Photo of the Moment: South China Sea

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It’s the End of the Week As We Know It

Well it is of course Saturday and thus the end of the week. It’s also the end of the Week. I’m referring to my This Week in Offbeat Travel series actually - the one I usually publish every Saturday at noon. I’ve instead devised a nifty way to post “stream-of-thought” style posts to my […]

Flirting With Life

WhyGo writes: Travelling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’ - Lisa St. Aubin de Terán Lovely.

Father of Modern Backpacking Dies at 85

The Sun Sentinel is reporting: Colin Fletcher, whose ornate prose and prosaic tips on such subjects as choosing the right hiking boots helped start the modern backpacking movement, died June 12 in Monterey, Calif. He was 85. Mr. Fletcher died as a result of complications of head injuries he sustained in 2001 when he was struck by […]

Booze in Your Flip-Flops? Q Would Be Proud.

You gotta hand it to the Reef beachwear company. Really, if there’s a beachwear niche to be filled, they’ve got it covered. After their Stash sandals made the Vagabondish 26 Killer Travel Gadgets Every Geek Needs, it appears they’ve been working to outdo themselves. UpgradeTravelBetter.com is reporting: … the good folks at Reef sandals may […]

Traveling Children Must Be Drugged

… that’s essentially the stance of one parent from a recent Wall Street Journal article and poll: One mother, on a message board attached to the poll, defended her use of Benadryl to calm a frightened toddler, asserting it’s “the right thing to do for the child, the other passengers, the flight crew and yes, the […]

Things I’ll Miss When I’m Gone: The Big Glowing Box

“Hi, I’m Mike. And I’m a television addict.” “Hi, Mike!” I’ve cut back - honest - on how much of my time I feed into the big glowing box in the corner of my living room. But there are certain things I’ll miss while traveling - Law & Order, Family Guy, Law & Order: Criminal […]

1 Gallon of Dutch Disconnect, Please

MightyGirl tries to order a latte in Amsterdam. The US/metric-system debate rears its ugly head. Coffee shop hilarity ensues.

No Sushi for You!

Now this is just wrong. WorldHum is reporting on Japan’s latest sushi crisis: … given fishing limits and international demand for sushi, the country can’t get enough tuna. Martin Fackler writes in the New York Times that Japan has fallen into a “national panic,” with news programs devoting much airtime to the crisis. In […]

The French Define the Creepy Art of Kissing Yourself

Aside from making great cheese and even better wine, the French are known for their shameless and often clever attempts at redefining modern art. Case in point: Pupsam’s Selfkiss (give it a minute to load - it’s a large Flash file). Megorious provides us with a translation - albeit a bit choppy - of the […]

John Krohn, Walking the Perimeter of the United States

From my Worst Case Scenario: Survival calendar: John Krohn began a walk along the perimeter of the United States with a wheelbarrow on June 1, 1908. The journey lasted 357 days, during which Krohn walked 9,024 miles. The long days on the road wore out 11 pairs of shoes, 112 pairs of socks, and […]

If Money Were No Object: Supercar Life

Traveling to Pennsylvania any time soon? Supercar Life allows you to get the behind the wheel of five of the world’s slickest super cars. Supercar Life offers the greatest opportunity in the world to drive real supercars as they are meant to be driven. At our Supercar Shootout, with ten supercars at the […]

The Language Barrier Finds Its Way Into the Toilet

Pictures are worth 1000 words. Just sometimes not the right words. This photo from the Etre.com blog shows why those little IKEA-esque instructional pictograms are not always as universal as you might think.

Questions for Bloggers and the Readers Who Love Them, Part 1

(In my case, the reader who loves me. Hi, Mom!) I’m always interested in the work flows of others, be they photographers, web designers, or fellow bloggers. I love to hear what makes other people tick and compare and contrast how they work. I’m splitting this up into a two-part series, so first, a […]

Get Out of the Fish Bowl! Or Just Keep Going in Circles …

I’ve mentioned Jessica Hagy’s clever Indexed blog before. She describes her site as “a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.” Her post yesterday couldn’t be more appropriate for daydreaming cubicle jockeys who […]

Photo of the Moment: Yellowstone Geothermal

Another stunner from Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs: Photo © copyright Trey Ratcliff.

