I went to South America and trekked through Patagonia. In Zimbabwe, hippos, lions, and elephants roamed through our camping ground. When I got to South Korea, my relatives treated me as one of their own, despite having last seen them 18 years prior.
It was in China, the third country of my trip, when I realized that what I was doing wasn’t totally crazy. I had already met a multitude of other backpackers taking extended trips ranging from several months to four years. Young people from abroad were prioritizing travel over hurrying into careers.
This video makes me happy. And sad…I am clearly not grabbing enough tiger by the tail in life currently. Chang is doing a Kickstarter campaign for a book of photos from the trip.
I’ve caught a couple of episodes of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and I’ve been impressed with the show so far. In it, chef/author Anthony Bourdain travels to places off the beaten path and explores the local culture. But it’s not just about food and culture as with his previous shows. In Parts Unknown, Bourdain also delves into local politics and social issues. In Iran, he spoke with journalists about their tenuous relationship with the government (and two of the journalists he spoke with were subsequently arrested). Episodes in the Congo, Myanmar, and Libya are produced with a focus on their oppressive governments, past and present. Even in the Massachusetts episode, he talks about his former heroin addiction and the current addiction of poor whites in the US. Many of the places he visits, we only hear about the leadership and bad things that happen on the news, but Bourdain meets with the locals and finds more similarities amongst cultures than differences. I’d never considered going to visit someplace like Iran, but Parts Unknown has me considering it…what a great people.
Season four recently wrapped up and they’re shooting season five now. The first three seasons are currently available on Netflix and all four seasons are on Amazon. (FYI to the web team at CNN: “Unknown” is misspelled in the
of that page.)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain">Anthony Bourdain</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain%3A%20Parts%20Unknown">Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Iran">Iran</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/TV">TV</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-10-08T16:07:54Z">Oct 8 @ 12:07 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/10/parenting-around-the-world">Parenting around the world</a></h2>
<p>For the past year, Joanna Goddard has been running a series on her blog called <a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/search/label/motherhood%20around%20the%20world">Motherhood Around the World</a>. The goal of the series was to tease out how parenting in other countries is different than parenting in the US. From <a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2013/07/american-mothers-around-world.html">the introduction</a> to the series:</p>
<blockquote><p>We spoke to American mothers abroad — versus mothers who were born and bred in those countries — because we wanted to hear how motherhood around the world compared and contrasted with motherhood in America. It can be surprisingly hard to realize what’s unique about your own country (“don’t all kids eat snails?”), and it’s much easier to identify differences as an outsider.</p></blockquote>
<p>The results, as Goddard states upfront, are not broadly representative of parenting in the different countries but they are fascinating nonetheless. I’ve picked out a few representative bits below. On <a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2013/07/10-surprising-things-about-parenting-in_15.html">parenting in Norway</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Both my kids attended Barnehage (Norwegian for “children’s garden”), which is basically Norwegian pre-school and daycare. Most kids here start Barnehage when they’re one year old — it’s subsidized by the government to encourage people to go back to work. You pay $300 a month and your kids can stay from 8am to 5pm. They spend a ton of time outside, mostly playing and exploring nature. At some Barnehage, they only go inside if it’s colder than 14 degrees. They even eat outdoors-with their gloves on! When I was worried about my son being cold, my father-in-law said, “It’s good for him to freeze a little bit on his fingers.” That’s very Norwegian — hard things are good for you.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2013/07/13-surprising-things-about-parenting-in.html">The Democratic Republic of Congo</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>No one thinks twice here about sharing breastmilk. Why let something so valuable go to waste? Not long after my second daughter was born, I went on a work trip to Kenya. I pumped the whole time I was there and couldn’t bear to throw away my breast milk, nor imagine the nightmare scenario of leakage in my luggage. So I saved it all up in the hotel fridge in Ziploc bags. On the day I left, I took all the little bags to the local market and said, “All right, ladies. Who’s got babies and wants breast milk?!” Not a single Kenyan woman at the market thought twice about taking a random white woman’s breast milk. My driver even heard I was handing out milk and asked if I could pump some extra to take home to his new baby.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2013/08/11-surprising-things-about-parenting-in_26.html">Abu Dhabi</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>There are no car seat or seatbelt laws here. You will regularly see toddlers with their heads peeking out of sunroofs or moms holding their infants in the front seat. The government and the car companies are trying to educate people about the dangers, but the most locals (Emiratis as well as people from countries like India and Egypt) believe that a mother’s arms are the safest place for her child.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2013/08/12-surprising-things-about-parenting-in.html">India</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>In a country in which space comes at such a premium, few parents would dream of allocating a separate room for each child. Co-sleeping is the norm here, regardless of class. Children will usually sleep with their parents or their ayah until they are at least six or seven. An American friend of mine put her son in his own room, and her Indian babysitter was aghast. The young children from middle class Indian families I know also go to sleep whenever their parents do — often as late as 11pm. Our son sleeps in our bed, as well. He has a shoebox of a room in our house where we keep his clothes and crib, and he always starts the night in there, falling asleep around 8pm. That way Chris and I get a few hours to ourselves. Then, around 11pm, Will somehow senses that we are about to fall asleep and calls out to come to our bed. It’s like clockwork, and he falls right back into a deep sleep the second his head hits the pillow.