I’ve neglected my own feature the last few Mondays, frankly because I hadn’t read any magazine pieces that interested me enough to write about. This week, however, I am back!
The April 16th edition of The New Yorker is labelled “The Journeys Issue” and since I am an aspiring world traveller temporarily restriced to the armchair variety, I devoured the articles it contained.
The most fascinating article for me was entitled Modern Mecca by Basharat Peer which detailed his experience on the hajj pilgrimage, one of the 5 pillars of Islam Muslims are required to follow. Islam does have a generally negative reputation in the Western media which comes from a few crazy extremists and plain ignorance; this article described a part of the religion that non-Muslims literally cannot witness in person (non-Muslims are forbidden from entering the city of Mecca). Peer also laments the over-development of this holy city. The elephant in the room, as it were, that he does not address — that much of the development he describes is done by the Binladin Group.
Another piece that interested me was by Patricia Marx about couch surfing. A website connects local residents willing to offer a room (or a couch) in their home to travellers visiting their area. It is certainly a cheap (free!) alternative to hotels and hostels, and it is surely a great way to better experience the true nature of a place (i.e. the non-touristy bits), but I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to try it. Do you think you would?
Have any magazine articles interested you recently? Tell me about them!
bibliosue 
That couch surfing site aounds rather interesting! If I didn’t have a whole family to think about, and was just on my own, I might consider doing something like that. Great magazine review today!
I’ve read an article on couch surfing several years ago. I prefer hosteling it to save money. Too introverted to sleep on a strangers couch. Although, certainly a fast track to cultural immersion.