travel

New book filled with marvelous maps

If you’re a serious traveler, you likely love maps.

And if you love maps, you’ll love the maps in a new book from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England that celebrates the art of atlases with a look inside the museum’s collection of maps, globes, and map-related ephemera.

A is for Atlas: Wonders of Maps and Mapping, is a highly illustrated celebration of cartography from the thirteenth century to today.

Celestial globe, unknown maker, first half of the 17th century

The book draws on the museum’s collection of more than 40,000 maps, charts, globes, and atlases, including a sixteenth-century map of the world replacing the face of a jester, a nineteenth-century inflatable globe, and a twentieth-century waterproof map that saved lives during the Second World War.

Fool’s Head World Map, by unknown artist, around 1590
 
Inflatable Globe, George Pocock, 1830

The oldest object in the book is a manuscript map of Mesopotamia by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-Istakhri, dated before 1282. Mountain ranges are illustrated in a deep red with floral and geometric patterns, while the rivers Tigris and Euphrates flow across the page in a majestic blue.

Islandia, Abraham Ortelius and Anders Vedel, 1585

The most recent object is a football globe made for Mark Wallinger’s First World War centenary artwork, One World by Mark Wallinger. This 2018 football is a photographic representation of the Earth as seen from satellite imagery. This globe was commissioned to mark the centenary of the First World War, commemorating the ‘Christmas Day ceasefires’ that took place on the Western Front in 1914.

One World, Mark Wallinger, 2018

Rather than approach the collection chronologically, A is for Atlas draws on the collection in twenty-six themes, including ‘commemoration’, ‘manuscript’, ‘sea monsters’ and ‘treasure’.

The book also shows the results of an investigation into a nineteenth-century globe. An endoscope was fed through a hole in a Newton & Son terrestrial table globe from 1842, offering Dr Barford an unusual view – the inside of a globe. The investigation revealed proof pages from various books of the Bible lining the inside and supporting the papier-mâché hemispheres.

All photos courtesy National Maritime Museum, England

The (Not So) Impossible Road Trip

Icy snow is covering our town. So we spent the holiday weekend just dreaming of places we want to go and making a list of new and old favorite sights we want to see in the new year.

The Impossible Road Trip – An Unforgettable Journey to Past and Present Roadside Attractions in all 50 States” turns out to be a great aid to our adventure planning

When the book by Eric Dregni first showed up at our house, we thought the “impossible” in the title meant the book was all about historic roadside attractions and quirky destinations across the United States we’d never get to see.

But now that we look closer, we see that the long-gone spots mentioned here simply offer context for all the corny, quirky, and unique places that are still around.

Like the Big Duck in Flanders, NY. The World’s Largest Buffalo Monument in Jamestown, North Dakota. The Cardiff Giant in Cooperstown, NY, And many places across the country where you can spot statues of dinosaurs, muffler men, and Paul Bunyans

Here’s a look inside the book, which includes infographic maps, themed roundups, and some wonderful photographs taken by the late architectural critic and photographer John Margolies.

We checked to see if some of our favorite attractions in Washington were included and were pleased to the Zillah’s Teapot Dome Gas Station and Seattle’s Hat ‘n’ Boots included. (These photos are not from the book).

Courtesy VIsit Yakima

Travel jitters. Now due to the delta variant

(This is a slightly different version of a story we wrote for NBC News online)

This was supposed to be the summer of “revenge travel,” catch-up trips, and rescheduled family reunions — but the surge in coronavirus cases, and in particular, the highly contagious delta variant has some travelers pausing their plans.

Summer 2021 has come with soaring prices for everything from rental cars to lobster rolls. Wildfires, heatwaves, delays, worker shortages, and an uptick in unruly passengers have all already tested the patience of the hardiest traveler.

But it wasn’t until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged even vaccinated people to resume wearing masks indoors that the ramifications started to ripple through the travel and tourism industry.

Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, which operates sites such as Kayak and Priceline, said the rise of the delta variant and the new travel restrictions “have led to a modest pullback in our booking trends in the month of July relative to June.”

Around the country, major tourist destinations, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles County, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. reinstated mask requirements in public indoor settings. Many communities are taking it a step further — a growing list of bars and restaurants in Seattle now require that patrons show proof of vaccination for entry. And nationwide, Yelp now has a filter that allows users to see if a restaurant or business has instituted a ‘proof of vaccination’ rule.

Later this month, New York City will begin requiring proof of vacation for indoor dining, performances, and other leisure activities. At least one hotel, Ian Schrager’s Public Hotel, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, said it will require guests and workers to present proof of vaccination.

With changing rules and ever-tightening restrictions, travelers say they are beginning to think twice about their plans.

“I’m in the fretting stage. There’s so much that’s uncertain,” said Frieda Werden, who has a trip to Durham, North Carolina, planned for September. “I want to go see my mother, who is about to turn 96 and feels she is declining. But I don’t want either of us to get the variant.”

In Coupeville, Washington, Moe Bébé Fraser Bowman is adding concerns of the delta variant to the list of reasons why she keeps “putting off the notion of checking off the travel bucket list.”

Other travelers say they are still willing to travel, even abroad, despite the risks.

Nicole Woolcock of New York City says she won’t cancel her family’s trip to Portugal in September.

The family is booked into hotels that are taking extra precautions, she said. However, “if it looks like we won’t be able to leave our hotel and really experience Portugal, we’d reconsider our travel,” Woolcock said.

Tania Swasbrook, a luxury travel adviser at California-based Travelworld International Group, said many of her clients are also forging ahead.

“It is revenge travel with a hint of ‘the world may close down again so let’s go now,’” she said.

Deciding whether to take a trip is just one part of the puzzle, however. Travelers, or their agents, need to keep up with what can feel like a rollercoaster of changing protocols and rules. For some, the solution is to book “insurance” trips.

“Travelers are getting savvy, taking advantage of flexible cancellation policies, and booking multiple vacations for the same time but to different areas,” said Misty Belles, vice president for global public relations at Virtuoso Travel Network.

With several plans in place, “they know one will go through even if something happens in the other destinations,” Belles said.

Adding to the uncertainty of traveling right now is the fact that hotels, restaurants, and airlines are struggling to find enough workers to meet the demand.

“It is very bad right now,” said Jan Louise Jones, professor of hospitality and tourism in the Pompea College of Business at the University of New Haven. “And the variant? That’s not helping.”

Space Travel for us? Looking possible.

What can we say? Space Travel for mortals, well, rich mortals, is now much more of a reality. Thanks, Richard Branson, and your enthusiasm, for kicking it off.

What we’re watching: Museum Masterpiece Moments

Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

We are getting ready to get on the road. And we are making a list of museums we want to visit and art we want to see.

So we were pleased to find the “Masterpiece Moments” series of short, 5-7 minute videos that Bank of America started putting out in January.

The features showcase works of art in the collections of 25 museums across the country. And there’s a new video rolling out every two weeks.

Here are just a few of our favorites. You can sign up to get alerts when a new video is released and see the full list of participating museums here.