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Believe it or not, there are other places to eat in the city than in your guide book. In cultural and gastronomic hot spots such as Paris and Barcelona, you barely have to stumble out your front door and down the block before you find a half dozen places to eat -- multiply that by the ten thousand blocks in any given city and you get roughly seventy zillion available restaurants, many within walking distance. How many of those can you fit in your guidebook?
Sure, you run the risk of docking into a complete disaster, getting horrible service and Montezuma's Revenge. But that risk is low, and the chance of you discovering something new -- a restaurant and experience nothing like the other Lonely Planet mongers have encountered -- is actually quite reasonable. Travel shouldn't be legal if you're being led around the city on a leash by your guidebook the entire time; one should open oneself up to risk, failure and the possibility of really great things to happen.
After years of battling over the thousands of pieces of pottery, jewelry and bones, taken from Machu Picchu 90 years ago, Peru is winning the war. The artifacts were lent to Yale University for 18 months but the university has apparently kept them ever since one of its alumni, U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham, rediscovered Machu Picchu in the Andes in 1911.
Like museums in Greece or Egypt trying to get the United Kingdom and other countries to return their ancient treasures, Peru has been fighting to get back theirs from the US. Since we officially frown on imperialism, why do we drag our feet returning that stuff?
It's not whether you are a man or a woman that determines how successful you'll be climbing Mt. Everest--or even if you are an experienced mountain climber, although experience might help--it's how old you are.
The statistics are in. According to data collected after 15 years of studying who makes it to the summit and who doesn't, researchers have found that after a person reaches age 40, his or her chance of making it to the top drops dramatically. Once you hit 60, you may as well forget about it. Well, you might make it to the top at that age, but your chances are slim. After 40 your body systems poop out faster. (That's my interpretation of what I've read.)
This doesn't mean you shouldn't try after the age of 40, but I'd say, know your limits and don't be stupid. If you can't make it, you can't make it. Heck, how many people actually get to Everest's first base camp? How many people actually make it to Nepal? or Tibet? How many people don't even know where these two places are exactly? Or what a sherpa is? If you go trekking in Nepal, hire one. (This shot posted on Flickr by yourclimbing.com was cleverly doctored. Not by me, the person who posted it. Mt. Everest is in the background.)
Ah yes, the old hand painted political slogan on the side of a building. This particular one happens to be San Juan Cotzal, Guatemala. I just love the way the colorful slogan, so very amateur in nature, contrasts almost cheerily against what must surely be a very poor residence in some godforsaken town.
Congrats go out to Sir Isaac Lime for capturing an election in its most primitive form--something so very refreshing compared to what we are currently dealing with here in the United States.
Be sure to visit the Gadling Flickr Pool and upload your favorites for a possibility of Photo of the Day fame.
Today marks the 50th year anniversary of the day the space satellite Sputnik was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. That day the space race was on.
These days, if you have the money to do it, it's not uncommon to travel to space on a private venture. That's what Richard Garriot is going to do next year. He'll be the 6th private citizen to have this ultimate get-a-away experience.
One place I really want to visit, but common sense tells me otherwise, is Chernobyl. No, not the power plant itself, but the nearby ghost town of Pripyat and the wasteland that surrounds it.
Apparently it's just safe enough for visitors to spend a brief time scavenging about before too much radiation mutates their brain cells. We've posted before about tours which the adventurous and/or fool hearted can take out of Kiev. And, we've posted about a rather amazing motor bike journey through the "Zone of Estrangement."
Today, however, we share a chilling video of what a city of 48,000 looks like 20 years after this planet's worst nuclear disaster. And it ain't pretty folks. It sure is tempting to visit, though. And, were it not for the radiation, I'd be climbing all over those buildings. Call me a wimp, but I think I'm staying away for another century or two.
And if this isn't scary enough for you, be sure to click here for an even more frightening video captured in the wintertime.
If you're anything like me, you want to spend as little as humanly possible on your plane tickets. If this means you have to fly on Air Plus Comet, a cargo plane or as a courier (impossible in this day and age, by the way), it doesn't matter. As long as you land in Madrid/Ibiza/Topeka ok, you can handle the temporary discomfort.
