Jaunted

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2006 Jaunted Travel Awards End Credits

Well folks, the curtain has dropped on our 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards show.

We don't have credits to roll, but we will pretend we do by linking to sometimes SFO*MEDIA photographer, and now full fledged Internet sensation, Noah Kalina.

His self portraits with celebrities recently ran during the closing credits of VH1's Big in 06 show.

2006 Jaunted Awards

·   Best Domestic Airline
·   Worst Domestic Airline
·   Best Travel Newcomer
·   Best Travel Media Story
·   Celeb Travelers of the Year
·   Worst Travel Media Moment
·   Destination of the Year
·   Worst Travel Experience
·   Best Domestic Airport
·   Best Villain
·   Best Travel Fashion
·   Best Jaunted Field Trip
·   Best Island
·   Best Map

Thanks once again to everyone who has read and contributed to Jaunted in 2006.

Enjoy your holiday weekend. We will be back full force Tuesday morning, ready to bring you all the 2007 travel stories fit to post.

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2006 Awards: Best Map

2006 Awards: Best Map: Chasing Natalie

Sure, it started off as a mad dash to plot all the Toronto places and points Natalie Portman, Dustin Hoffman and other stars filming in TO this spring were spotted, but it ended up being something more--a unique travel guide to Toronto created by masses of Toronto tipsters, movie set extras, set mothers, and us. You aren't gonna find that at your local Borders Books now are you?

What did learn from this? So much, but the main point, er or the one thing Toronto folks would want us to pass on to you is this: There is more to TO than just Yorkville.

Thanks again to everyone in Toronto, who helped us keep track of sightings, filming locations, wanderings, and the best and worst of Toronto's hot spots. The folks in Toronto just got what we were trying to do straight away, which was very cool.

We couldn't have done it without you.

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Harbour Island / Caribbean / Islands / Beaches / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Best Island

Oh, how we love the Bahamas: so close to home, yet infinitely prettier. There's a Bahamian island for virtually every taste, but this year we fell for Harbour Island. We visited in back in March. What made the island so special in '06? Kalik Beer, Pink Sands Beach, and the fact that some of the 2006 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was shot there.

HotelChatter carried our Harbour Island hotel coverage, while we published some choice Island tips for you: how to get there (it's not that hard), where to eat (pan-fried grouper, anyone?), where and what to drink, and what to do besides sun yourself. High costs, obnoxious roosters and golf cart traffic aside, it was paradise.

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2006 Awards: Best Jaunted Field Trip

We're no Super World Travelers, probably because that specific title requires adopting lots of drooling babies and having enough money to hire private jets. But we're close and, dare we say, better, because we know how to keep it real. We traveled all over this year: Honduras, Amsterdam, Japan, the Bahamas, Montreal, Iceland, Belgium, Philly... You get the idea.

Not one of those trips was a bust, but we were so excited when we got to liveblog from the flight to Japan that we are awarding Japan the Jaunted Field Trip of the Year. Besides, that mid-air post should be worth something in the near future, too, given that Connexion will soon be a thing of the past. Similarly, it'll be hard to forget the desert island dispatch from the Bay Islands, and of course the Heineken Experience. Expect more joyful exploits to come in 2007.

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2006 Awards: Best Travel Fashion

Another easy one. Perfect travel fashion should combine comfort and practicality with sass and class. A good banana slingshot, upside down Star Trek symbol bathing suit gets the job done. This year Borat, the mightiest Kazakh journalist of all time, epitomized travel fashion.

Yes, we were obsessed with him this year as we counted down to the release of Cultural Learnings. Somewhere in the press onslaught, we read that his famous suit, his gray suit that is, has never been washed. Talk about consistent and authentic style. And with so little to pack, he can definitely go carry-on-only for life, even when flying in the tiniest Soviet turboprops.

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Kip Hawley / TSA / Airport Security / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Best Villain

Kip Hawley is trying to do a very important job, and a tough one at that. "Trying" being the operative word there. The TSA chief attracted the contempt of many a frequent traveler this year, and no Travel Villain made an impact in 2006 like he did. The TSA's ban on carry-on gels & liquids (later morphed into the "3-1-1" zip-top baggie rule) invented ridiculosity-as-fine art. Mustard packets do not bring down 747s. And don't even get us started on Kip & crew's No Fly List.

The absolute worst of the rules have been "refined," but everyone who flies now lives with often boggling restrictions. Staunch opponents of baggage checking have been forced to check their luggage for the first time in years; countless skim chai lattes have met early deaths at the security line. Some of the best critiques of this year's circus appeared in the New York Times and, of course, FlyerTalk, where news of the infamous "Kip Hawley Is an Idiot" incident (and its companion website) first broke.

