The Titanic Awards

Name Jason Cochran
Who? He was awarded Guide Book of the Year by the North American Travel Journalists Association for Pauline Frommer’s London. He is a regular writer for the New York Post, AOL’s WalletPop.com, and Travel + Leisure.com.  He has also written for Budget Travel (as senior editor), New York Daily News, New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Newsweek, Frommers.com,  Arena (U.K.), Who (Australia), and Scanorama (Sweden).   As a commentator, he has appeared on CNN, Australia.com, WOR, Outdoor Life Network, MSNBC.com, and many radio programs.  He spent nearly two years backpacking solo around the world and now lives in NYC.
Age 37
Countries Visited 55

Titanic Nominations
Worst Metro Glasgow Underground. Tiny as a dollhouse, loud as a jet, and it only goes around in a circle.
Worst Airline Policy Charging for water. You can’t take your own through security, yet SAS, Ryanair, and countless others charge €3 for it. Pure trap-and-gouge.
Worlst Flies Australia’s Northern Territory. They’ll literally drink the water off your eyeballs.
Worst Maps Tokyo. You need an engineer’s degree to find the washroom in some malls. Out on the street, addresses are nonexistent.
Worst Street Crime Johannesburg. At the hostels, they don’t gather at night to talk about what they saw that day. They discuss who got mugged.

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Famous Travelers australia, flies, glasgow, jason cochran, johannesburg, maps, metro, mugged, underground

Name Robert Young Pelton
Who? Filmmaker, speaker, and author of The World’s Most Dangerous Places, Come Back Alive and Licensed to Kill. He has traveled alongside the Taliban, CIA, Blackwater and too many rebel groups to list.  And he’s  the only travel writer with his own signature survival knife! (ratcutlery.com)  More at comebackalive.com
Age 53
Countries Visited 120+

Titanic Nominations
1. Least Civilized Militants The Small Boys Unit I was with in Liberia was run by a 15-year-old who had three or four girlfriends and always smoked a huge spliff. These guys (mostly 10 – 12 year olds) like to cut the enemy to pieces after they were dead. Not very sporting chaps.
2. Worst Jungle Darian Gap. Very dry, hot and thorny. At the time I was kidnapped, getting marched at night (at gun point), so you fall a lot  and the spikes on the trees you grab to catch yourself would go right into you. I was literally unhooking these tines from my hand.
3. Worst Military Food French MREs. You’d think they’d have this gourmet stuff, but they had  two dozen flavors of greasy southern French crap that even the peasants wouldn’t touch.
4. Worst Spot for Getting Mugged Jo’burg, South Africa. It was worst in that no one would mug me. I put a camera on my neck and timed it because this was supposed to be some great spot for getting mugged. But I was just approached by really friendly locals telling me I probably shouldn’t stand there with a camera on my neck.
5. Worst Toilet In Mali I asked where the toilet was… they pointed outside. There is a lot of outside in Mali. Huts and then sand as far as you could see.  And they didn’t go inside the huts.  So everywhere was the toilet. I was just supposed to wander out into the sand and find a spot inbetween everyone else’s shit and go. With everyone watching. And you know everyone wants to see how the white guy goes to the toilet.

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Famous Travelers Darian Gap, johannesburg, kidnapped, LIberia, Mali, militants, most dangerous, mugged, worst toilet