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The Oatmeal can be a little too South Park for me most of the time, but this comic from yesterday, “The crap we put up with getting on and off an airplane,” made me laugh out loud. It’s a visual representation of one of our most prevalent travel fails: Other passengers.

Imagine working at New York’s tourism office right after 9/11. Ouch.

We’ve discussed New Orleans’ smart ad campaign to combat the negative stereotypes surrounding the oil spill and Hurricane Katrina. It’s been five years since the levees broke, and the city has had a lot of attention to mark the anniversary, most notably GOOD magazine’s entire issue about the rebuilding of the city. Things seem to be looking up for the Big Easy.

The city now boasts more than 300 new restaurants, hotels have undergone $400 million in improvements, and there are new cultural attractions such as The Audubon Insectarium and The Southern Food and Beverage Museum. And tourism jobs are up to 70,000, slightly below a pre-Katrina high of 85,000.

What do tourist bureaus, do, however, when a massively popular television series takes the entire town’s system to task? For five years?

I’m talking, of course, about the HBO series The Wire, and the city of Baltimore. I’m one of those arrived-late-in-the-game-viewers of the critically-acclaimed series, and I am seriously addicted to this show. Each season looks at a different aspect of what has contributed to the city’s overall drug, unemployment, homeless and violence issues, via the streets, political and school system, and the media. It paints a completely bleak and harrowing look at the town.

How on earth do the people at Baltimore’s visitors bureau fight the perception brought on by The Wire? I have to believe that series caused a problem for their tourist industry. This is a great piece about how the show fuels this perception:

You could argue that The Wire gives a distorted image of Baltimore. The story rarely takes us to the safe, affluent areas of the city, and they do exist – the Inner Harbor, for example. Home to a public aquarium, a science centre and a “festival marketplace” (a complex of shops and restaurants), the Inner Harbor is superficially a pleasant place to visit, and attracts thousands of tourists. But if The Wire has taught us anything, it is not to trust appearances. The area was redeveloped in the 1970s and 80s under the auspices of mayor William Donald Schaefer, through a public-private partnership. As well as the aquarium, some hotels and a convention centre were constructed with a view to attracting tourist and “hospitality” dollars to the city. But an even larger convention centre was subsequently needed to make the plan work. Then, it emerged, an even larger hotel was needed to make that work. The result was a phenomenon Harvey calls “feeding the downtown monster”.

I laughed hysterically when I saw the city’s latest campaign: Find Your Happy Place in Baltimore. They’re using social media, and made their website all friendly and whatnot. But after watching that show, and visiting a few times myself, it feels like a serious stretch.

I wonder if New Orleans is at all concerned about David Simon’s (the creator of The Wire) new series, Treme. Named after an area in New Orleans, and set three months after the Katrina disaster, the show explores how citizens of the city rebuild their lives. I’ve heard it isn’t as gritty as The Wire, but it’s only begun. Simon’s genius is how he shows a city’s dysfunction on every level.

I’m not convinced even the savviest of PR tourist campaigns can salvage a town’s image once Simon rides into town.

Your Reader Tips section is the worst. It’s a mix of un-eco buy-this-at-a-dollar-store-in-Hawaii advice, mixed with Reader’s Digest style inanity. In short, it’s Boomers Gone Wild, and they are inordinately preoccupied with pickpockets, plastic bags, and preventing moisture damage. Please stop encouraging them. To wit, some examples from this month’s issue. Each of these are from individual writers, but I don’t want to list their names–I’m too embarrassed for them.

“Talcum powder…full-size bottles are too bulky to fit in my suitcase. Instead, I fill up an herb jar.”

May I recommend an incredible new invention called the travel-sized item?

“Luggage tags with zippers are great for carrying credit cards and cash. Just fasten one to your belt loop, tuck it under your waist band and inside your pants.”

Let’s just set aside the horror of the French shopkeeper as you reach into your sweaty waistband to pull out your cash. Instead, I’m going to think about the Thai waitress who assumes that all Americans don’t understand what a luggage tag is. Please stop.

“I like to collect silica gel packs…[and] when I travel to humid locations, tuck them into Ziplock bags with my camera…no moisture problems yet!”

Have you considered not locking your camera into a plastic bag in the first place?

“I always bring a Polaroid PoGo instant mobile printer…whenever I give someone my business card, I print a picture of myself on adhesive Zink photo paper and attach it to the back of my card.”

“Hold on a minute, please. I’m just going to take this picture of myself, pull out my travel printer, and affix this to the card.” Awkward 10 minutes follow, when the card recipient wishes she had stayed in her hotel room. Also, they make cards now you can get at home with your photo already on them. Some items shouldn’t be travel-sized–like printers.

