The Titanic Awards

Name Will Hide
Who? London-based freelance travel writer with a weekly column in The Times. Find him on the web at willhide.com and willhidetravels.blogspot.com
Age 42
Countries Visited 50ish

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Flight Scariest was flying Belgrade-London on JAT in November 2009 when we passed too close to the jetstream of a 747 somewhere over Austria. It’s the only time I’ve really thought “this is it”.
2. Worst In-Flight Meal I hate it on short, overnight flights from the US east cost to London when they wake you two hours before landing for “breakfast” and then just give you a muffin that has a sell-by date of June 2019 and a cup of luke-warm dirty water that they laughingly call coffee.
3. Worst City for Driving Cape Town. You expect it to be bad in somewhere like Tehran or Dhaka, but Cape Town in theory has more of an air of civility – so why are their drivers so selfish, never letting you in at junctions and cutting you up all over the place?
4. Worst Ride on an Animal On an elephant in Assam, India. Never, ever ride an elephant in shorts. Their skin is like industrial sand paper. The hair on the inside of my legs still hasn’t grown back.
5. Worst Museum There’s a Jesse James exhibition in Stanton Missouri, USA, which is basically a posh shed next to a highway. It’s devoted to the notion that JJ never died young in the 1890s but went into hiding, grew old and passed away peacefully in Texas in the 1950s, supported by a few pictures of an old guy with a similar nose and ears – except they’re not similar at all. It’s just so bad, it’s good. You’ve got to admire the belief of the people who run it.

Famous Travelers columnist, freelance, The Times, travel writer, Will Hide, willhide.com

Name Christopher Elliott
Who? National Geographic Traveler’s ombudsman and nationally syndicated travel columnist. Probably the best person in America to contact when you get ripped off by anyone in the travel industry. For updated insider info, check out his practical, regularly updated blog.
Age 41
Countries Visited About 50

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Pizza Anything made by a chain restaurant. The cardboard it comes in tastes better, and it’s probably more nutritious.
2. Worst Toilet There was this outhouse in the French Alps. It was the summer of 1988. I decided to go outside because I was afraid I might pass out. Fortunately, only the cows could see my indiscretion
3. Worst First-World Airport Newark.
4. Worst Visa Queue Heathrow.
5. Worst Drivers Have you ever been to South Florida? That stretch of I-95 between Palm Beach and Miami is some of the most dangerous highway in America. Seriously. I wouldn’t want to be driving on it after dark. Makes the Daytona 500 look like driving school.

Famous Travelers chris elliott, christopher elliott, columnist, heathrow, newark, ombudsman, rip-offs