For this reason, it pays to be flexible on booking flights; we all know that flying on a weekday or off-season is less expensive, but legacy online travel agents like Orbitz and Travelocity make it difficult to do a broad search. Sure, you can sometimes factor in a few days of flexibility or maybe even a week or month. But if you just need to "get to Greece some time next summer for as cheap as possible," these engines don't have that capability.
Alternatively, try using Zuji.com, the Singapore-based company loosely associated with Travelocity. If you select "other" as your country and select "flights," you can run a flex search between any number of months and just ask it to find the cheapest fare across the board. Depending on the strength of the Singapore Dollar you can also occasionally find cheaper standard fares than on a legacy site. Granted, you're going to have to convert from SGD to USD and they do impose taxes right at the end of the transaction, Zuji is still an excellent resource for research into budget fares. If you have qualms about booking on an offshore site, do your research on Zuji and book through Orbitz or directly through the carrier.
Here at gadling, we are quick to bash the megalomanic American exports ranging from Starbucks and hamburgers to bad movies. It is not that we don't want merican companies to succeed abroad. You just don't want to see home-grown fast-food chains when traveling to Southeast Asia.
I can't help but cringe when I analyze some of the crap America exports. Even worse, that others think America IS that crap.
Take Playboy, for example. Their new store--largest in the world--just opened right in the heart of London, on Oxford Street. If you are like me and have no idea that there is such a thing as a Playboy store, you must wonder: do they sell those heavily airbrushed, half-plastic, no-way-they-could-survive-in-the-age-of-HDTV women? They don't. It is worse than that.
They sell what they call luxury goods: clothes (apparently competing with Diesel), cosmetics and branded knick-knacks to anyone who thinks buying a hat with the bunny head logo on it is living dangerously. The Playboy store doesn't even display the magazine or any sex toys. What? We complain about Starbucks taking over the world one caffeinated step at a time but at least they actually sell coffee, not pictures of coffee.
Despite assurances from the FAA, George Bush, and individual airlines that travel will improve, airlines' on-time records (and reputations) are getting worse. A report from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics marks 24th consecutive month in which on-time performance deteriorated from a year earlier. In August, 159 flights sat on the runway for at least three hours, and the longest wait was six hours.
Long waits and late arrivals are not the only grievances from customers; in August alone there were 1359 complaints about service -- more than two times the amount there were in August 2006.
The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary Architecture is one of the publisher's bestselling titles, and has been around for awhile. The 800+ page book is an obvious coffee-table staple for design lovers -- it features over 1,000 of the most outstanding works of architecture from all over the world that have been built since 1998. With over 5,000 color illustrations, the book covers structures that range from small churches to massive airports.
But it's a beast of a book, which was why I was happy to recently discover the Travel Edition - a 440-page softcover version that is lighter than some guidebooks. Architecture fans who want to be in the know while on the go may choose to pick up a copy of this smaller companion. The same 1,000 structures are included, but with condensed content about each one. On the plus side, there are additional maps to assist with locating buildings. It seems to be an indispensable must-have for travelers with an eye for design.
Serving gourmet food on flights is becoming a real trend as airlines try to make flying more enjoyable while also hoping to part passengers from their dollars. I think it's a bit sneaky to take away in-flight meals only to reintroduce them as items to be purchased, but I can't help but get excited about the idea of eating genuinely yummy food while flying.
Airline food has been typically always on the unflattering side of food comparisons (along with prison food), but its reputation is changing. Airlines are employing well-known chefs and sommeliers to create menus and wine lists; celebrity chef Todd English will be designing meals for Delta. As soon as November you'll be able to order a Mediterranean salad with grilled shrimp or a roast beef Cobb sandwich on Delta flights over 750 miles. Meals will run between $2 and $10 dollars.
Air France and Continental Airlines have also used big-name chefs to entice you to fly with them.