“Before I go traveling with my laptop, I download product manuals….Not only can I leave the bulky instruction books at home, but I never have to leaf through reams of paper.”

Two things. You read product manuals? And take them with you on trips? Really?

Budget Travel, these posts diminish your brand. They make me think you don’t understand modern travel, and are instead are most interested serving the same group of people scared to leave their house for the pickpocketing wilds of Paris.

One small other tidbit: The piece this month on the Oregon Coast was just lazy. The writer stopped in a crab shack, and then he popped in a couple shops in Manzanita and Cannon Beach.

From the way it was written, it seems as thought he never made it past the lot at Oswald West State Park (“when I arrived, surfers were wrapping up a midday session tugging off hoods and wetsuits”–no description of the trails, protected cove, or tidal pools that you’d see from the beach itself). Oswald West has gotten crowded anyway, so I guess that’s a good thing. But a write-up of the Oregon Coast should include details about hikes, places to stay, and the beaches themselves, not just ruminations of how it’s changed since the author was there last.

I’m worried about you, Budget Travel. In an era where guidebooks are becoming ever-less relevant compared to social media, a print magazine needs to be fantastic, inventive, and innovative. It needs to have advice and tips that apply to us, the modern travel set, not to the crazy people who carry everything in their bag in a ziplock, and not to the lazy, indulgent writers who want to ruminate about their own childhoods instead of offering advice.

Please get better soon. We really are fond of you, and want you to survive the Great Recession.

Report: 10 Million Killed Annually By Stepping Out Of Comfort Zones

WASHINGTON—A new report published this week by the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that more than 10 million Americans are violently killed each year while attempting to break away from their regular everyday routines and try something new. “We found that getting out of your comfort zone and facing your fears resulted in premature death nearly 78 percent of the time,” HHS researcher Madeline Hersh said. “People always ask themselves, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Well, according to our research, anything from being bitten by a poisonous snake to dying in a hot-air balloon crash can happen.” The report found that the safest individuals were those who surrendered to the soul-crushing monotony of habit and then convinced themselves that they had things pretty good.

This report is also dedicated to the two student-age dudes I saw on my last flight to Europe with their iPhones tucked into their neck pouches, causing their shirt to both bulge out awkwardly and poke them. For 10 hours. Europe is a scary place!  Good all those travel professionals gave them such sage advice.

I searched the Google maps nearby towns looking for a B&B, and mapped out my route using Google street view. It looked like the total commute time by bike would be 30 minutes, 45 tops. After my freakout about how it would work and my test drive in Delft, I found out that the Netherlands really makes biking easy, no matter where you are.

Video of my daily ride after the jump.

I’m hoping the cute song makes the bumpiness charming, rather than nauseating.

I live in Seattle, and we have nothing like this. We have someone who seems to be an ineffectual mayor (my skeptical friend nicknamed him Mayor McCheese). He actually complimented my own Dutch bike when I saw him in my neighborhood, which is nice. But what would be nicer is a plan for a real biking infrastructure like the kind in this tiny town in the Netherlands, so small it barely has a wikipedia entry. Does this plan exist already? I don’t think so. And if not, Mayor McGinn, could you create  it? Because the video above shows how fantastically great that was for many reasons.

In case you want to enjoy some much-more-professional videos (sans rockiness and something on the lens), try out these favorites sites that always inspire:

• Cycle Chic
• Amsterdamize
• Let’s Go Ride a Bike

This morning, I was thinking about how much fun it was to be in Holland during the World Cup, and I was feeling a little sentimental about it. So with that in mind, I pulled up these videos to the theme songs for the 2010 World Cup.

These two songs below were in constant rotation during my trip. When I say that these were everywhere, I mean it: On every commercial break, playing from every corner shop, on the sound system of ever eetcafe, booming from every car that went past. Normally, this kind of thing drives me nuts. I can’t justify or excuse it–these songs just reminds me of this recent trip and how interesting it was to be there during the World Cup. If you’re having one of those Wednesdays, I suggest you watch to see if one of these videos doesn’t lift your mood.

This is a fun video of the most omnipresent song during this time, reworked with vintage footage by an African TV station.

Along with the incredible goals, I also just enjoy scenes of fans losing their minds. Fun.

Even though I’m definitely not a Shakira fan, I find it hard to be in a bad mood when I hear this song.

Via the Guardian

But a fashion journalist should know better. Which is why “What to Pack: Fashion and Gadgets for Backpackers” from the otherwise savvy Guardian earned a big fat fail.

