Jamaica Bans Smoking Tobacco, Marijuana Is Another Matter

by Chris Owen on

Banning smoking in public places is not all that uncommon as popular destinations worldwide look to promote a healthy environment for visitors to enjoy. But to some in the Bob Marley-induced culture of Jamaica, tobacco smoke is not the issue.

The new law of the land goes into effect on July 15, when visitors will no longer “have to involuntarily inhale tobacco smoke, with its over 40 carcinogens,” said Jamaica’s minister of health Fenton Ferguson in a Jamaica Observer article. Jamaicans get that, responding with support for the move to ban cigarette smoking.

On another smoke-related front, Jamaica’s Ganja Law Reform Coalition (GLRC) argues that marijuana is a plant with various uses, including environmental and recreational. They propose for marijuana to be taxed and regulated, something not on the agenda of minister Ferguson.Choosing instead to address other health concerns including excessive alcohol consumption and identifying the contents of fast food, Ferguson insists that “tobacco is the one that a little bit of smoke, a little puff every now and again is dangerous for you.”

Meanwhile, in Amsterdam…

Google Makes Travel Easier For Lazy People

by Jess Moss on


Google’s ongoing world digitization is opening up some very cool travel experiences to people sitting in front of their laptops and tablets. Now, rather than spending thousands of dollars, lots of vacation time and a decent amount of physical exertion to see these places, you can arrive by a click and multi-task your exploring as you commute to work, procrastinate a project or tune out in a meeting.
Last fall Google Maps debuted a “street view” of the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs, allowing armchair travelers with no diving or even swimming ability to take a peek at the world’s greatest underwater treasures.

More recently the site teamed up with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau to feature Hawaiian hiking trails on Google Street View. Hiking guides on the Big Island will carry Google’s cameras on roughly 20 of the Islands’ best trails, stitching together a 360-degree experience that people can enjoy anywhere.

Another recent addition to Street View will please Harry Potter fans who can’t make the trip across the pond to London’s Warner Bros. Studio Tour. Muggles can now tour Diagon Alley and the wizarding shops it houses through Street View.

Google Maps isn’t the only thing bringing travel experiences to the masses. Though still in its infancy, Google Glass is expected to change the way people document and share their travel experiences. This year a Running of the Bulls competition invited two Google Glass users to Pamplona to view the annual San Fermin festival events. While the Glassers aren’t expected to actually run with the bulls (too bad, that’s something we wouldn’t mind having Google do for us!), they’ll be watching the bull run from a balcony and sharing the experience via a daily webcast.

It’s doubtful that Google’s online presentations will actually keep people from wanting to experience these places in real life, but we’re intrigued about what other experiences will become available to interactive travelers. Climbing Mount Everest? Surfing Jaws? Space travel?

Where do you want your maps app to take you next?

Smartphone Technology Getting Closer To What Travelers Want

by Chris Owen on

As smartphone technology continues to advance, travelers are being offered more connectivity choices. Making calls, sending text, voice or video messages and surfing the Internet is becoming commonplace almost anywhere on the planet. Now, pricing is coming in line too as service providers realize what it is we want when traveling.

“Our mission is for all travelers to have the freedom to use their mobile devices the same way as at home when traveling abroad, without having to worry about chokingly high mobile bills,” says Joacim Boivie, CEO and Founder, HolidayPhone, a leading solutions provider of roaming free mobile Internet, voice and text services for international travelers in a Breaking Travel News report.

Like Boingo, the worldwide connectivity company with over 700,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in over 100 countries, HolidayPhone also enables connection. Unlike Boingo, which automatically communicates then connects with local hot spots on your behalf, enabling connection using only an installed app, the HolidayPhone method is a twist on the SIM card pay-as-you-go trick that has travelers buying cards for each country they visit.Providing an easy, inexpensive way to call and access mobile Internet while abroad without roaming fees, HolidayPhone’s travel SIM cards are prepaid and sent in advance. Before departure, U.S. users forward calls to a provided U.S. landline number. On the plane, they insert the HolidayPhone SIM card in their smartphone. Landing at the destination, their phone is ready to use, at local rates.

Here is more on how HolidayPhone works:

Nabbing Free Souvenirs At The Tour De France

by Rob Annis on

So you’ve promised all your friends and family you’d bring them back souvenirs from your Tour de France trip. Although buying everyone a €20 T-shirt will help solve the lingering effects of the European financial crisis, it’s also going to put a bigger dent in your bank statement than those $1,300 plane tickets to France.

Before the start of each stage, a massive convoy of vehicles called the publicity caravan travels the day’s stage route. Imagine a massive carnival on wheels, filled with water-spraying acrobats, comically oversized plaster bike riders and lots of students throwing out free candy, hats, laundry detergent and more to the fans waiting for the race action to begin. Depending on the number of stages you see, you could easily fill an extra carry-on bag with the trinkets.
Advertisers pay tour organizers more than €150,000 for three or more spots in the caravan, which numbers in the hundreds. But with millions of people lining the route over the 23 days of the Tour, it’s probably a solid investment.

An estimated 11 million items are given away during each year’s Tour, and I managed to snag more than a few of them. But there’s one thing that stands out more than any of the others.

Standing on the side of the road leading up to the Col de Portet-d’Aspet, I desperately tried to nab one of the more prized freebies of the day, a green T-shirt modeled after the Tour’s sprinter jersey, but came up just short. When a couple of candy packages landed at my feet, I handed them to the excited young boy standing next to me rather than stuffing them into my jersey pocket (and later, my mouth). His happiness was contagious, and as more items kept landing next to me, I, in turn, handed them to him.

As the caravan began winding down, I began walking away when I felt a tap on my shoulder. The boy’s grandfather held out one of the T-shirts I attempted to grab earlier, the boy standing behind him with that same smile on his face. I held up my hands, attempting to decline the offer – after all, it didn’t seem like a fair trade – but the grandfather put the T-shirt in my hand and clasped my fingers around the fabric. I offered a heartfelt merci, and the two walked away to rejoin their family. I was grateful for the shirt, but the boy’s generosity will stay with me forever.

A World Health Map

by Elizabeth Seward on

Odra Noel is a scientific artist who has just created and released a piece she called “The Map of Health.” The map provides a visual representation of diseases affecting regions of the world. What’s more is that she uses depictions of affected body parts by each disease for each disease. The USA, which struggles with obesity and obesity-related diseases, is speckled with fat tissue. And with HIV being a leading cause of death in many countries of Africa, the continent is covered in images of blood cells. It’s an interesting and insightful map, one that might lend some thought or conversation about the people we meet when we travel and what kinds of illnesses they deal with regularly.

Thanks, Laughing Squid.