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2014/08/14-surprising-things-about-parenting-in.html">Australia</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>On sleep camps: Government-subsidized programs help parents teach their babies to sleep. I haven’t been to one (though I did consider it when we were in the middle of sleep hell with our daughter) but many of my friends have. The sleep camps are centers, usually attached to a hospital, that are run by nurses. Most mums I know went when their babies were around six or seven months old. You go for five days and four nights, and they put you and your baby on a strict schedule of feeding, napping and sleeping. If you’re really desperate for sleep, you also have the option of having a nurse handle your baby for the whole first night so you can sleep, but after that you spend the next few nights with your baby overnight while the nurses show you what to do. They use controlled crying and other techniques. I have friends who say it saved their lives, friends who left feeling “meh” about the whole thing, and a friend who left after a day because, in her words, “they left my baby in a cupboard to cry.”</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2014/08/13-surprising-things-about-parenting-in_25.html">Chile</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Giving treats to children is seen as a sign of affection, so strangers will offer candy to kids on the street. I’ll sometimes turn around and a stranger will be handing my daughter a chocolate bar! Several months ago, we were on a bus, and a woman near us was eating cookies. She saw my daughter Mia and said “Oh, let me give you some cookies.” I said, “No, thank you.” But she kept on insisting. Then, a random stranger, who was not even connected to the first woman, chimed in, “You should give your daughter the cookies!” They were very serious about it! I was frustrated at the time, but after the fact I found it funny.</p></blockquote>
<p>And then more recently, <a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2014/10/24-surprising-things-about-parenting-in.html">they talked to a group of foreign mothers about how parenting in the US differs from the rest of the world</a>. For one thing, there’s the babyproofing:</p>
<blockquote><p>Here in the U.S., there is a huge “baby industry,” which does not exist in Romania. There’s special baby food, special baby utensils, special baby safety precautions and special baby furniture. In Romania, children eat with a regular teaspoon and drink from a regular glass. They play with toys that are not specifically made for “brain development from months 3-6.” Also, before I came here, I had never heard of babyproofing! Now I’m constantly worried about my daughter hurting herself, but my mom and friends from home just laugh at me and my obsession that bookshelves might fall.</p></blockquote>
<p>And the more permissive and involved parenting:</p>
<blockquote><p>I was surprised that American children as young as one year old learn to say please, thank you, sorry and excuse me. Those things are not actively taught in India. Another difference is how parents here tend to stay away from “because I said so” and actually explain things to their children. It’s admirable the way parents will go into basic reasoning to let the child know why some things are the way they are. When I last visited Bombay, I explained to my then four-year-old about that we couldn’t buy too many things because of weight restrictions in the flight, etc. My relatives were genuinely wondering why I didn’t just stop at “no.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Like I said, the whole series is fascinating…I could easily see this being a book or documentary (along the lines of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babies_(film)">Babies</a>).</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> This series is back after a brief pause with installments on <a href="http://cupofjo.com/2015/07/parenting-in-south-korea/">Korea</a> and <a href="http://cupofjo.com/2015/07/parenting-in-the-netherlands/">the Netherlands</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> <a href="http://cupofjo.com/2015/08/parenting-havana-cuba/">The installment on parenting in Cuba</a> is a good one.</p>
<blockquote><p>On improvising in the kitchen: We often have to be resourceful and adjust our cooking plans around what we can get. At the moment, it’s been a few months since I’ve seen chicken breasts available at the market, for example. Last year on Thanksgiving, my father-in-law and I spent hours driving around trying to find potatoes, which are a black market item. People will normally walk up to you at the vegetable market and whisper, “I have potatoes.” But, that day there were none. We were like potato junkies trying to get our fix of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving!</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Joanna%20Goddard">Joanna Goddard</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/parenting">parenting</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/USA">USA</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-09-24T23:04:13Z">Sep 24 @ 07:04 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/09/anthony-bourdain-the-future-of-cable-news">Anthony Bourdain, the future of cable news</a></h2>
<p>When Anthony Bourdain’s hour-long food and travel show first launched on CNN, it marked the network’s step away from 24 hours news and towards more entertainment programming. But maybe Bourdain is just the reporter we need these days when most of what we see of other cultures is satellite images or shots of rubble. “I’m not a foreign policy wonk, but I see aspects of these countries that regular journalists don’t.” From FastCo: Anthony Bourdain has become the future of cable news, <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3036090/innovation-agents/anthony-bourdain-has-become-the-future-of-cable-news-and-he-couldnt-care-l">and he couldn’t care less</a>.
