The Titanic Awards

Story from The Guardian   Photograph: Alamy

FAST FOOD HELL

France is in uproar over news that McDonald’s has tainted the hallowed ground of the Louvre. The chain has confirmed that its 1,142nd French outlet will open next month in the underground approach to the art museum. The Parisian authorities haven’t always capitulated to capitalist invaders, though. In 1993, they refused permission to put a McDonald’s under the Eiffel Tower.

Other nations have resisted the powerful golden arches too. Italian designer Valentino led a charge to stop McDonald’s setting up beside Rome’s Spanish Steps (though there are now two branches within 150m). So where else in the world might tourists stumble on an unfortunately placed concession?

For the rest of the story follow the link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/oct/06/fast-food-chains-louvre

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Tourism china, forbidden city, great pyramids, great wall, louvre, mcdonald's, pizza hut, starbucks

Name Wendy Perrin
Who? Condé Nast Traveler’s consumer news editor. She writes a practical advice column called “The Perrin Report,” as well as features on a wide variety of travel topics, and is the author of Wendy Perrin’s Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know. She’s an award-winning authority on consumer travel issues (2005 Travel Journalist of the Year and Lowell Thomas winner). She is frequently on television and radio offering travel advice and discussing trends and issues. (Appearances include The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America). She resides in the New York City area with her husband and two sons.  Follow her popular blog on http://perrinpost.com
Countries Visited 73

Titanic Nominations
Worst Bus Ride Laos. The bumpiest 11 hours of my life, on roads so excruciatingly potholed we averaged 12 miles per hour, were on a bus from Luang Prabang up to Luang Nam Tha in the northern hill-tribe country. It took my lumbar spine six months to recover.
Worst Flight Risking our lives to fly from Luang Nam Tha back to Luang Prabang–in a mechanically challenged Chinese-built Yak-12 prop plane– because we couldn’t bear the prospect of the return bus ride.
Worst City for Driving Venice. (Kidding.) Florence! You get caught on narrow one-way streets that dead-end — streets you share with garbage trucks, delivery vans, and bicycles — and the signage is somewhere between abysmal and nonexistent.
Worst Toilet The most repulsive toilet I’ve ever encountered was at Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan Province in western China. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the details.
Worst Camel Ride Through the desert near the Pyramids, only because I was leaning forward–precariously and painfully–clutching my four-year-old in front of me, trying to keep him from falling off the wildly swaying animal.  To give you an idea of how bumpy that ride was, the moment my six-year-old descended from his camel, his tooth fell out!

agree or disagree? take the 2010 worst travel survey

Famous Travelers china, Condé Nast Traveler, http://perrinpost.com, Laos, Perrin Report, Wendy Perrin, worst

photo by prakhar via flickr

Agree or disagree with the results? take the 2010 survey >>

Follow the Titanic Awards feed on Twitter >>

(5 votes, average: 6.60 out of 10)

 Loading ...

Photos, Survey Results china, dirty water, india, worst drinking water, worst tasting water, worst water

photo by rivard via flickr

A special Titanic shout out to France and Italy for showing they wish to be known for more than just their football teams and cuisine.

Agree or disagree with the results? take the 2010  survey >>

Follow the Titanic Awards feed on Twitter >>

(2 votes, average: 10.00 out of 10)

 Loading ...

Photos, Survey Results, Toilets china, disgusting toilet, india, nasty toilet, squatter, toilet, Toilets, worst toilets

Passengers on a Chinese Shandong Airlines flight were asked to get out and push the 20-ton plane about 800 meters when it broke down shortly after landing. It took the 69 passengers and seven crew two hours.

See story here.

(22 votes, average: 9.82 out of 10)

 Loading ...

Air Travel, Photos china, plane push, Shandong

Name Charles Veley
Who? This former software executive has become known as the World’s Most Traveled Person.  It’s a definition and title he himself has helped create, but there’s no denying that he has likely been to more corners of the globe than anyone else.  If one were to chop up the world into finer geographical slices than just countries, as the MTP group does, you’d have 757 pieces: countries, territories, autonomous regions, enclaves, geographically separated island groups, major states and provinces.  Charles has been to a whopping 709 of them, including the extremely remote Bouvet Island, Chechnya, and Rockall. More at  MostTraveledPeople.com and charlesveley.com
Age 43
Countries Visited All of them

