YOUR ROOTS ARE SHOWING.
Travel Talk April 2013 cover story-Going Home-which featured five essays by
writers who traveled to their motherlands, from Taiwan to Sicily-hit close to
home for readers. “An unexpected Facebook message from a Swedish cousin in 2008
launched trips to visit family in Sweden, California, Italy, and Canada,” wrote
Rian Stenberg of Boca Raton, Fla. “At every
turn we felt at home, as if decades and centuries had not passed. The phrase
Liz Beatty wrote, ‘shared genetic memory,’ almost brought me to tears. It exists
in this transient world and is a powerful motivation to continue the journey.’
Barbara Murphy of Auburn, N.Y., shared her tale
of genealogy luck: “In 2010 my husband and I traveled to England. Before we
left, I sent a vague letter ‘to the attention of anyone’ at St. Nicholas Church
in Potter Heigham, in eastern-most England, from where my great-grandmother
emigrated in 1868. The man who received the letter turned it over to this wife,
who had a keen interest in genealogy. She wrote back and we arranged to meet;
she took us to the churchyard graves of my great-great-great-grandparents and
other ancestors, and handed me an envelope with my family history in England
dating back to 1605. We toured the tiny town where my family lived so many
years ago. I had known my great-grandmother well, and seeing where she grew up
was the highlight of our trip.”
Kelli Nakagama of Salt Lake city,
Utah, bonded with her parents on a recent trip to explore ancestry in Japan:
“My day is a third-generation Japanese American who looks the part but doesn’t
speak any Japanese; my mom is a blond-heired American who looked and felt out
of place, while I am a mix of the two-and the only one able to understand a bit
of the language. Japan was foreign to all three of us, but we were able to
bridge gaps for each other: my dad in describing food and customs from his
childhood, my mom’s outsider’s perspective, and myhelp with communication. We
understand each other better than before.”
In “Unearthing a Polish Past,” Nina Strochlic wrote about
Krakow and seeking out the prewar lives of her grandparents, who she wrote had
been forced into ghettos in the late 1930s. however the Krakow Ghetto was not
established by the Nazis until 1941. “I’ve heard ‘late 1930s’ so often in our
family lore that I never questioned it,” explains Strochlic. “I regret not
doing so.” The essay also misdescribes Krakow’s Wawel Castle ,which is Polish
Renaissance in style.
PARENT TRAP In a column about airplane
etiquette, Christopher Elliott suggested that no annoyance “sets off the
fireworks as much as Other People’s Kids.” Well, nothing stokes readers’ ire as
much as suggesting that parents deserve a pass, with Elliott citing his
daughter’s recent behavior as “unfixable.” Phyliss Meyers of Miami,Fla.. wrote: “Why did Elliott forget his own
advice to think about others? I have never traveled with children without bag
of tricks that kept them content.”
SWISS MISS “Swiss Tracks” lauded the ease of traveling
Switzerland by train. Regrettably, our editing proved less efficient: A caption
incorrectly located Bern’s Zentrum Paul Klee museum, and the article also
misspelled the Italian town of Cervinia.
BILLOWING ASH FROM
Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano
dashed travel plans in 2010, but travel to the icebound peak has been booming
since that eruption grounded millions across Europe. Volcano tourism if flaring
up globally, and back to life last August, spurring an uptick in visitors to
the long-dormant volcano. On Hawaii’s Big Island, 
Kilauea volcano recently marked 30 years of nonstop eruption (the
longest in recorded history), but after lava started cascading dramatically
into the Pacific this winter, visitors began flocking with renewed vigor.
Located in a national park that’s open 24 hours a day, Kilauea offers surreal
twilight views, with the renovated Volcano House-the only U.S. hotel on an
active volcano-newly reopened. “Seeing the caldera lit up at daybreak remind us
that we’re standing on a celestial body an puts our human dramas in
perspective,” says Kathleen Hackett, a traveler from California. Tip: Active
volcanoes change constantly. Learn Kilauea’s current top vantages from local
park rangers, who get morning briefings, and monitor Tongariro flow updates at doc.govt.nz
A CURTAIN IS ALWAYS RISING
in Vienna, Austria, with vacant shops now playing new roles as stand along
hotel rooms. A trio of architects launched Urbanauts (“city
explores”), a network of street-level “lofts” that combine with the funky shops
and galleries of Vienna’s fourth District to form “horizontal” hotels. “Our
breakfast room is Café Goldegg around the corner; our spa is the Moroccan
hammam next door,” says Theresia Kohlmayr, a hotelier’s daughter who helped
conceive the project as a creative way to adapt the empty storefronts dotting
the area. Since the opening two summers ago, about 400 guests have stayed in
the original room (120 euros), a former tailor shop that has been retrofitted
wit hlayered window panels that can be adjusted for privacy (or voyeurism). The
team plans to roll out three more rooms this year and envisions ten total
throughout the Fourth District. Guests check in with a secret code and get the
inside track on the neighborhood, receiving bicycles to borrow and a map
recommending local businesses that range from holistic pharmacy Saint Charles
Apotheke to nightspot Xpedit Kiosk. “This hotel’s lobby,” says Urbanauts
partner Christian Kanpp, “is the city.”