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain">Anthony Bourdain</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/TV">TV</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-09-23T20:49:28Z">Sep 23 @ 04:49 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/09/anthony-bourdains-travel-tips">Anthony Bourdain’s travel tips</a></h2>
<p>Anthony Bourdain travels a lot; <a href="http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/anthony-bourdain-how-to-travel">here’s how he approaches flying, packing, getting good local recommendations, etc.</a></p>
<blockquote><p>The other great way to figure out where to eat in a new city is to provoke nerd fury online. Go to a number of foodie websites with discussion boards. Let’s say you’re going to Kuala Lumpur — just post on the Malaysia board that you recently returned and had the best rendang in the universe, and give the name of a place, and all these annoying foodies will bombard you with angry replies about how the place is bullshit, and give you a better place to go.</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain">Anthony Bourdain</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-07-23T16:01:08Z">Jul 23 @ 12:01 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/07/how-to-survive-air-travel">How to survive air travel</a></h2>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/message/lets-fly-d566ecd35678">Great piece</a> from Craig Mod about how to survive air travel.</p>
<blockquote><p>Authorities recommend arriving two hours before international flights. I say four. Get there four hours before your flight. You are a hundred and fifty years old. Your friends laugh at you. Have patience.</p>
<p>Arrive early and move through the airport like the Dalai Lama. You are in no rush. All obstacles are taken in stride, patiently, with a smile. Approach the nearly empty check-in counter. Walk up and say, I’m a bit early but I’m here to check in to … Marvel at their surprise and then their generosity. Suddenly you are always able to get an exit row or bulkhead seat. Suddenly, sure, they can slip you into Business. Suddenly tickets that are supposedly unchangeable, cannot be modified, are, after a few calls, some frowns, upbeat goodbyes, specially modifiable for you. This is what happens when there is no one behind you in line to check in.</p></blockquote>
<p>What Mod fails to mention here in regard to supposedly unchangeable tickets and the like is that he’s one of the most disarmingly charming motherfuckers in the entire world. And here is the crux of the whole piece:</p>
<blockquote><p>You are hacking the airport by arriving early, knowing that all the work you could have done at home — the emails or writing or photo editing — can be done at the airport.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don’t travel much anymore, but I’ve begun to arrive at the airport earlier than I need to because I got tired of rushing and I can work from pretty much anywhere with wifi. That mask shit though? That’s too much.
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Craig%20Mod">Craig Mod</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/flying">flying</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-07-18T14:48:07Z">Jul 18 @ 10:48 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/07/airship-hanger-waterpark-funtimes">Airship hangar waterpark funtimes</a></h2>
<p>In his new video, Casey Neistat and his son visit <a href="http://www.tropical-islands.de/en/attractions/">a German waterpark</a> housed in a giant former airship hangar.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZFMa_kAANGE?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Some information on the structure from the waterpark’s web site:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Tropical Islands Dome is gigantic. In fact, it is the largest free-standing hall in the world: 360 metres long, 210 metres wide and an incredible 107 metres high.</p>
<p>That is big enough to fit the Statue of Liberty in standing up and the Eiffel Tower lying on its side. The Tropical Islands Dome covers an area of 66,000 m², the size of eight football fields. And it is high enough to fit in the whole of Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, with all its skyscrapers.</p></blockquote>
<p>(via <a href="http://www.johnhodgman.com/">john hodgman</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Casey%20Neistat">Casey Neistat</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/video">video</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-07-17T18:59:39Z">Jul 17 @ 02:59 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/07/the-grand-budapest-hotel-reviewed">The Grand Budapest Hotel reviewed</a></h2>
<p>There are 46 reviews (and counting) of The Grand Budapest Hotel <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g6840479-d6776131-Reviews-The_Grand_Budapest_Hotel-The_Republic_of_Zubrowka.html">on TripAdvisor</a>, which is ranked “#1 of 1 hotels in The Republic of Zubrowka”.</p>
<blockquote><p>As an elderly women I was thoroughly delighted by the attention of the staff! Particularly the concierge, what a thoughtful generous man! Wish I could take him home to service me there! I also loved the food and the chocolate treats from mendls. Tip top!</p></blockquote>
<p>See also <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g52842-d730099-Reviews-Schrute_Farms-Honesdale_Pocono_Mountains_Region_Pennsylvania.html">Schrute Farms on TripAdvisor</a> and <a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/tripadvisorcom-reviews-for-the-overlook-hotel">TripAdvisor reviews for the Overlook Hotel</a>. Oh and The Grand Budapest Hotel movie is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00JB3AOEY/ref=nosim/0sil8">now available for digital rental</a>. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/khoi">@khoi</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/movies">movies</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/The%20Grand%20Budapest%20Hotel">The Grand Budapest Hotel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-07-02T15:22:13Z">Jul 2 @ 11:22 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/07/music-for-real-airports">Music for Real Airports</a></h2>
