The Titanic Awards

Name Alisa Gould-Simon
Who? Editor of the hip travel site Gridskipper.com.  She’s also a freelancer who has contributed to New York Magazine, Blackbook, The Daily Beast and Paper.  More at AlisaGouldSimon.com
Age 25
Countries Visited 16

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Toilet At the Great NY Noodle Town – a decent restaurant — the bathroom is dirty, no toilet paper, etc. But the weird/worst part was the kitchen tongs hanging on the back of the toilet. It leaves you to ponder if they’re used for food or something else.
2. Wost Ride on the Back of an Animal A malnourished horse at the Great Pyramids.  I was visiting with friends and, once we started riding, our Egyptian tour guides thought it would be fun to have us race. So they started whipping our horses (not understanding our pleas to stop) and our steeds bolted off at a mad gallop while we tried to hang on.
3. Worst Souvenir A hematoma from the saddle on the galloping malnourished Egyptian horse. The saddle wasn’t put on properly, so it was digging into my leg. That was in 2003 and I still have the scar.
4. Worst City for Driving Egypt. I spent time in a taxi in Egypt and also with friends behind the wheel, but didn’t drive myself. It was the worst for lack of pedestrian crossings. But I was hit by a car in New York, so I’m also inclined to nominate .
5. Worst Scam/Best Dysentery I was in Dahab and two “guides” offered to take two female friends and me on a camel tour in the desert. Then it turned out there weren’t any camels – it was a hike. Then when they had us in a remote part of the desert, they got a little sketchy – enough to get us worried.  Just then, one friend got a bad case of dysentery. It was disgusting enough to freak them out, and they brought us right back.

Famous Travelers Alisa Gould-Simon, gridskipper, gridskipper.com