Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
A Weekend of Iceshoeing… Oh Wait, Snowshoeing
Went snowshoeing a couple of weekends ago, and although it hadn’t snowed in ages and the physical activity probably should have been deemed “iceshoeing,” it was a great adventure all the same.
An excerpt from my trip dispatch over at Wend:
Packs filled with apples and granola bars (because we left in too much of a hurry to actually plan a real lunch), we set out on a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, headed for Trillium Lake. To say the snow was well packed would be an understatement. “Having fun on the ice today?” I remarked when we passed a group of cross country skiiers.
“Yeah, you’re probably having a much easier time,” replied one of them, pointing to my snowshoes.
“True, although I think it would be easier just to walk.”
But if you’ve come to snowshoe, you’re going to snowshoe dammit! No matter how much easier taking them off might be…
Read the whole thing here along with a great slideshow of pics.
The Beauty of Mass Transit
Maybe it’s because I live in a city known for it’s public transportation, but I love mass transit. Anywhere I travel I make it a point to take a local bus or subway, and tend to put a map of the transit system in my pocket to be oggled at upon return. I am therefore enjoying the slideshow put together by the Huffington Post’s Dave Burdick. It’s an excellent collection of the design of public transit maps.
Take a look at the full slideshow here.
Paris Bike-share Program Vélib is Getting Even Bigger
It was revolutionary. Bike blogs, sustainability gurus and national news outlets all gave ample to time to Paris when the city launched its commendable Vélib bike-sharing program. A year and a half later, the existing fleet of bicycles is expanding, ready to take over the suburbs.
The program is so popular with Parisians that “Velib” was the 2nd most popular Google search. So with an additional 300 stations and 3,300 not renting a bicycle while touring Paris just won’t be an option, and ça, c’est super!
[Via Bike-sharing Blog]
Mountainfilm On Tour
I was stoked to receive the Mountainfilm 2008 guide in the mail yesterday. Sent to me in order to get a feel for what this year’s film festival will be like, the guide made me want to immediately book a ticket for the upcoming event in May. If you’re not familiar with Mountainfilm it’s an annual film festival dedicated to “educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving, and conversations worth sustaining.”
So it’s not just a collection of climbing and hiking films; there are also ones about conservation, social justice and cultural issues. All things that we should be concerned about! Last year’s films include Carpa Diem, Losing the Elephants and Flow (a personal favorite documentary about water issues).
But for those who can’t make it to the actual festival held in Telluride, CO, there’s Mountainfilm On Tour. A selection of films from the festival are taken on the road to reach audiences that otherwise would not have experienced them. The tour is coming to Portland tomorrow which I’m excited about, but if you live elsewhere, be sure to check out the tour schedule.
Sounds of Travel: Air’s ‘Ce Matin La’
My latest Sounds of Travel is up over at Gadling. I wrote about one of my favorite bands and songs, Ce Matin La by the French duo Air. It’s hard to listen to it without being put in a good mood.
Here’s an excerpt:
For me, traveling music has to provide a good background. It has to to flow with your up and down emotions, fit a variety of situations, but be distinct enough that it brings back memories when you return home. For that reason, in my last post I wrote about St. Germain, which is one of my favorite artists to listen to while traveling. Along those same lines comes Air, another electronica-inspired group that hails from France.
As I wrote about St. Germain, music like this immediately takes me back to living in France; I can envision the first time and place that I listened to either of these two groups. But Air is a little more than that, the duo’s second album Moon Safari has become my traveling soundtrack — no matter what the destination — and my song of choice is Ce Matin La.
To read the whole post click here.
Excerpt From My Travel Journal: Saigon
This morning I realized that exactly one year ago I came home from my trip to Southeast Asia. This also means that it’s been a whole year since I’ve been out of the country (shocking, I know!) But in honor of that trip, I decided to post my favorite blog from that trip. I wrote it while in Saigon. Enjoy!
Zippo
I made the severe mistake today of sitting down at a café in the backpacker-full Pham Ngu Lao neighborhood. Well, sitting down at the café wasn’t the problem, it was the fact that I chose to consume my much needed refreshing lemon juice at the one table that sat on the sidewalk.
Sidewalks in Saigon tend to be covered in motor bikes, so enough space to fit a table and make it look nice was already surprising. I therefore took advantage. I managed to momentarily forget about the people that cruise the area selling their endless supply of wares: photo-copied Lonely Planet books, Zippo lighters, knock-off sunglasses, postcards, etc.
Within minutes of sitting down I was approached by a cyclo driver. Cyclos are the popular way of getting around Saigon for tourists; the driver sits on a bicycle in back and carts around someone in the chair-looking contraption built onto the front. The man walked right up to our table and opened up a magazine to the center-fold.
“City cyclo tour? I give best one. So good, I’m in magazine. Magazine comes by I wave and say hello and they take picture.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Zen Recycled Art
I read about this Buddhist temple in Thailand constructed out of recycled bottles a few weeks ago — and even wrote about it on Gadling — but I just now came across more photos of it at Green Upgrader. The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of Bangkok, making it just far enough away from the city that it’s still enough of a hidden gem. The monks of the temple used green and brown bottles from around the area, helping to clean up their community, and create a stunning structure.
The great thing about recycled bottles as decoration — and about 1.5 million have been used in the temple, giving the nickname “Temple of a Million Bottles” — is that the colors don’t fade, giving a timeless color show when the sun shines through.
Sounds of Travel: St. Germain’s ‘So Flute’
Over at Gadling we’re doing a series called the Sounds of Travel, featuring music that we’ve either discovered while traveling or that reminds us of traveling. Last week I wrote an article on “So Flute” by the French band St. Germain (they’re one of my all time favorites). Here’s a little preview:
France. This is a country known for its music. The stereotypical accordion tunes from atop Montmartre embodied in the soundtrack of Amélie, the ballads of Edith Piaf, and the intense lyrics of adopted icon Jacques Brel (he was actually Belgian, but the French like him so much they seem to forget). But beyond those symbolic melodies that scream French roots, there’s another side to French music. One that is much more urban, cosmopolitan and chic. It’s the smooth, electro-jazz, slightly funky sounds of contemporary bands like St. Germain.
Read the rest of it, and watch a video of “So Flute,” here.
All Kinds of Train Travel
In planning to go home for Thanksgiving I’m having to think about which Amtrak train will have the least chance of delay as well as the least amount of passengers… good luck. I would rather be planning a trip on the Glacier Express, the Swiss train that traverses the Swiss Alps. Read more about it in my article over at Been Seen.
Off in the wilderness
I’m in Montana for the week and got to enjoy Glacier National Park this weekend! I’ll put more pictures up once I get back home. Remember to vote on Tuesday!
blog.annabrones.com 