexander Louis, as you most surely know, is third in line to the English crown. Prince William and Kate are expected to soon be traveling with Baby George, and Meg Nesterov at Gadling offers advice for the royal couple – suitable for all other parents as well – for traveling with baby. No silver spoon required.
Another celeb who has embarked on international travels is Pope Francis, who is visiting Brazil, his first international trip since being elevated to Pope earlier this year. The Associated Press reports on the apparently lax security for the Pope as he makes his way through the streets of Rio; Brazil has had plenty of turmoil in recent weeks with a spate of public protests that have gotten a little testy at times.
July has been a disturbingly eventful month for travel mishaps and accidents around the globe. There was a train crash in France, The Air Asiana disaster in California, a Southwest Airlines nose gear collapse last week, and, this week, the most deadly of all, a train crash in Spain that killed 80 and injured many many more. There isn’t necessarily a lot that travelers can do to avoid these incidents – these are, after all, accidents. But it’s a reminder to be very aware of the situations you put yourself into, particularly when it comes to road travel. And as Rochelle Sobel of the Association for Safe Internal Road Travel told us recently, travelers can control certain aspects of their road safety, such as making sure the driver of your tour bus has … ya know… a driver’s license. A new report from the World Health Organization shows that the world’s roads are far from safe – there are well over one million traffic deaths every year. The WHO reports only 28 countries have comprehensive road safety laws.
Mountain climbers and adventure travelers are well aware (or at least they should be) of the dangers of altitude sickness; a great trip can be wrecked and even get dangerous if you aren’t properly conditioned to more than a mile above sea level. As the Wall Street Journal’s Ann Lukits reports, it’s critical that adventurers acclimate themselves to elevation before strenuous activity, and that acclimation should even include beginning your journey by sleeping at higher elevation.
The Guardian’s Bronwen Clune writes with nostalgia about the gutting of the staff of the indispensable travel guide Lonely Planet.
If you enjoy finding that certain thing that nobody else knows about when you’re traveling, here’s a website you must check out: The Atlas Obscura. The Wall Street Journal’s Arnie Cooper reports on this “online compendium of the world’s wondrous and curious places.”
Finally, let’s talk etiquette. The New York Times’ Stephanie Rosenbloom examines just how raucous your behavior needs to be to get you kicked off an airplane. There have been a series of incidents lately with rude passengers being asked to deplane. And at Jaunted, they have the story of some behaviors that probably won’t get you booted from your flight, but are just plain rude and offensive.
Please don’t be the guy on the plane with the smelly socks.
Photo from the Washington Post.