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Hotel Welcome Drink At check-in for an eco-lodge in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, a tree frog hopped onto my forehead, and promptly urinated down my face.
2. Worst Atmosphere Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.  Most Chinese cities are already too polluted to see or breathe.  As the capital of China’s largest coal-mining region, however, Taiyuan raises the stakes.  The entire landscape here is coated in coal-dust, creating a colorless, post-apocalyptic feel.
3. Worst Island to Inhabit Clipperton Island.  Surrounded by sharks, and covered with eerily squawking boobies and beady-eyed red crabs which swarm at night, devouring anything organic in their path, Clipperton has a long history of repelling human life.  Nearly all who have tried to inhabit this Pacific Island (and many have tried) have either died, gone insane, or both.  The US Navy planned to establish an airstrip here during WWII, but lost several ships trying to establish a beachhead and gave up.
4. Worst Place to be Stranded Peter I Island.  While removing expedition gear from this solitary and otherwise inaccessible island 400 miles off the coast of Antarctica, our inexperienced helicopter pilot decided to abandon his four-man crew (including me) due to visibility issues with only five loads remaining.  The weather closed in, and we realized the nearest possible assistance was at least five days sailing away.  Long story short: 24 hours later, our pilot overcame his fear of landing in less-than-perfect conditions and returned to retrieve us.
5. Worst Toilet Amur Highway, Siberia.  Most of hinterland Russia is a de facto toilet for car travelers; with vast wilderness available, why place effort into concentrating such unpleasantries?  However, the very few petrol stations along the only East-West road in Russia (thousands of mostly unpaved, ungraded, and treacherous miles) have wooden outhouses which have never in history been cleaned.  In the Siberian summer, when the mosquitoes and flies grow to be as big as birds, anyone who enters one of these dilapidated shacks exits quickly, often screaming, with arms waving about the head.

Agree? Disagree? Take the survey >>

Famous Travelers aiyuan, and Rockall, Chechnya, china, Clipperton, Most traveled, ouvet Island, Shanxi Province, Siberia

Name Jim Benning
Who? Co-founder, co-editor WorldHum.com. World Hum stories appear often in The Best American Travel Writing and other anthologies, and the site has won Lowell Thomas awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, including, in 2006, the gold award for best Internet site. Jim’s own travel writing has appeared in National Geographic Adventure, The Washington Post and other publications.
Age 38
Countries Visited Dozens.

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Bus Ride The harrowing drive through the mountains from Jiuzhai Gou to Chengdu in Sichuan, China. Extra points for the big bag of fresh yak meat the driver bought at a stop along the road and tossed in the bus aisle. The lower we descended in the mountains, the warmer it got, the greater the stench became, and the more yak blood streamed over the bus floor.
2. Worst Visit to a Tropical Paradise During a military coup. I happened to go to Fiji. The capital was under martial law. It was, um, a little tense.
3. Worst Tourist Trap Kuta Beach, Bali. I love Bali, but you’ve got to get out of Kuta and away from the cheesy T-shirt shops, thumping bars and tuk-tuk touts.
4. Worst Photo-Op for Tourists The real-life donkey painted to look like a zebra on Revolution Avenue in Tijuana. Photos of sombrero-topped, tequila-filled tourists posing with this poor donkey or one of his brothers are collecting dust all over the United States and the world. Why? There’s nothing Mexican about this. Free the donkeys! Burn the photos!
5. Worst Overrun Sacred Spot The tiny cemetery on the island of Janitzio in Lake Patzcuaro during Mexico’s Day of the Dead. Tourism officials were promoting the place to death – no pun intended — and it seemed that all of Mexico had descended upon the cemetery, trampling graves, pushing one another, ruining what is otherwise a beautiful, sacred tradition.

Agree? Disagree? Take the survey >>

Famous Travelers Bali, chengdu, china, fiji, hum, kuta beach, mexico, tourist, World, Worldhum, worst bus, yak

Name Jeff Greenwald
Who? Contributor to such publications as National Geographic Adventure, Outside, Salon.com, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. Jeff is also a performer, whose solo stage show, “Strange Travel Suggestions,” has been running since 2003. Two of his five books include Shopping for Buddhas and The Size of the World. Jeff also serves as Executive Director of Ethical Traveler, a worldwide alliance of politically engaged travelers. More at jeffgreenwald.com and ethicaltraveler.org
Age: 55
Countries visited:  68, because I’m counting Tasmania as a country all its own. And Tibet, of course.

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Place to be Salman Rushdie I love the billboard over one of Tehran’s big intersections: “On the Day the US Praises Us We Should Mourn.” (Does loving the billboard count as praise?)
2. Worst Place to be Caught without a Seat Protector The toilet on the China Railways train from Golmud to Xining looked like a holding pen for baboons with spastic sphincters.
3. Worst Place to Fall Asleep in a Car One crosses Sri Lanka on twisting two-lane highways with buses passing on blind turns at 120 kph. I’m not 100% sure that I’m not actually dead.
4. Worst Country on the Planet Mauritania is the world’s largest cat litter box. And some people still own slaves. Chengueti, shmengueti; give it a miss.
5. Worst Place to Blow Your Nose and Look at the Handkerchief Afterward Kathmandu, Nepal, has long been one of my favorite places on Earth. I’m still giddily happy there, but you can hardly tell through the particle filter mask.

Agree? Disagree? Take the survey >>

Famous Travelers Buddhas, china, eithical, golmud, Kathmandu, mauritania, Nepal, sri lanka, tehran, tibet, toilet, traveler, xining