Why Polarizing Filters are Great for Traveling Photographers

What the heck is a polarizing filter? Digital-Photography-School.com reports today: Polarizing filters change the way that your camera sees and treats light. Particularly - when using one you’ll notice a change in how your camera sees reflections, glare and even some colors. Polarizing Filters can give you deep blue skies, help get rid of reflections […]

On the Strange Ways People Find My Blog

I like to check my Google Analytics stats from time to time to see how folks are finding my blog. A few of the stranger keywords that some of my readers have Google’d in June: “ladyboy thailand”: This is a big one and there’s quite a few variations on this theme, including “partnership with ladyboy” […]

Travel 2007 Just Keeps Getting Worse

Has 2007 been a particularly bad year for travel? Or are the papers just reporting that much more bad news this year? Via CBS News, out of Los Angeles: (AP) Fire sprinklers at a Los Angeles International Airport terminal turned on Sunday after a water pipe broke, dousing passengers waiting for flights or picking up their […]

Welcome to New England. Now, Go Home!

… and come back again when you can’t stay so long! A Framingham man called in to Mike Barnicle’s show the other day remarking how introverted and, more to the point, rude the people of Boston are. He related several experiences of people out on the U.S. left coast who were much more friendly and […]

Beer Myths Exposed: Every Hoppy Thing You Know is a Lie

Gadling points us to DrinkingBeer.net’s Top 10 Beer Myths. Interesting points, all. Beer Myth 5: The Guinness they serve in Ireland is better It seems widely accepted that beer in “the old country” is better than what they export to the rest of the world. The brewing process is cheap, so why would a brewery risk […]

A Journey to Every Starbucks in the World

I’m the first person to applaud perseverance and achieving one’s goals. Your life is your life - do whatever makes you happy and never compromise. But, seriously: what personal growth can come out of visiting every Starbucks in the world? On the heels of a measured debate on “meaningless” travel with several […]

Things I Won’t Miss When I’m Gone: Dead, Frozen, Bagged Food

Talk about convenience: I didn’t even need to take this out of the bag before I tossed it into the microwave. Nowadays, about the only thing frozen foods lack is the ability to feed you. I want my bag of Kraft Asparagus Shoots to literally jump out the microwave and wrap themselves around […]

Crafting the Perfect Mojito

The warm weather’s here in the Northern Hemisphere. The official first day of summer just passed and that means it’s high time to switch your boozing habits into refreshing drink mode. Your guests (hopefully) expect something more than wine coolers, tasteless NASCAR beers, and Zima (yes, believe it or not, they still make […]

This Week in Offbeat Travel - June 23, 2007

This Week in Offbeat Travel is published every Saturday at noon Eastern. It’s my attempt to compile a list of various links I’ve scavenged amid the mountain of travel stories, news, and reviews that pepper the web and blogosphere in the past week. Enjoy! If you, like I, laughed until you peed a little […]

Mount Everest Just Can’t Get Enough Love

The dream of one day climbing Mt. Everest is a persistent fantasy in my grab bag of travel ideas. But, like many others, the thought of actually climbing same is more than a bit intimidating. Hence the popularity of Mt. Everest’s Base Camp as the end-of-the-line for many mountaineering hopefuls. World Hum […]

News You Might Have Missed: Incredible Plane Crash Landing

According to Stuff New Zealand: The Air New Zealand Beech aircraft, with 15 passengers and two crew aboard, had tried to land at Wellington when the crew found a problem with its landing gear. The flight from Timaru to Wellington was diverted to Blenheim after the fault was detected. Fire engines, ambulances, police and other support staff rushed […]

Bangladeshi Photography

Gadling points us to GMB Akash - a Bangladeshi photographer who’s incredible snaps are as colorful as they are inspiring. Akash’s slick use of motion blur is stunning - creating simple, almost hyper-real, freeze frames of Bangladeshi people going about their daily lives. All photos © GMB Akash.

Human Tetris

The Japanese never cease to amaze me. It seems no game show, food, or outlandish technology (see Chindogu) is ever weird enough. There’s always some chap in Tokyo willing to push the boundary just a bit further. Check out this video via Two-Zero’s blog: I’m not gonna lie - it looks like fun. I […]

How to Create an RSS Feed for Someone Else’s Blog

Ever visited a blog you love, but are frustrated because they don’t have an RSS feed? How 2004 is that (Sorry, Brooke. You know I love your blog anyway =) )? PonyFish.com is here to the rescue! It’s free and technically you don’t even need to sign up for an account to set […]

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