We have not purchased one of those teddy bears yet, but in spirit, we already own 1000.

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Airports / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Best Domestic Airport

We can find giant, sleek airports a bit romantic so long as they work properly. It comes with the territory when you love to travel. But most of the time we prefer the embrace of a good midsize airport that offers us less hassle and decent facilities. And sometimes taxidermy, but that's actually a separate category for which we do not have time.

That's why Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, CA, won us over this year, with its glorious balance of form, function, and understated decadence. It's small enough to feel, well, small, but big enough that it qualifies as an actual airport (stores inside, room to stretch out, plugs for your laptop) and you can drive to BUR without ever setting tire on the traffic infested freeways of LA. Check-in and security move swiftly, you can easily walk from car rental return to gate check, and you've even got a good chance of celeb-spotting there. Besides, where else can you board an airplane while looking out over the hills of Southern California.

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2006 Awards: Worst Travel Experience

Another close one. We started to sympathize with whoever had to sit near John Mark Karr on a long-haul from Bangkok to Los Angeles. Then we realized that whoever was sitting around him was also in business class, on a very nice airline (Thai). No more sympathy--with IFE and some wine, it couldn't have been that bad.

So we chose rats on a plane instead. That was the true story of how a flight to Riyadh was overtaken by rodent terrorists, much to the horror of passengers and even people who had to read about it later. A cheesy tourist shirt is offensive enough for your carry-on. Do not push your luck by packing live animals in it.

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Islands / Beaches / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Destination of the Year

The Maldives was back and on the attack in 2006. After some of the country's resorts were damaged in the 2004 tsunami tragedy, many got makeovers. And we followed closely as our sister blog, HotelChatter, drooled over the islands' best properties with the help of Google.

The Maldives also continued to host many celeb guests in 2006, TomKat's and Madonna's crews among 'em. With all the attention, you might think that we're ready to proclaim the Maldives "over." Hardly. We want to go there now more than ever. Just check out some of those Google flyovers and try and tell us you don't feel the same way. Anyway, is it not against human nature to say no to an overwater bungalow?

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Travel Media / New York Times / Lonely Planet / Strange Things / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Worst Travel Media Moment

This category does not indicate poorly written travel media, but rather scary stories or scary hype that caught our attention this year.

Read or write enough travel lit for a while, and the "_ is the next _" syndrome will leave you seriously jaded. We have to joke about it, otherwise we'd go crazy. We're not against trendwatching, but the hunt for "undiscovered," "it" destinations gets so out of control that it makes ridiculous, scary places sound as easy as Orlando.

So we have a tie for this one: Lonely Planet in Tiraspol, Transdniestr (Moldova) and the New York Times in Bogotá, Colombia. You couldn't pay us enough to visit Tiraspol, and we'd only consider Bogotá with a few bodyguards. Hats off to the writers who braved them, though.

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Travel Media / Joe Sharkey / Airplanes / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Best Travel Media Story

We consume travel media every day--hell, we ARE travel media. Podcasts, newspaper columns, magazine articles, blogs, you name it. And of course that includes the New York Times, which we check regularly.

While we were probably most jealous of Matt Gross (a.k.a. the Frugal Traveler) this year, we found Joe Sharkey's reporting from Brazil the most fascinating. Sharkey, a business travel writer for the Times, was caught in a mid-air plane collision over Brazil; his private plane landed without incident, while the large jet it collided with tragically crashed.

Mid-air collisions are rare as is. What were the chances that the Times' business travel reporter would be caught in one and live to tell about it? A harrowing experience for sure.

Tags: 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards / Celeb Travel / Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie / Brangelina / → All Tags

2006 Awards: Celeb Travelers of the Year

The Super World Travelers themselves, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, are our celeb travelers of the year. Paris Hilton gave them a run for their money, as did Sienna Miller with her famous Pittsburgh excursion, but Brangelina won out. After all, they did single-handedly boost interest and tourism in every country they blessed with their holy presence.

From Namibia (where they welcomed their perfect baby, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt) to France, India, Cambodia and Vietnam, they dropped celeb dough on private jets and crisscrossed the globe with their brood in tow. They even managed to touch down in lowly America for a bit, before heading to Costa Rica for Christmas on one of Angie's United Nations missions.

We doubt they'll slow down, so don't be surprised if they're back in the top spot for 2007.