Let’s start with the smaller violations, and work our way up to the big one.

Fugly boots are not fashionable, no matter who wore them for an Amazon trek.

Admittedly, I’ve never seen a stylish backpack, but even so, I’m pretty sure this is just run-of-the-mill.

How about an impractical, be-tasseled scarf, sure to add some extra weight to your pack?

But it’s this item–both impractical and hideous–that just kind of makes me angry. In general, I’m not a fan of the onesie for women. Add to that the idea of stripping off my top in the woods to pee in order to bunch up an eyesore of a floral jumpsuit in one hand. Fail.

If I was a Photoshop whiz, I’d create an artists rendition of this fashionable backpacker, rocking her onesie, scarf, boots, and backpack on the trail. But it might cause seizures upon viewing.

It’s sometimes funny to realize that in just six months, we’ve run the gamut from Eva Peron to Eva Gabor.

Other people have made this point, of course, including the always-brilliant Emily Nussbam and the Guardian. We knew, going in, that “Eat Pray Love” was doing to fit all the stereotypes of a chick flick, and as Jezebel and EW so aptly summarized, “if women like it, it must be stupid.”

So–what did we actually think of the movie, the book, the whole Elizabeth-Gilbert-theme park that is “Eat Pray Love”?

Betty: I’m just going to say it: I loved Julia’s clothes. I couldn’t stop obsessing over them. She was so appropriately dressed for traveling as a 30-something woman, especially when they were on the beach at the end. She looked like a real traveler who had ditched her foundation months ago.

Lia: Yeah, totally. She made the flowing linen look reasonable. And there wasn’t a single fugly reversible travel dress in the lot.

I will say that I was kind of poised to hate it, even though I can admit that I read the book. Then I saw the ad in the New York Times and was like: Huh. They totally got what it’s like to travel to a place you’ve always dreamed of visiting. Have you seen the ad?

Betty: Nope.

Lia: She’s sitting eating gelato in Rome, and there’s nothing that tells you that except the architecture nearby and the nun on the park bench, plus the oh-my-god-I’m-actually-here face. I also liked that even though her Bali rental was off-the-hook insane, her Rome apartment was crappy. I’ve also heated up a bathtub in a hostel with water from the stove, so I liked that too.

Betty: Yes. And I have totally had a crazy pseudo land lady who had puritanical rules about no boys allowed. But I was prepared to hate the part in India.

Lia: Because of the New Ageyness? I know that’s not a word.

Betty: Because the scene on the rooftop in the book was SO ANNOYING, her asking forgiveness of her ex and him coming to her. And then, of course, while watching the movie…I sobbed.

Lia: Me too. And I sobbed to Neil Jackass Young, which is so much worse. Even as I was doing it, I was like: I hate you a little, Elizabeth Gilbert.

And speaking of things that are annoying: Javier. He has a disturbingly giant head. It filled the entire screen. Like, at some points in the movie, didn’t it feel like his giant eagle head was eclipsing the scenery? And that his face is made up of 50 percent eyeballs?

Betty: As you know, Lia, I love him. Loved him in “Vicki Christina Barcelona.” He was so hot in that. I couldn’t wait for face time in EPL. But what happened to him? Did he marry Penelope and all of a sudden his face became the biggest face in the world? Did he recently get work done because of a massive boxing accident? Is he suddenly Mickey Rourke? It’s confusing.

Lia: It will probably kill you to hear this, but I couldn’t make it all the way through “Vicki Christina Barcelona.”

Betty: WHAT!?

Lia: I was like: Why is ScarJo trying so hard to sound like Woody Allen? Ohhhh right. I gave it 45 minutes and then gave up.

But back to EPL. Why do you think so many people hate it? I mean, I liked it for what it was: A pretty travel movie with some New Age philosophy thrown in. It was like the movie equivalent of visiting the Body Shop. Why the hate?

Betty: They’re jealous of her success, and they don’t want to hear about a woman calling bullshit on her crappy marriage. Plus, I think the New Age bit threw some people. Also, in the book, it’s unclear whether or not she cheated on her husband and people LOVE TO JUDGE THAT.

Lia: I also blame the audience, just like I do with “Twilight.” Fun film + some obsessed idiot fans = tacky, mockable, out-of-control spectacle. Whenever the Balinese healer would come on, the ladies–and it was all ladies–in the audience would coo, like he’s a baby. I think a girl actually said out loud: “He’s so cuuute.” Honey, he’s a grown man, not Justin Bieber. Along those lines of the fans being kind of gross, did you see this Louis Black bit from last night, about the Home Shopping ELP-a-thon?

