In the above map, conceived by Swedish linguist Mikael Parkvall, each country’s area is proportional to the number of languages it has produced. The map, which appears in Parkvall’s fascinating book Limits of Language, is accompanied by the following caption: Languages are very unevenly distributed among the countries of the world. The map tries to [...]
Whenever I tell people my latest travel plans, I usually get the same response: “Oh, you’re so lucky – I wish I could do that.” What they don’t realize is that they can do that — I’ve made travel a priority and set my life up around it. I could have made a nice down [...]
Fewer than 1,500 Americans have been to North Korea on vacation, according to Koryo Tours, making it one of the truly remote destinations in a world that’s becoming increasingly interconnected. So, if you’re looking for an unusual stamp in your passport or bragging rights when the conversation turns to “most unusual destination,” a trip above [...]
Most owners of a hotel next to a train station would curse their luck, but some Japanese entrepreneurs have turned their noisy locations into profitable ones by marketing the track-side rooms to trainspotters Trainspotters, who prefer to be called “railfans” much like comic book readers insist they read “graphic novels”, constitute a growing subculture in [...]