<p>Today’s jam — ok, not a jam exactly but more like marmalade spread on soft white bread — is <a href="http://www.rdio.com/artist/The_Black_Dog/album/Music_For_Real_Airports/">Music for Real Airports by The Black Dog</a>.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" src="https://rd.io/i/QWOLRCJWjaQ/" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The title of the album is a play on <a href="http://www.rdio.com/artist/Brian_Eno/album/Ambient_1/Music_For_Airports/">Brian Eno’s Music for Airports</a>:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="80" src="https://rd.io/i/QWOLRCJd93s/" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<blockquote><p>Airports have some of the glossiest surfaces in modern culture, but the fear underneath remains. Hence this record is not a utilitarian accompaniment to airports, in the sense of reinforcing the false utopia and fake idealism of air travel. Unlike Eno’s Music for Airports, this is not a record to be used by airport authorities to lull their customers. The album is a bittersweet, enveloping and enormously engaging listen. It is ambient, but focused. This is not sonic mush, nor adolescent noise. Nor is it a dance album. Much of the raw material of the album was made in airports over the last three years. While on tour, the Black Dog made 200 hours of field recordings, much of which was processed and combined with new music in the airport itself, waiting for the next flight. This vast amount of content has been slowly distilled into a set of particularly evocative pieces of music.</p></blockquote>
<p>(via <a href="http://kottke.org/14/07/the_putter_togetherer">the scissors video</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Brian%20Eno">Brian Eno</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/music">music</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/The%20Black%20Dog">The Black Dog</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-01-27T16:11:15Z">Jan 27 @ 11:11 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/01/1920s-guide-to-nyc-tourist-etiquette">1920s guide to NYC tourist etiquette</a></h2>
<p>Gothamist <a href="http://gothamist.com/2014/01/24/the_1920s_guide_to_nyc_etiquette.php">uncovered a NYC guide book from the 1920s</a> called <a href="https://archive.org/details/valentinescityof00browa">Valentine’s City of New York: A Guide Book</a>. Some of the tips include:</p>
<blockquote><p>Don’t take the recommendation of strangers regarding hotels… Don’t get too friendly with plausible strangers.</p>
<p>Don’t gape at women smoking cigarettes in restaurants. They are harmless and respectable. They are also “smart.”</p>
<p>Don’t forget to tip. Tip early and tip often.</p></blockquote>
<p>(via <a href="http://twitter.com/DavidGrann">@DavidGrann</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/books">books</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/NYC">NYC</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-11-22T16:12:38Z">Nov 22 @ 11:12 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/11/big-thanksgiving-storm-brewing-on-the-east-coast">Big Thanksgiving storm brewing on the east coast?</a></h2>
<p>The internet’s resident meteorologist Eric Holthaus (who incidentally has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/03/ipcc-climate-report-eric-holthaus">given up flying</a> because of climate change) warns that <a href="http://qz.com/150016/a-terribly-timed-noreaster-could-ruin-your-thanksgiving/">a major storm could be on its way to the East Coast</a> in time for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah (which <a href="http://kottke.org/13/01/hanukkah-and-thanksgiving-overlap">overlap this year</a> and then not again until the year 79811).</p>
<p>Technically, the storm is a nor’easter but is looking more like a tropical storm in the computer models:</p>
<blockquote><p>At this point, the most likely scenario would be cold, wind-driven rain in the big coastal US cities, with up to a foot of snow stretching from inland New England as far south as the Carolinas. The cold would stick around after the storm exits, with high temperatures in the 20s and wind chills possibly in the single digits as far south as New Jersey on Black Friday.</p>
<p>According to this afternoon’s iteration of the Euro model (a meteorological model that famously predicted superstorm Sandy’s rare left hook into New Jersey six days out), at the storm’s peak, wind gusts on Cape Cod could approach hurricane force.</p></blockquote>
<p>We’re still a ways out, so things might change, but travel safely next week, folks. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/marcprecipice">@marcprecipice</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/climate%20crisis">climate crisis</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Eric%20Holthaus">Eric Holthaus</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/weather">weather</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-10-03T14:08:28Z">Oct 3 @ 10:08 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/10/the-scooter-diaries">The Scooter Diaries</a></h2>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/bowman-kickstarter.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/bowman-kickstarter.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/bowman-kickstarter.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="480" border="0" alt="Bowman Kickstarter" /></p>
<p>Gordon Bowman is <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928997794/the-scooter-diaries">doing a Kickstarter</a> to fund the publication of a book chronicling a journey his parents took shortly after meeting.</p>
<blockquote><p>When my Dad was a boy growing up in the 1930’s, he heard stories of the “Lost City of the Incas” that had been discovered deep in the Peruvian jungle. It must have made a lasting impression on him because in November 1959, he quit his job as a newspaper reporter, sold his car and bought a 150cc Lambretta scooter. He intended to ride it from his hometown of Thorold, in Ontario Canada, all the way down to Peru. As far as he knew, he would be the first person to ever attempt such a journey.</p></blockquote>
<p>Backed.
