The Best Maui Whale Watching Video You Will Ever See

by Kyle Ellison on

It probably won’t come as a surprise to hear that Maui is a popular vacation destination this time of year. With the recent bout of cold that’s been gripping the nation, the idea of a warm, tropical island sounds pretty nice to anyone shoveling snow.

It isn’t just the warmth that makes Maui such a popular winter hotspot, however; it’s also the whales.

Every winter thousands of North Pacific humpback whales make the long swim south from their feeding grounds in waters off of Alaska to the protected waters of Maui County. The whales, which migrate to Maui, form the densest population of humpbacks found anywhere in the world, and during the peak of the Maui whale watching season it isn’t possible to look out at the water for more than two minutes without seeing a splash or a spout. Whale watching charters operate from dawn to dusk shuttling snap-happy visitors out to get a closer look, and for many, the experience is a pinnacle of their vacation.

In the case of these two Maui scuba divers, however, instead of going out to watch the whales themselves, the whales decided to stop in and pay them a visit as they hung out on the ocean floor at a depth of 180 feet. Just to add some spice to the already heart stopping moment, a few sharks decide to visit the divers just for good measure.

If this sounds just a little bit insane, these are the same people who are behind the “Black Coral” documentary we reported on back in May, and encounters such as this are almost to be expected from this bunch.

So although tens of thousands of Maui visitors will embark on whale watching charters this winter, we can guarantee that none of them are going to get a sighting quite like this.

Photo Of The Day: A Snowy Tokyo Temple

by Jonathan Kramer on

In the heart of the greatest metropolis in the world lies Senso-ji, Tokyo’s oldest temple. Founded in 628, it is one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions – and rightly so. An ENORMOUS lantern is at the head of a ridiculously long walkway of trinket stalls, which leads to the recently renovated main hall, a registered national treasure. Adjacent to the main hall is this five-story pagoda. During the daytime, it is easily overshadowed by other sights on the temple grounds, but lit up at night, it truly stands out.

Flickr user Manish Prabhune took this fantastic on January 14, during Tokyo’s first snowfall of the year. A snowfall that ended up grounding 71 flights and stranding 3,400 passengers at Narita Airport.

If you’ve taken a great travel photo recently add them to our Gadling group on Flickr. We may pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

[Photo credit: Flickr user Manish Prabhuna]

Hotel News We Noted: January 25, 2013

by McLean Robbins on

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Hotel News We Noted,” where we round up the week’s best, most interesting and just downright odd news of note in the hospitality world. Have a tip? Send us a note or leave a comment below.

News of Note: Hotel Industry Rebounding
Good news for the hotel industry, although perhaps not so great news for consumers seeking a deal. Early reporting from Smith Travel Research show that the hotel industry is growing, perhaps even rebounding to pre-recession levels. Houston, Nashville, New Orleans and Oahu are doing particularly well.

Hotel Opening of Note: Hard Rock’s new MEGAPOLIS in Panama
Panama has been a buzzy destination of late, with openings from brands like Westin and Trump, as well as a slew of other planned developments. The latest is the 66-story Hard Rock Panama Megaopolis (originally slated for 2011), featuring 11 bars, for restaurants and a nightclub, meaning the hotel is basically a mini Las Vegas or Atlantic City in Panama. The modern decor features a graphic rock artist wall that varies by floor and “tribal tattoo” themed carpets, HOTELS Magazine reports. Colors are bright, with orange, pink and purple playing a starring role. What do you think? Would you stay here, or leave this to the cast and crew of “The Jersey Shore”?

Openings We’re Excited About: The LEGOLAND Resort
If you’re a parent and reading this, we’d suggest you hide your screen from the kids. California is getting its first LEGOLAND Resort this spring (April 5, 2013, to be exact) and Mashable has a video (OK, really more like a glorified ad) that makes us wish we were 12 again. From a pirate ship and a castle to a bar just for the adults, this first Lego hotel in the United States is sure to be a kitschy yet clever hit. Think you’ve seen this before? Maybe you have – there are other hotels outside of the U.S., and a LEGOLAND theme park in Florida.

Weird Hotel Rooms Around the Globe
We sadly can’t take credit for this great roundup, but one of our favorite parts about this column is being able to share great hotel news we find ’round the web with our readers. A thanks to The Atlantic Cities for this package on the weirdest hotel rooms found worldwide, from former prisons transformed to hotels to ice hotels and capsule rooms. Have you seen a weird room not reported on in this column? Let us know and we’ll share it next week.


Coming up, we’ll round up some of the best over-the-top Valentine’s Day packages … so if you have an idea for sweet suite-style romance, send it over.

[Image Credit: LEGOLAND California Resort]

Updated SeatGuru Brings New Features, Recommendations

by Chris Owen on

SeatGuru has been providing unbiased seat information to air travelers, removing some of the mystery when selecting an airline seat, for over ten years. Tapping a rich library of flier reviews and tips, SeatGuru has hundreds of airline seat maps covering nearly 100 airlines, enabling travelers to find the best seats before they fly. Now, SeatGuru has a new look, better layout and more content in addition to a new Guru Factor rating system.

The new easier-to-use site builds on that content and was designed with features to elevate the user experience including live flight shopping via TripAdvisor’s flight comparison engine, user provided photos.

Unique to SeatGuru, the new “Guru Factor” promises detailed seat comfort and onboard amenity information along with an overall recommendation of either “Love it,” “Like it,” or “Live with it” for your selected flight itinerary.

The Guru Factor considers the type of seat, seat pitch, width and recline, in-flight entertainment options, onboard amenities and TripAdvisor customer satisfaction ratings for airlines.”The new SeatGuru will give millions of flyers even more useful insight to help them plan and have the best flight experience possible,” said Bryan Saltzburg, general manager of TripAdvisor Flights and SeatGuru. “Access to our comprehensive seat and airline amenity information, new flight shopping functionality, purchase options, and trustworthy advice from fellow travelers will be infinitely valuable for those planning their next flight.”

SeatGuru’s re-launched site is up right now. Coming up, SeatGuru’s iPhone app will have the new seat map design, improved navigation and travelers can create a profile then submit comments and photos of their seat in real time.



[Photo credit- Flickr user ATIS547]

Scientists Develop Tractor Beam (On A Microscopic Scale)

by Sean McLachlan on

A research team in Scotland and the Czech Republic has developed a tractor beam.

A press release from St. Andrews University reveals that scientists at that university and at the Institute of Scientific Instruments in the Czech Republic have for the first time been able to use light to draw objects closer, although only on a microscopic scale.

It has long been known that photons create a small amount of pressure. Johanes Kepler described the effect way back in the 17th century when he observed that the tails of comets point away from the sun. Experiments using light to push microscopic objects have been conducted for decades, but the current research is the first time light has been used to attract objects.

The team discovered that under a certain set of parameters with a special optical field, the pushing effect turns into a negative force and the object is drawn closer.

The negative force is specific to the object’s size and composition, allowing scientists to pick and choose what objects to attract. This would have applications to medicine and biological research, enabling researchers to sort cells or even parts of a cell. The team’s results have been published in Nature Photonics.

A real science-fiction-style tractor beam would have to be on a vastly greater scale than these experiments, however, so don’t expect it to be used for transportation anytime soon. We’ll see space tourism long before that. The tractor beam experiments are a bit like teleportation experiments that made headlines a year ago. We’re seeing what our grandkids might one day take for granted.

[Image courtesy St Andrews University]