The Titanic Awards:  Celebrating The Worst Of Travel, by Doug Lansky

Having been amused by some of the author’s previous work, I must say that there was at least some irritation I found with this book.  At times it appeared as if this book and its voting patterns demonstrated a consistently anti-American pattern (how else could Americans be simultaneously among the rudest, cheapest, most drunken, and most easily gullible tourists and how could so many American cities like Dallas and Houston regularly end up among the world’s worst regardless of the category without there being some sort of anti-American bias in the voting patterns).  Be that as it may, it is easy enough to recognize that given the fact that it is so easy to have bad travel experiences and to have something to kvetch about that it is not surprising at all that such a book like this exists and that in some sense it needs to exist.  There are a lot of people who like to puff up travel destinations without providing a picture of true conditions, and even if I am someone who loves to travel, I tend to also be at least a bit more cynical than the marketing campaigns of so many of the places that I have seen, and the author and target audience of this book appears to be similarly inclined.

After a note to the readers that urges the reader not to read this book in one fell swoop and a short introduction, this book is divided into five parts.  The first part of the book contains various awards given, some of them via votes and others by the author’s own judgment, to air travel.  Many of these undesirable “awards” include either images (some of which show some truly dreadful airplane designs) or a textual explanation of what made a given airport or airline so award-worthy, whether it be rude service or delayed routes or something else of the kind.  After that there is a discussion and awards given to surface transport, both overland as well as sea travel.  The third part of the book looks at hospitality, or the lack thereof, that are provided in certain locations.  The fourth part of the book provides food and drink and the sorts of national cuisines that people would rather do without.  Finally, the book ends with a discussion about less than enjoyable destinations and tourist services, along with two appendices that list major airlines and top 100 cities eligible for awards and some acknowledgments that push the book to about 200 pages in total length.

If I am less than entirely pleased with the sorts of awards that were given, not least because of the biases of the voters, it is worthwhile to note what factors tend to make travel difficult for others.  I consider myself a fairly patient traveler, and that has meant dealing with long wait times in airports (Miami comes off poorly here, but so does Amsterdam), dealing with airports that are a nightmare to navigate through (like Los Angeles), dealing with delayed flights, terrible or nonexistent airplane food (especially within the United States), or buses or trains that are designed for people a foot shorter than I am, as was the case in some of my Thai travels.  It is important that tourists have ways of pointing out how countries have not always made themselves ready for visitors and are not always ready for prime time, with the awareness that most people in most countries have at least some sort of interest in and curiosity and politeness towards the clueless people who visit their countries.