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-09-26T17:54:20Z">Sep 26 @ 01:54 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/09/how-to-beat-jet-lag">How to Beat Jet Lag</a></h2>
<p>In the 1980s, <a href="https://harpers.org/2012/03/the-empty-stomach-fasting-to-beat-jet-lag/">Charles Ehret developed an antidote to jet lag</a> called <a href="http://www.netlib.org/misc/jet-lag-diet">The Argonne Anti-Jet-Lag-Diet</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>After experimenting on protozoa, rats, and his eight children, Ehret recommended that the international traveler, in the several days before his flight, alternate days of feasting with days of very light eating. Come the flight, the traveler would nibble sparsely until eating a big breakfast at about 7:30 a.m. in his new time zone — no matter that it was still 1:30 a.m. in the old time zone or that the airline wasn’t serving breakfast until 10:00 a.m. His reward would be little or no jet lag.</p></blockquote>
<p>The diet was adopted by US government agencies and other groups as well as Ronald Reagan, but it difficult to stick to. Recently, researchers in Boston have devised a simpler anti-jet lag remedy:</p>
<blockquote><p>The international traveler, they counsel, can avoid jet lag by simply not eating for twelve to sixteen hours before breakfast time in the new time zone-at which point, as in Ehret’s diet, he should break his fast. Since most of us go twelve to sixteen hours between dinner and breakfast anyway, the abstention is a small hardship.</p>
<p>According to the Harvard team, the fast works because our bodies have, in addition to our circadian clock, a second clock that might be thought of as a food clock or, perhaps better, a master clock. When food is scarce, this master clock suspends the circadian clock and commands the body to sleep much less than normally. Only after the body starts eating again does the master clock switch the circadian clock back on.</p></blockquote>
<p>Totally trying this the next time I have to travel, although the Advil PM/melatonin combination my doctor suggested worked really well for me on my trip to New Zealand. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/genmon">@genmon</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/flying">flying</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/how%20to">how to</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/medicine">medicine</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/science">science</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-04-04T17:02:16Z">Apr 4 @ 01:02 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/04/the-80s">The 80s!</a></h2>
<p>After an exhaustive search, I have decided this photo most exemplifies life in these United States during the 1980s:</p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/roger-minick-sightseer.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/roger-minick-sightseer.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/roger-minick-sightseer.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" border="0" alt="Roger Minick Sightseer" /></p>
<p>And if not that one, then one of several other possible candidates from Roger Minick’s <a href="http://sightseerseries.com/">Sightseer project</a>, for which he took photos of tourists at popular US tourist destinations during the early 1980s and into the 2000s.</p>
<blockquote><p>When I approached people for a portrait, I tried to make my request clear and to the point, making it clear that I was not trying to sell them anything. I explained that my wife and I were traveling around the country visiting most of the major tourist destinations so that I could photograph the activity of sightseeing. I would quickly add that I hoped the project would have cultural value and might be seen in years to come as a kind of time capsule of what Americans looked like at the end of the Twentieth Century; at which, to my surprise, I would see people often begin to nod their heads as if they knew what I was talking about.</p></blockquote>
<p>Slate did <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/03/27/roger_minick_sightseers_looks_at_tourists_across_the_united_states_over.html">a feature</a> on this series last week.
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/photography">photography</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Roger%20Minick">Roger Minick</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/USA">USA</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-03-28T15:36:44Z">Mar 28 @ 11:36 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/03/the-25-least-visited-countries-in-the-world">The 25 least visited countries in the world</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://www.garfors.com/2013/01/the-25-least-visited-countries-in-world.html">A somewhat surprising list of the least visited countries in the world</a> in that North Korea is not even in the top 15. Somalia, with 500 annual tourists, is #2:</p>
<blockquote><p>Why so few?<br />
War, lack of a government for many years, violent muslim extremists, sharia law. The reputation of Somalia is extremelly close to rock bottom.</p>
<p>Why you may still want to visit<br />
The government has started to function again. Mogadishu is now relatively safe and businesses are thriving. Turkish Airlines has even opened a direct twice weekly route from Istanbul.</p>
<p>What else<br />
Go to the beach just outside Mogadishu or visit the Bakaara market where you can even buy your own semi-genuine Somalian passport. You may not want to use it anywhere, though. Your travel experience doesn’t extend beyond the Bahamas, Paris or Gran Canaria, you say? First of all; Why are you reading this blog post? Secondly, do not go to Somalia!</p></blockquote>
<p>The author of the list, Gunnar Garfors, has visited 196 of the 198 countries in the world; he’s hitting the last two in the next few months: Kiribati and Cape Verde. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidGrann">@DavidGrann</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Gunnar%20Garfors">Gunnar Garfors</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/lists">lists</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-03-08T16:53:20Z">Mar 8 @ 11:53 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/03/the-professor-and-the-bikini-model">The professor and the bikini model</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Frampton">Paul Frampton</a> is a 69-year-old theoretical particle physicist who has co-authored papers with Nobel laureates. In late 2011, the absentminded professor met a Czech bikini model online. Over email and Yahoo chat, they became romantically involved and she sent him a plane ticket to come meet her at a photo shoot in Bolivia. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html?hp&_r=0">Then she asked him to bring a bag of hers with him on his flight</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>While in Bolivia, Frampton corresponded with an old friend, John Dixon, a physicist and lawyer who lives in Ontario. When Frampton explained what he was up to, Dixon became alarmed. His warnings to Frampton were unequivocal, Dixon told me not long ago, still clearly upset: “I said: ‘Well, inside that suitcase sewn into the lining will be cocaine. You’re in big trouble.’ Paul said, ‘I’ll be careful, I’ll make sure there isn’t cocaine in there and if there is, I’ll ask them to remove it.’ I thought they were probably going to kidnap him and torture him to get his money. I didn’t know he didn’t have money. I said, ‘Well, you’re going to be killed, Paul, so whom should I contact when you disappear?’ And he said, ‘You can contact my brother and my former wife.’ ” Frampton later told me that he shrugged off Dixon’s warnings about drugs as melodramatic, adding that he rarely pays attention to the opinions of others.</p>
<p>On the evening of Jan. 20, nine days after he arrived in Bolivia, a man Frampton describes as Hispanic but whom he didn’t get a good look at handed him a bag out on the dark street in front of his hotel. Frampton was expecting to be given an Hermès or a Louis Vuitton, but the bag was an utterly commonplace black cloth suitcase with wheels. Once he was back in his room, he opened it. It was empty. He wrote to Milani, asking why this particular suitcase was so important. She told him it had “sentimental value.” The next morning, he filled it with his dirty laundry and headed to the airport.</p></blockquote>
<p>Crazy story. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/stevenstrogatz">@stevenstrogatz</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/crime">crime</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/drugs">drugs</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Paul%20Frampton">Paul Frampton</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/physics">physics</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/science">science</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-03-04T18:29:28Z">Mar 4 @ 01:29 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/03/reminder-the-mind-of-a-chef">Reminder: The Mind of a Chef</a></h2>
<p>In case you missed it a few months ago on PBS, the excellent The Mind of a Chef is out in downloadable form <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/the-mind-of-a-chef-season-1/id594287541?mt=8&at=11l7dq&ct=blog">on iTunes</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00BCWN57A/ref=nosim/0sil8">at Amazon</a>. The first episode is available for free <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2299820860">on the PBS site</a> for try-before-you-buy purposes.
