Talking Travel: Copenhagen and holiday travel

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Photo by Lonely Planet Photographer Christer Fredriksson

Ah, the joys of traveling to conferences, right? Imagine being in Copenhagen, Denmark this week, trying to elbow your way through world leaders, climate conference delegates, thousands of protesters, and the police. Well, while delegates to the United Nations Climate Conference try to hammer out a deal on global climate change, we here at Talking Travel are using it as an excuse to talk about Copenhagen, and the rest of Denmark, as a tourist destination. Robert Reid and Tom Hall from travel publisher Lonely Planet are on hand as usual to help us out. We’ll take you beyond The Little Mermaid statue and Tivoli Gardens. You’ll hear about Copenhagen’s bicycle-friendly streets, and about the city’s edgy, but hip meat-packing district, Vesterbro. You’ll also get the skinny on Christiana, a military camp turned commune that offers visitors a very different experience. We’ll also fill you in on an interesting tourism campaign that Denmark launched earlier this year. It featured a young woman who claimed to be searching for the father of her baby. The ad, which went up on YouTube, seemed to suggest that Denmark is full of beautiful blonde people just waiting to have sex with any tourist who shows up.

That, naturally, leads us into a discussion of some of the stranger tourism campaigns we’ve heard about recently. We really liked the one about the sheriff in the Iowa town that was “arresting” drivers with out of state plates, not to ticket them, but to give lure them into staying the night!

And we end with some stories of holiday travel. Bug-infested closets in Burma, and less than comfy benches in Sydney Airport both make appearances. Do you have an unusual holiday travel story to share? Leave your comment below, or email us. Don’t forget to put “Holiday Travel” in the subject line of your email.

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