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Peter Greenberg Says "Don't Go There," But Should You Listen?

As a career travel writer, Peter Greenberg has been pretty much everywhere you'd ever want to go and many places you wouldn't. It's this authority on which he wrote his new book Don't Go There, sure to be a consolation to people who, for whatever reason, can't go to some of the world's top destinations. In fact, in the preface to the book, he argues that travel media have a responsibility to report the bad alongside the good--that some trips will never be sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

Greenberg has had the luxury to go wherever he's desired, and some of his cautions just won't apply to avid travelers; the air pollution of Cairo may deter him from visiting again but not someone who has never seen the Pyramids, for whom a trip to Egypt without visiting its capital would be unthinkable. But while Don't Go There frequently slides from serious to silly, some of its tips are really useful, so long as they concern places people actually go.

His work on dangerous highways and crappy airports is superb, although a blanket statement like "When there's snow in Chicago and fog in San Francisco... just don't go there!" is a bit pointless. And we wish he would have told more of his own stories, but he uses them to cut through categories like Most Depressing Places (Alaska: "How happy can you be when you have to dress in layers?") and still have fun. Don't Go There! is just as flippant as its title, but seasoned and rookie travelers alike can learn something from it. (Even if the lesson is to go there anyway.)

Related Stories:
· Peter Greenberg's Brand New Travel Blog [Jaunted]
· Hotelchatter Interview With Peter Greenberg [HC]
· Travel Media coverage [Jaunted]

Adventure Travel / Dangerous Travel / Anti Travel / → All Tags

Man-Made Disaster Travel

In an imaginative and off-topic move, the folks over at Good magazine have just published a travel issue. We were pretty stoked about topics like what $500 will get you on the black market in Paraguay, taking a cross-country train and, our particular favorite, a travel guide to man-made disasters: five places in the US you wouldn't want to hang around too long.

These anti-destinations include the country's largest landfill (unsurprisingly located outside Las Vegas) and a 36-billion-gallon, 900-foot-deep, water-filled former copper mine that is all but inhospitable. Called the "Berkeley Pit," not even a pack of angsty teenagers crashing into each other would stand a chance in these waters. Good explains how a flock of Canada Geese famously landed on the water and quickly died from its high concentration of arsenic, cadmium, iron and manganese.

Like other travel guides, this one offers directions, places to eat, spots to sleep and info on the best time of year to visit each site. So if you've got some free time and a huge yacht, you can sail hundreds of miles out into the Pacific ocean to see the epic Eastern Garbage Patch or visit a perpetually burning underground coal fire in central Pennsylvania. Who needs the Maldives when we've got ecological disasters so close to home?!

Related Stories:
· Beautiful Messes: A Travel Guide to Man-Made Disasters [Good]
· Anti Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of the Berkeley Pit: ankneyd]

Funny / Travel Websites / Anti Travel / → All Tags

The Onion Unveils Terribly Useless Travel Guide

Do you ever get tired of real hard-hitting news, honest travel memoirs and deep think pieces on destinations? Yeah, us too. Which is why The Onion's new Atlas of the Planet Earth Google Map mashup is totally our new best friend.

The guide's hilarity is all sourced from satire publisher's newish book, Our Dumb World. This week's featured country is Egypt, which, according to The Onion anyway, is:

Located in the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the National Gallery in London and countless other museums throughout the Western world...behind thick glass displays in climate-controlled rooms.

Not from Egypt? With a new country each week, you'll be able to find a comically offensive description of your own nation soon. Here's hoping Turkey doesn't find out about this!

Related Stories:
· Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth [Official Site]
· Travel Websites coverage [Jaunted]