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain">Anthony Bourdain</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/David%20Chang">David Chang</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/The%20Mind%20of%20a%20Chef">The Mind of a Chef</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/TV">TV</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-02-01T14:17:22Z">Feb 1 @ 09:17 AM</time> by <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/unlikelywords.bsky.social">Aaron Cohen</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/02/perennial-plates-a-day-in-india">Perennial Plate’s A Day in India </a></h2>
<p><a href="http://www.theperennialplate.com/">The Perennial Plate</a> videos always make me jealous, and this beautiful cut of a “day” in India is no exception. This is gorgeous and you should watch it on full screen. </p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/58313264?badge=0" width="640" height="361" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/India">India</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Perennial%20Plate">Perennial Plate</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/video">video</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2013-01-23T16:49:02Z">Jan 23 @ 11:49 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/13/01/account-of-a-trip-to-north-korea">Account of a trip to North Korea</a></h2>
<p>Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and current Executive Chairman of Google, recently visited North Korea and took his daughter Sophie along. Upon her return, <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/sophieinnorthkorea/home">she wrote up a very interesting account of her trip</a>. Her report contained a surprising number of Twitter-length nuggets of goodness<sup id="t-0123131"><a href="#f-0123131">1</a></sup>; here are some of them:</p>
<blockquote><p>Our trip was a mixture of highly staged encounters, tightly-orchestrated viewings and what seemed like genuine human moments.</p>
<p>The longer I think about what we saw and heard, the less sure I am about what any of it actually meant.</p>
<p>Nothing I’d read or heard beforehand really prepared me for what we saw.</p></blockquote>
<p>Most of the buildings they visited — offices, libraries, etc. — were not heated:</p>
<blockquote><p>They’re proudly showing you their latest technology or best library, and you can see your breath</p></blockquote>
<p>They weren’t allowed to have mobile phones, there were no alarm clocks, and they were told their rooms were probably bugged:</p>
<blockquote><p>One person suggested announcing “I’m awake” to the room, and then waiting until someone came to fetch you.</p>
<p>It’s like The Truman Show, at country scale.</p>
<p>Very little in North Korea, it seemed to us, was built to be inviting.</p>
<p>You could almost forget you were in North Korea in this city, until you noticed little things, like the lack of commercial storefronts.</p>
<p>There is only revolutionary art. There is only revolutionary music.</p>
<p>I was delighted to learn that [Kim Jong Il] and I shared a taste in laptops: 15” Macbook Pro.</p>
<p>No one was actually doing anything.</p>
<p>They’re building products for a market that doesn’t exist.</p></blockquote>
<p>It’s a fascinating piece and worth putting up with the weird 2-column layout to read the whole thing.</p>
<p><a id="f-0123131"></a>[1] In fact, almost every sentence is tweet-length. Do young people naturally write in SMS/tweet-length sentences these days? <a href="#t-0123131">↩</a>
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Eric%20Schmidt">Eric Schmidt</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/North%20Korea">North Korea</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Sophie%20Schmidt">Sophie Schmidt</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Twitter">Twitter</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2012-11-10T20:13:44Z">Nov 10 @ 03:13 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/12/11/pbs-food-show-with-david-chang">Sixteen-part PBS travel/food show with David Chang</a></h2>
<p>How had I not heard about this before now? <a href="http://www.pbs.org/food/shows/the-mind-of-a-chef/">The Mind of a Chef</a> is a PBS consisting of sixteen half-hour shows that follows <a href="https://twitter.com/davidchang">David Chang</a> through his world of food. As far as I can tell, this series is basically the TV version of <a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/luckypeach">Lucky Peach</a>. Episode one is about ramen:</p>
<blockquote><p>In the series premiere, David dissects the roots of his passion for ramen dishes and tsukemen on a trip to Japan. Learn the history of this famous noodle as David visits a ramen factory, has a bowl of the original tsukemen, and examines how alkalinity makes noodles chewier and less prone to dissolving in broth.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2300808558">Check out an excerpt here</a>, in which Chang reveals how he used to eat instant ramen noodles right out of the bag with the pork flavor powder sprinkled on top. The series starts this weekend…check your local listings, as they say. (via <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/arts/television/the-mind-of-a-chef-with-david-chang-on-pbs.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&seid=auto">ny times</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain">Anthony Bourdain</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/David%20Chang">David Chang</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/The%20Mind%20of%20a%20Chef">The Mind of a Chef</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/TV">TV</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2012-06-26T19:08:04Z">Jun 26 @ 03:08 PM</time> by <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/unlikelywords.bsky.social">Aaron Cohen</a>
</div>
<h2><a href="/12/06/the-mac-tax">The Mac tax</a></h2>
