The Titanic Awards

Name Rory MacLean
Who? Award-winning travel writer with a regular column in The Guardian and the Goethe-Institut.  His six books include the acclaimed bestsellers Stalin’s Nose and Under the Dragon. Rory has won the Yorkshire Post Best First Work prize and an Arts Council Writers’ Award, was twice shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Prize and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was described by William Dalrymple as “the last literary traveler.” Born in Canada and a resident for many years in the UK, he now lives with his family in Berlin. More at RoryMacLean.com
Age 52
Countries Visited 87

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Bus Ride Toronto Transit Commission’s route 33A, which I rode every day to school.  The bus was so slow and dependable that it helped drive me away from Canada and out into the wild, unpredictable and ever-surprising wider world.
2. Worst Decision on the Road In rural Burma while researching Under the Dragon, I accepted the offer of a ride into the Shan hills from a warlord.  During the journey he drank heavily, shot dozens of tropical birds with an AK-47 and at the end of the day pulled out his pistol and accused me of not respecting him.  It was the worst decision because I took along my wife, and so endangered her life.  The journey could have gone very, very badly.  The decision still haunts me to this day.
3. Worst Flight A Cubana Airlines internal flight with chickens in the overhead compartments and livestock in the aisle.  On the final approach to Havana I thought I was going to die (from the smell).
4. Worst Car Rental Once I rented a car in France – I won’t say where – from a total charlatan.  He promised me a new model, but gave me an old banger. He said I could collect it at nine in the morning, but didn’t turn up until noon.  He assured me there would be no mileage charge, and that too was a lie.  So in a desire for some small justice, I disconnected the odometer and drove hundreds of miles without clocking up a single one of them.
5. Worst Souvenir While researching Magic Bus, traveling across Asia along the old hippie trail, I was careful about my diet.  I was so relieved to have survived Afghanistan that, when I crossed into Pakistan and stayed with a Canadian friend in Peshawar, I let down my guard… and ate a peanut butter and jam sandwich with accompanying lettuce leaf.  I suffered from amoebic dysentery for the following month.

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Famous Travelers Guardian, literary traveller, Rory MacLean, stalin's nose, worst bus, worst rental, worst souvenir

Name Mike Carter
Who? Freelance travel writer whose work appears mostly in the Guardian and Observer newspapers. His Uneasy Rider travel column in the Observer, which charted his 2006 six-month solo motorcycle trip through Europe and beyond, was subsequently turned into a book of the same name. He’s currently cycling around the coastline of Britain — a journey of 6,000 miles — for his latest Observer column. If he survives, he plans to write a book about it too. Check out his column here.
Age 45
Countries Visited 54

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Stretch of Road for Motorcycle If things haven’t improved since 2006, any stretch of road in Albania. In just a few short days, I practically destroyed my shocks in the potholes, was attacked by snakes, shot at and had the nearest of near misses with a car that came straight at me before flying over a wall. It was like starring in my own Indiana Jones movie.
2. Worst Travel Writing Line A toss up between “It was the perfect end to the perfect day” and “I’ll definitely be back”. I’m pretty sure I’ve used them both at some stage. Possibly in the same piece.
3. Worst Thing about Guidebooks I may be missing the point here, but I can’t for the life of me understand why some guidebooks print huge, double-page spread color photos of places and just a few words about them. You’ve bought the guidebook, you’re reading the guidebook. You are, presumably, going to travel to see the place for yourself. So give us some useful information, not pictures, damn you.
4. Worst Meal Not so much a meal, but I bought a Fan Milk, an ice-cream type snack, in Togo recently. Unpasturised milk product, from a street vendor, in Togo. It was coming out of both ends for days. Funny that.
5. Worst Toilet No contest. In a bar in a village in central Romania they had an outside toilet up some steps. When you entered, you saw that the toilet was just a very large hole in the floor to a deep pit of sewage about six feet below you. The floor was very slippery as one can imagine and the hole easily big enough to fall through. No one would even know you were gone. I have nightmares about it to this day.

Famous Travelers biking, cycling, Guardian, mike carter, motorcycle, Observer, travel writer, Uneasy rider