Tag: Twitter
Where’s Andrew? At Home.
by Pam Mandel | 06.23.14 | 2:45 PM ET
I didn’t know Andrew Evans when he set out to take the bus to Antarctica. By the time he’d been there and back, we were friends, making plans to meet on stopovers and detours. Now, we trade travel stories and advice, send each other postcards and chat online. But before all that, he was a voice in 140 characters on Twitter under the name@Bus2Antarctica. He was on an adventure I wanted to be a part of. I remember when he posted a picture of himself at a city bus stop with his pack. He was serious; he really was taking the bus all the way from Washington DC to the tail end of the planet. I was hooked, as were thousands of others who tagged along for the ride.
Because his travel stories brought me such joy, my first reaction on learning yesterday that he was going on hiatus was this: Noooooooooo!
As he wrote:
It’s impossibly hard to step away from a dream job that I built from scratch, but after nearly five years on the road, I have decided to take a sabbatical from this blog and its accompanying lifestyle. Over the next year, I intend to write my next book and spend a lot more time with my dog.
Andrew’s Bus2Antarctica project wasn’t the first time someone had chronicled a travel experience on Twitter, but it may be the first instance of a major travel publisher—National Geographic—putting its eggs in a basket that carried a mere 140 characters. Andrew’s ability to both be present in his travels and to share them in little haiku-like snapshots enchanted his followers. We wanted desperately to know what was going to happen next. Twitter was still a mystery to many of us when Andrew starting using it to share his adventures. He showed us how we could use this medium for maximum impact.
I’m one of many who, after seeing his penguin photos, asked if he could please bring me a penguin chick. When we met for the first time—after a series of missed connections— he handed me two fluffy little penguin plush toys. “This one is named Frida,” he said, “and you’ll have to name the other one.” I’d been considering a trip to Antarctica but I was hesitant. I get terribly seasick. We’d been trading email about the trials of crossing the Drake, but Andrew wouldn’t hear of my staying home. “You’re going,” he said, “and you should take them with you. You need mascots.” I went, and in one of those funny travel coincidences, I crossed paths with Andrew in Santiago, Chile, where I’d stopped over on my way back from Antarctica. We went for ice cream at an upscale shopping mall. “You were right,” I said. He did not say, “I told you so.”
Heather on the path/ Where the mountains disappear/ Ever-changing clouds.—Isle of Sky, Scotland
Another soft yawn of the leopard’s jaws, though it looks like she’s laughing at the funniest joke in the world. —Londolozi Game Reserve, South Africa
Andrew took us all over the world—to the middle of the Atlantic and up Kilimanjaro and, most recently, to the heart of Nashville. When he wasn’t on Twitter, he wrote for his blog or for the magazine, National Geographic Traveler. But Twitter was where we could always find him. A guy with more than 30,000 followers and often in demand, he made time for fourth graders, grown-ups with a sense of adventure, and like-minded friends. We can still find him on Twitter, though we’re more likely now to see him posting photos of his dog’s quizzical face—or maybe we’ll hear about his progress on the book we all want him to write.
Andrew’s (hopefully temporary) goodbye to his readers was touching and personal.
A story isn’t a story until somebody listens, so thank you all so much for listening and following my travels. I believe strongly in Tim Cahill’s sentiment that, “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” Though I lost count after the first million miles, I remember all of my friends around the world, even those I knew briefly—sitting next to me on a train, behind the bar, or chatting around a campfire.
From the bottom of my dingy backpack, thank you. Thanks for reading, commenting and encouraging me in my work. I am lucky to have never been lonely on the road, because I’ve always had you with me.
No, Andrew. Thank you.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Travels With Harley’ and Other Travel Books With Missing Letters
by @worldhum | 08.03.11 | 11:32 AM ET
Last night on Twitter, a fun, silly hashtag made the rounds: #bookswithalettermissing. Naturally a few travel-focused titles popped up, and we’ve collected nine of our favorites:
@Mi_Schu
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pans. Love, friendship, cookery…. #bookswithalettermissing
@evaholland
Travels with Harley: Steinbeck criss-crosses America by hog. #bookswithalettermissing
@inkasrain
Eat, Pay, Love: What really happened. #bookswithalettermissing
@evaholland
Our Ma in Havana: Memoir of Cuban childhood. #bookswithalettermissing
@BrantSmith
The Canterbury Ales…a guide to the finest brews in the land. #bookswithalettermissing
@douglasmack
Notes From a Mall Island. (Somewhat less charming than Bryson’s original book.) #bookswithalettermissing
@douglasmack
Fear and Lathing in Las Vegas. Gonzo tales from the machine shop. #bookswithalettermissing
@BrianOnWine
A Moveable East: Hemingway recalls his years in Paris with a broken compass. #bookswithalettermissing
@Mi_Schu
On the Rod. Kerouac’s other adventure. #bookswithalettermissing
The last time we had this much travel-themed fun on Twitter, we were talking #faketravelquotes.