Betty: Nice. The merch situation is out of control. Eat Pray Love Shop™. Yikes.

Lia: But can I just say, looking at the haters on rottentomatoes.com (which gave the movie a 38% positive) that I refuse to take advice from Boomers like these. The reviewer from that site, who’s listed on rottentomatoes, actually liked it. But she used a Calgon reference, as in “Calgon take me away.” Hello. Calgon was last sold in a store in 1976. Time to update the database.

I do think, when I look through these reviews and see Peter Travers–another soulless Boomer who needs to retire–that if the movie had a gun fight or car chase he would totally love it.

Betty: Exactly. I also loved how she found community in each place. You and I have talked about this. People romanticize traveling alone, but it’s actually not always fun.

Lia: Yes. I liked that too.

I know I keep going back and forth, but one thing I didn’t like I was feeling actively manipulated, both by the book and by the movie. Both Elizabeth Gilberts were trying too hard to be charming.

Betty: I hear what you’re saying, but she doesn’t have to be perfect to write a book. I mean, for Christ’s sake, this is the woman who brought us “Coyote Ugly.”

Lia: Are you kidding? I didn’t know that.

Betty: Can I just say that pic of her at TED bugs me to no end?

Lia: Honestly? I thought her entire TED talk was barfy. When you put “genius” in the title of your talk, you’re kind of calling yourself a genius. Um, no.

That stuff reminds me of what I didn’t like about the book, that kernel of super-annoying myopicness. I almost gave up on the book when she compared her divorce to 9/11. I was like: Really? REALLY?

Betty: Lia, my past job was the Holocaust. I hope you don’t mind me saying that.

Lia: I’m going to ignore that. But I still come back to the fact that she wrote this book, and it’s kind of not her fault that it blew up into this giant pop-culture moment.

Betty: I’ll just be honest. I really want to go to Bali now.

Lia: What do you say to people who argue that Elizabeth Gilbert “ruined” Bali?

Betty: I think those people need to get a grip. Did Hemingway ruin Paris? No.

Lia: That. Is awesome.

Betty: I just think it’s a cop out. I don’t think it ruins places. People like to go to awesome places.

Lia: I also think that if her memoir was published by McSweeney’s in a limited edition felt-covered book, it would be a cult classic. But because she went on Oprah and TED, people hate her.

Betty: Absolutely.

Lia: I heard this joke that seems appropriate: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A number that you totally wouldn’t have heard of.

Betty: Ha.

Lia: I think that’s her deal. She went from like, tiny Radiohead to GIANT STADIUM RADIOHEAD, and people hated her for that, too.

Betty: Right. you don’t see her acting all Jonathan Franzen-ish. She’s like: BRING ON THE PUBLICITY. I’M AWESOME.

Lia: This is also a stupid thing, but I also think it’s because she smiles in her author photos, and looks kind of all-American, glowing, and healthy, when you’re supposed to look like Ellen Page, only poutier. Or, to be honest, if you’re writing a travel book, you should be a dude who’s also done war reporting. And have a graying goatee or those tan lines around your eye wrinkles. In other words, Bill Bryson or Sebastian Junger.

Betty: Totally. OK, one more small thing: How much did you love her bicycle riding?

Lia: Yeah, knowing how obsessed I am with bikes like hers, you can probably guess that I was singularly focused on it as she rode up. But then it distracted me. I was like: Do people really not lock their bikes in Bali?

Betty: People don’t lock their bikes in Thailand.

Lia: My internal dialogue continues through the whole scene: If her bike got stolen, could they identify it? Was it a rental, in which case it was too crappy to steal? It overrode the entire scene. Bike-theft concerns.

Despite all these issues, I still fundamentally liked the movie, and would add it to our recommended travel movie list.

My movie capsule review would be: The movie drags in some super-talky parts, the clothes and scenery are pretty, she didn’t love her husband any more, and she tried to become the hero of her own life. That’s it.

Betty: Love that. Hero of her own life. Exactly.

If you’d like to add us to your iPhone, just open newelty.com in Safari or another browser. It will automatically redirect to the mobile version of our site. Add the home page to your home screen, and voila! An icon will be added.

It seems to take about five minutes for my iPhone to add the icon above. Maybe the icon likes to take its sweet, sweet time. Maybe it’s enjoying an iced coffee before making the journey to my iPhone home screen. I’m not sure. But it does get there eventually. (And if something’s not working for you, will you let us know? We’d be very grateful.)

And in case you’re wondering, that icon is part of the fantastically lovely drawings Genna did for us for newelty. That one, in particular, is based on this shot of a sun-drenched Central Park.