<p>According to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304458604577488822667325882.html">the Wall Street Journal</a>, Orbitz has determined that Mac users spend 30% more per night on lodging. Obviously, this is an opportunity for Orbitz to display more expensive hotel options to Mac users. </p>
<blockquote><p>The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people’s online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information—in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac—to start predicting their tastes and spending habits. </p></blockquote>
<p>Here’s a fairly concise rundown of shady marketing tactics Orbitz <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57460258/report-orbitz-steers-mac-users-to-pricier-hotels/">has used in the past</a>. (via <a href="http://twitter.com/delfuego">@delfuego</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Apple">Apple</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Orbitz">Orbitz</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
</ul>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2012-06-07T20:16:23Z">Jun 7 @ 04:16 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
</div>
<h2><a href="/12/06/what-travel-guide-books-say-about-the-us">What travel guide books say about the US</a></h2>
<p>Max Fisher has a piece at The Atlantic <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/welcome-to-america-please-be-on-time-what-guide-books-tell-foreign-visitors-to-the-us/257993/">about what travel guidebooks tell foreign visitors to the US</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Politics get heavy treatment in the books, as do the subtleties of discussing them, maybe more so than in any other guidebook I’ve read (what can I say, it’s an addiction). Lonely Planet urges caution when discussing immigration. “This is the issue that makes Americans edgy, especially when it gets politicized,” they write, subtly suggesting that some Americans might approach the issue differently than others. “Age has a lot to do with Americans’ multicultural tolerance.”</p>
<p>Rough Guide doesn’t shy away from the fact that many non-Americans are less-than-crazy about U.S. politics and foreign policy, and encouragingly notes that many Americans are just as “infuriated” about it as visitors might be. Still, it warns that the political culture saturates everything, and that “The combination of shoot-from-the-hip mentality with laissez-faire capitalism and religious fervor can make the U.S. maddening at times, even to its own residents.”</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Max%20Fisher">Max Fisher</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/USA">USA</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2012-04-16T16:42:34Z">Apr 16 @ 12:42 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/12/04/girls-gone-slightly-less-wholesome-amish-spring-break">Girls Gone Slightly Less Wholesome: Amish spring break</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/travel/pinecraft-fla-an-amish-snowbird-magnet.html?pagewanted=all">Pinecraft, Florida is a popular spring vacation destination for Amish and Mennonites</a>, a place where they can let their hair down by using cellphones and electricity.</p>
<blockquote><p>Walking around Pinecraft is like entering an idyllic time warp. White bungalows and honeybell orange trees line streets named after Amish families: Kaufman, Schrock, Yoder. The local Laundromat keeps lines outside to hang clothes to dry. (You have to bring your own pins.) And the techiest piece of equipment at the post office is a calculator. The Sarasota county government plans to designate the village, which spreads out over 178 acres, as a cultural heritage district.</p>
<p>Many travelers I spoke to jokingly call it the “Amish Las Vegas,” riffing off the clich’e that what happens in Pinecraft stays in Pinecraft. Cellphone and cameras, normally off-limits to Amish, occasionally make appearances, and almost everyone uses electricity in their rental homes. Three-wheeled bicycles, instead of horses and buggies, are ubiquitous.</p>
<p>“When you come down here, you can pitch religion a little bit and let loose,” said Amanda Yoder, 19, from Missouri. “What I’m wearing right now, I wouldn’t at home,” she said, gesturing at sunglasses with sparkly rhinestones and bikini strings peeking out of a tight black tank top. On the outskirts of the village, she boarded public bus No. 11 with six other sunburned teenagers. They were bound for Siesta Key, a quartz-sand beach about eight miles away.</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Amish">Amish</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/religion">religion</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2012-04-09T17:24:33Z">Apr 9 @ 01:24 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/12/04/tips-for-traveling-the-world">Tips for traveling the world</a></h2>
<p>From Jodi at Legal Nomads, <a href="http://www.legalnomads.com/2012/04/tips-world-travel.html">a list of 21 practical tips she’s gleaned from traveling the world for the past four years</a>. One tip is to take oranges with you on public transportation:</p>
<blockquote><p>I started bringing a bag of oranges with me for long bus rides, primarily because they quench thirst and smell delicious. I quickly learned that many Thai and Burmese busgoers sniff the peels to stave off nausea, and that kids love oranges. Really: kids LOVE oranges. So for those who want to bring something for the bus ride but rightfully worry about giving sweets to kids, oranges are your friend. You will win over the parents, make the kids happy, occupy your hours and eventually get fed by everyone on the bus. Trust me. You should always have a bag of oranges on hand, the smaller the orange the better.</p></blockquote>
<p>She also lists the five things she always carries with her while traveling…one of which, unusually, is a doorstop. I’m guessing that’s for keeping people out of rooms without door locks?
