Gadlinks for Tuesday 9.8.09

Hey there, Gadling faithful. Hope everyone is easing back into the work week after a nice Labor Day weekend. Here are a couple links to some interesting travel tidbits from around the web…

  • Global development researcher Chris Blattman: “The main problem with living on $2 a day… is that you don’t actually get $2 a day. For the world’s poor, income comes in spurts.” Yet elsewhere, Chris wonders whether conditions in Africa aren’t better than we think.
  • Moonlighting over at Bootsnall, Gadling’s own Katie Hammel offers 7 Very Worthwhile Midwest Weekend Getaways, including a few favorites of mine, Traverse City, Michigan, and Galena, Illinois.
  • Tyler Cowen answers the question: “If you were exiled from the United States and had to go live semi-permanently in some other country, which country would you choose?” My answer: I’ve never been there, but Sweden seems awfully nice.
  • Rick Steves’ newest column over at World Hum compares Europe’s casual view of sex with America’s relative prudishness. (Note: This has nothing to do with my answer to the question immediately above.). Though he doesn’t enjoy every aspect of Europe’s sexual permissiveness, the noted Europhile ultimately concludes, “I like a continent where sexual misconduct won’t doom a politician with anyone other than his family and friends, and where the human body is considered a divine work of art worth admiring openly.”

More Gadlinks here.