Gap Adventures introduces new trips for 2011

by Kraig Becker on

As the final days of 2010 rapidly slip away, it is time to look to the new year for new opportunities and adventures. With that in mind, travel company Gap Adventures announced a host of outstanding new trips last week, offering up fantastic options for travelers looking for unique experiences.

Gap Adventures is amongst the top adventure travel companies in the world, offering hundreds of affordable trips to far flung places across the globe. These newly announced offerings are no different, giving travelers more than 100 new trips to choose from in 2011.

The new trips have been designed to offer a little something for everyone. For example, the Columbia Coffee Trails adventure is perfect for coffee lovers everywhere. They’ll visit some of South America’s top coffee plantations in search of the perfect brew, while exploring lush landscapes in Columbia, a country that his quickly becoming a top destination for travelers.

If coffee isn’t your thing, perhaps you’ll find an adventure more to your liking in Africa. New offerings to that continent will get travelers off the beaten path and into remote villages, where they’ll experience cultural immersion, spectacular landscapes, and fantastic wildlife. And if climbing Kilimanjaro has always been on your “bucket list,” Gap has made it easier and more affordable than ever with new options for that classic trek.

Gap has new adventures on every continent, ranging from the island of Sumatra to the deserts of Egypt, to the highlands of Guatemala and beyond. So whether you want to go to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or somewhere in between, you’ll find plenty of fantastic opportunities in Gap’s back catalog or in their new offerings. To check out all the new trips, click here. But be warned, there are so many great trips to choose from, you may have to select more than one.

FourSquare is everywhere … even North Korea

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Whether you tweet or not, log into Facebook or skip it, you know that social media is everywhere. You just can’t get away from it. There are references on prime-time television, news stories all over the place and special deals at stores large and small. If you think you’re surrounded by this stuff, brace yourself: it’s more pervasive than you realize.

As I was scanning my Twitter stream this week, I saw a tweet by social media company FourSquare, a service that allows people to “check in” at different locations, track their friends and, if they choose, share their locations with the world.

The tweet contained a bold claim, specifically, that the service had recorded check-ins in every country in the world in November … even the most reclusive one:

With 8 check-ins in North Korea, foursquare users visited EVERY country in November! Bouvet Island, you’re one of just 5 territories left…less than a minute ago via webfoursquare
foursquare

%Gallery-109277%While FourSquare has yet to accumulate the user base of Twitter (175 million) or Facebook (550 million), it has grown quickly in the past year, going from a mere 725,000 in March to 5 million only 10 days ago … and it’s adding 25,000 every day.

In addition to letting your friends and followers know where you are, FourSquare has some tools that are useful for both occasional and frequent travels, including the ability to record and share tips at each of the locations you visit. While it’s fun to get check-ins at places that are prestigious, fun or remote, nothing says “for the win” – #FTW in Twitter parlance – quite like a North Korea check-in.

So, are you on FourSquare? What’s your craziest check-in? Leave a comment below to get the ball rolling! I have to admit: mine aren’t all that adventurous, but I am the mayor of an Upper West Side bodega. Okay, that doesn’t compare to a DPRK check-in!

[photo by yeowatzup via Flickr]

3 no-brainer cruise safety tips

by Chris Owen on

There are a lot of great features on your upcoming cruise vacation. Good times with friends and/or family, seeing new and exotic ports of call or visiting ones you’ve already seen again and lots of stuff to do on board the ship are just a few.

You’ll be encouraged to get into the whole experience and that’s good advice. You can unwind, relax and come away a new, renewed person. Throughout your voyage you’ll have the opportunity to do or not do some things that can impact your experience. Here are three cruise safety tips that focus on some things you don’t want to do.

  1. Don’t blindly trust the youth counselors– We want to believe the best of everyone and we really want to believe that the people we trust with our kids are good people. Take a few minutes from time to time throughout the voyage to make eye contact with and talk to the youth counselors that will have direct contact with your kid. If you see something odd in those eyes, don’t be afraid to walk right out of there with your kid. Trust your instincts as a parent; they are as good at sea as they are on land.
  2. Don’t visit crew areas of the ship– This sounds like a no-brainer, crossing over into the world marked “crew-only”, but here’s one good reason for it: While you are visiting with your new crew friend, you are surely not in your cabin and that would be a great time for some other crew member to get in and take your stuff. If you or someone you know is entering the crew-only world that’s a big red flag that something is wrong. Maybe that person is drinking too much and having an alcohol-induced crush on that handsome bartender with the charming accent.
  3. Don’t blindly go ashore- Bad stuff can happen when traveling anyplace by any method of travel. There are bad parts of most all towns whether on a Caribbean island or in the middle of some continent. Going ashore, from a native point of view, there are two kinds of people; those going on an organized shore excursion and those going it on their own. The later are the easy marks and the ones crooks most commonly target. Yes, there are rare stories of groups on excursions being held up too but a couple or small group walking around town for shopping are easy prey.

Photo of the Day (12.19.10)

by Jeremy Kressmann on

You might say that today’s photo pick, taken by Flickr user WitChi Wotcha in Sicily, has a bit of an “edge.” The first visual element your eyes fall on is that giant freakin’ knife in the sharpener’s hands. What do you cut with that thing?? Soon your eyes move away from the knife and you notice the wonderful mix of other small details in the scene, like the curious expression of the man on the right, his gaze caught in a mixture of surprise and puzzlement. Add in that great collection of cutlery on the back wall along with the various tones of red and green, and we’ve got quite an interesting image here, don’t you think?

Taken any great travel photos recently? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Bangladesh airport operator investigates terminal TV porn show

by Scott Carmichael on

Officials at Shahjalal International Airport in Bangladesh are investigating how a porno flick appeared on a large TV screen in the departure lounge of their airport. The screen is normally used to display documentaries about Bangladesh, explaining the geography and culture of this Muslim nation.

The movie had been broadcast for five minutes and seen by hundreds of passengers. Immediately after the screen was turned off, the AV operator was thrown in jail for two months. The owners of a local cable firm have been summoned to help explain whether any criminal intent was involved.

Shahjalal International airport is located 13 miles north of the capital Dhaka, it is serviced by 30 different airlines, including Emirates and Singapore Airlines.

At least this time, the porn didn’t come from the airport security scanning machines…

[Photo from Flickr/Rainer Ebert]