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/lists">lists</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2012-03-16T19:15:36Z">Mar 16 @ 03:15 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/12/03/social-media-shaming-tames-spring-break">Social media shaming tames Spring Break</a></h2>
<p>Maybe Facebook *is* good for society: teens aren’t acting as crazy during Spring Break because <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/spring-break-gets-tamer-as-world-watches-online.html">they don’t want to get caught doing inappropriate things on camera</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>They are so afraid everyone is going to take their picture and put it online.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>You don’t want to have to defend yourself later, so you don’t do it.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>But spring break [in Key West] has been Facebooked into greater respectability.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“At the beach yesterday, I would put my beer can down, out of the picture every time,” Ms. Sawyer said. “I do worry about Facebook. I just know I need a job eventually.”</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“Oh, no,” she recoiled. “I’m friends with my mom on Facebook.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Facebook: Society’s Self-Surveillance Network™. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gavinpurcell">@gavinpurcell</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Facebook">Facebook</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2011-12-22T23:00:32Z">Dec 22 @ 06:00 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/11/12/airport-security-theater">Airport security: “so much inconvenience for so little benefit at such a staggering cost”</a></h2>
<p>Charles Mann visits the airport with security expert Bruce Schneier and a fake boarding pass. <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/12/tsa-insanity-201112">What he finds is a lot of security theater and not much security</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“The only useful airport security measures since 9/11,” he says, “were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can’t break in, positive baggage matching” — ensuring that people can’t put luggage on planes, and then not board them — “and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater.”</p></blockquote>
<p>(via <a href="http://daringfireball.net/">df</a>)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Bruce%20Schneier">Bruce Schneier</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Charles%20Mann">Charles Mann</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/security">security</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2011-11-30T15:12:47Z">Nov 30 @ 10:12 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/11/11/golden-rules-to-live-by-while-travelling-the-world">Golden rules to live by while travelling the world</a></h2>
<p>Lists of travel tips usually suck (get to the aiport early! make sure your passport is up to date!) but <a href="http://mylittlenomads.com/thrilling-amazing-tips-travel-vacation">this list contains a number of good ideas</a> that I haven’t really seen before.</p>
<blockquote><p>13. Buy your own fruit. It sounds simple. It is simple. Just do it. You’ll love it. And I don’t mean, if there happens to be a fruit stand outside your hotel door you should buy some, because you need to have 9 servings a day. What I mean is, find fruit and buy it. Make it a daily task that you’re going to track down a fruit stand, a farmers’ market (they’re not just in San Francisco) and get some good fresh fruit. The entire process will expose you to elements of daily life you would have otherwise ignored. Trust me: You’ll have memories from your trips to buy fresh fruit.</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/lists">lists</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2011-08-31T18:24:43Z">Aug 31 @ 02:24 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/11/08/how-to-speed-up-plane-boarding">How to speed up plane boarding</a></h2>
<p>Physicist Jason Steffen has <a href="http://www.wbez.org/story/astrophysicist-shows-why-it-takes-so-long-board-plane-91161#">discovered a possible method</a> for getting passengers onto airplanes twice as fast as the usual method.</p>
<blockquote><p>The fastest method is one of Steffen’s own design: boarding alternating rows at the same time, starting with the window seats. The secret, he says, is that it leaves passengers elbow room to stow their luggage at the same time.</p></blockquote>
<p><object width="500" height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/o9-XjEI8VmA?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/o9-XjEI8VmA?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="405" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Even random boarding is faster than the back-to-front boarding the airlines currently use. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/jcn">jcn</a>)
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<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/how%20to">how to</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Jason%20Steffen">Jason Steffen</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2011-02-24T16:13:48Z">Feb 24 @ 11:13 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/11/02/collaborative-tourist-snaps">Collaborative tourist snaps</a></h2>
<p>For <a href="http://www.corinnevionnet.com/index.php?/photo-opportunities/">her Photo Opportunities project</a>, Corrine Vionnet finds tourist photos of famous landmarks online and layers them to make images like this:</p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/corinne-vionnet.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/corinne-vionnet.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/corinne-vionnet.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="500" height="375" alt="Corinne Vionnet" /></p>
<p>(thx, reed)
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<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Corrine%20Vionnet">Corrine Vionnet</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/photography">photography</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/remix">remix</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2011-01-19T18:46:50Z">Jan 19 @ 01:46 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/11/01/the-tragedy-of-nepal">The tragedy of Nepal</a></h2>
<p>Andrew Hyde travels to Nepal and <a href="http://andrewhy.de/the-tragedy-of-nepal-2011/">doesn’t find a must-see travel destination</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>A deep depression hit me about an hour into my visit to Nepal and lasted for the first two weeks. Nepal, as a travel destination, is nothing short of raved about. “The Himalayan Mountains are majestic and the people are the nicest in the world!” was a common travel tidbit I heard. What I found was a developing nation with deep problems becoming worse by the month with tourism hastening the poisoning of the well. The pollution is the worst I have ever seen. Air, land, sound and water, nothing is spared the careless trash. The people are wonderful and also skillful about exploiting the tourist scene. Everyone you meet has a friend that is in the business of what you want to do, and they have a vested commission in getting you to open up.</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Andrew%20Hyde">Andrew Hyde</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Nepal">Nepal</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
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