Patton Oswalt Trick-Or-Treats in His Hotel Room
by Jim Benning | 11.01.10 | 5:12 PM ET
Comedian Patton Oswalt apparently found himself alone in a hotel room last night for Halloween. That didn’t stop him from having a grand time. He unleashed a series of tweets. Among them:
“Trick-or-treater” at my hotel room door just Polish woman checking mini-bar. Happy Halloween. Sigh.
Just ‘cuz I’m alone in a NYC hotel room doesn’t mean I can’t have a happy H’ween.
Now to trick-or-treat in my hotel room. Trick-or-treat, mini-bar! Thanks for the scotch!
Trick-or-treat, bathroom! Yay, Q-tips!
Trick-or-treat, desk drawer! Oooo, a room service menu!
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for October
by @worldhum | 10.29.10 | 3:07 PM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
23 Great Fake Travel Quotes
by @worldhum | 09.30.10 | 4:36 PM ET
iStockPhoto One strange travel quote got us started. The travelers on Twitter took it from there.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for August
by @worldhum | 09.02.10 | 12:13 PM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for July
by @worldhum | 08.02.10 | 11:42 AM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for June
by @worldhum | 07.01.10 | 10:07 AM ET
What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Is Your Concierge Reading Your Tweets?
by Eva Holland | 06.24.10 | 1:37 PM ET
Well, maybe. The Wall Street Journal checks in with some hotel managers who are keeping an active eye on their customers’ Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts, aiming to respond to complaints before any widespread damage is done.
Sounds like good news for plugged-in travelers, right? Sure. But as World Hum contributor Alexander Basek warned after a hotel Twitter dust-up last year, “with great power, comes great responsibility… If you’re going to broadcast a gripe about a business, it should be a serious one.”
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for April
by @worldhum | 05.03.10 | 11:25 AM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for March
by @worldhum | 04.01.10 | 11:05 AM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
‘If You Take Photos of His Food, Grant Achatz Hates You’
by Michael Yessis | 03.30.10 | 1:28 PM ET
So tweets Jason Wilson, regarding this blog post about Alinea chef Grant Achatz’s feelings toward people who photograph the famously photogenic food in his Chicago restaurant.
Top Four Reasons Why Soichi Noguchi is the Coolest Astronaut Ever
by Jim Benning | 03.29.10 | 5:21 PM ET
4. The Japanese astronaut has been posting amazing photos from the International Space Station of Earth via Twitter—the Telegraph has collected a dozen of them here.
3. He has posted videos on YouTube from space, including this one looking down on Madagascar:
2. He recently became the first space traveler to make a sushi roll in space. Behold the feat—and what a salmon roll looks like in zero gravity:
1. He has the coolest Twitter handle ever: Astro_Soichi.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for February
by @worldhum | 03.02.10 | 10:39 AM ET
What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for January
by @worldhum | 02.02.10 | 12:26 PM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
‘They Listen to Me When Things Are Bad’ in Haiti
by Lisa Wixon | 01.20.10 | 12:00 PM ET
Photo by Lisa Wixon Lisa Wixon on the man behind Port-au-Prince's Hotel Oloffson, protest rocker and Vodou priest Richard A. Morse
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for December
by @worldhum | 01.05.10 | 11:47 AM ET
What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Seven Great Tweets About the New TSA Regulations
by @worldhum | 12.28.09 | 1:59 PM ET
We’ve been tracking Twitter’s many great travel tweets for a few months now, and this weekend’s attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight, and the resulting imposition of new, more stringent security protocols for air travelers, has seen the creation of some fine TSA-related tweeting. Here are a few of our favorites:
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for November
by @worldhum | 12.01.09 | 10:44 AM ET
What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
Eight Great Travel Twitter Tweets for October
by @worldhum | 11.02.09 | 2:07 PM ET
iStockPhoto What makes a good travel tweet? Here are eight favorites from the past month.
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