What comes to mind when you think of Bondi Beach? Probably you're imagining bikinis, white sand, leathery-skinned suntanners and the heavenly water, a refuge from the heat of the day. What you're probably not imagining is Jail. That's right -- a German artist has come up with a novel idea: Prison on the beach. I know what you're thinking -- what kind of crime do you have to do to end up in that prison? Well, actually, it's voluntary.
What gives? Turns out it's art, and the master behind the piece, Gregor Schneider, was inspired by racial riots between ethnic Lebanese Australians and white Australian youths that happened in 2005 on another Sydney beach, Cronulla. The cells are meant to capture the confinement of racism in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Or ... something like that ?
The jail cells will come be at Bondi until October 21. So until then, you can trade your time on the white sand in for time behind bars if you want to. But really, who would? Certainly not this beach-deprived traveller.
This past Saturday, while walking along the promenade of Venice Beach in California, I stopped at a crowd gathered around a street performance. As I craned my neck at the outer circle, unable to see, I wondered if the attraction was the man juggling chainsaws like the last time I was at Venice Beach, although, I didn't hear any chainsaws. I elbowed my way towards the front of the crowd, politely of course, but I wanted to see. I had to see. How could I write about it, if I didn't see? I'm glad I was pushy. What a treat. This photo by Malingering posted on Flickr is just a glimpse. Check out the others.)
Here's an interesting new twist to our favorite photo sharing site: Flickr.com has launched a section which compares cameras used by those who upload photos to the site.
Well, if you are looking to buy a camera, you can click on any model featured on the page and Flickr will showcase user photos taken by that same model. It's a pretty cool function but there is no way to tell if some amateur has butchered a shot because he doesn't know how to use the camera, or if some crappy camera has produced a great shot thanks to someone who know how to work PhotoShop.
So, if you're in the market for a camera, pop on over to Flickr but be sure to take it all in with a grain of salt, as the saying goes.
When I travelled through Thailand, I saw a western-style restaurant that had a big sign saying, 'Tired of chili ring sting? Eat here!' While a bit crude (but true), it was an effective draw for tourists who aren't used to eating spicy Asian curries every day and simply wanted something bland; something from home.
After talking about eating pizza in Thailand, I got to thinking -- I've had pizza in a lot of places. Every country I've been to, in fact. Except Korea and Cambodia, but even then I had spaghetti and meatballs, which is somewhat similar in it's Western-ness. Pizza, for me, is my go-to food, what I eat when I don't want to be adventurous and am simply craving a taste from home.
I think everyone has a 'safe' food that makes them feel a little bit less homesick when travelling. An overseas comfort food, if you will. For my mom, when she was trekking through the middle of Africa in the 70s, it was mashed potatoes. For my friend Jenny, it's plain rice with a bit of butter. For Cheryl, it's McDonald's chicken nuggets. So, indulge me, and let me know what your's is -- that way, I won't feel so silly for eating pizza when surrounded by Pad Thai and ancient Buddhist temples.
Believe it or not, there are other places to eat in the city than in your guide book. In cultural and gastronomic hot spots such as Paris and Barcelona, you barely have to stumble out your front door and down the block before you find a half dozen places to eat -- multiply that by the ten thousand blocks in any given city and you get roughly seventy zillion available restaurants, many within walking distance. How many of those can you fit in your guidebook?
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If you're anything like me, you want to spend as little as humanly possible on your plane tickets. If this means you have to fly on Air Plus Comet, a cargo plane or as a courier (impossible in this day and age, by the way), it doesn't matter. As long as you land in 
Here at gadling, we are quick to bash the megalomanic American exports ranging from Starbucks and hamburgers to bad movies. It is not that we don't want merican companies to succeed abroad. You just don't want to see home-grown fast-food chains when traveling to Southeast Asia. 
The 
What comes to mind when you think of Bondi Beach? Probably you're imagining bikinis, white sand, leathery-skinned suntanners and the heavenly water, a refuge from the heat of the day. What you're probably not imagining is Jail. That's right -- 
When I travelled through Thailand, I saw a western-style restaurant that had a big sign saying, 'Tired of chili ring sting? Eat here!' While a bit crude (but true), it was an effective draw for tourists who aren't used to eating spicy Asian curries every day and simply wanted something bland; something from home. 
