Expat Guide

by Erik Olsen on

Living abroad is one of the great experiences in life. I’ve lived a couple of places around the globe, if just for a short time, including Bangkok, Thailand, Santiago, Chile and Madrid, Spain. Don’t know where I’ll go next, but one of these days I’ll hoof my way outta NYC and do a couple of years in another country.

That said, living abroad and fully taking advantage of the city you’re in are two different things. In Santiago, I regularly ran into people (that is, Americans) who hung out only with other Americans and who kind of kept to their own comfortable environs. This is NOT the way to live abroad.

I have two suggestions here for you if you are considering a move overseas. First, check out the helpful series of books by the folks at Avalon Publishing. They are expanding their series all the time, but for now have nice books on Japan, Ireland, France, Mexico, Italy and more. I’ve taken a look at a few of these books and believe anyone thinking of making the move would be well-served by taking a look at them. Another good book group is the Culture Shock series. You can find more about them, and more about being an expat at this site.

Which leads me to the whole how do I make the most of living abroad question. The telegraph UK has got a list of events put together for expats in various cities around the world. The links here tell you about nightlife and cultural events and also help you with nitty gritty details like consulate info and such.

Planning is key when you move abroad, so take a look at some of these resources if such a move is on your calendar and, well ,good luck to you. It will be one of the best moves you ever make.

TT Writing Award

by Erik Olsen on

Here’s one I picked up from the good folks over at Written Road. Travelers’ Tales (whose books I adore) are launching a travel writing contest for the literary-inclined vagabond. They have started what they call the Solas Awards for Best Travel Story of the Year. This will be an annual competition to discover the very best writing being done about the world today. If you win, you can walk away with $1000 smackers. Or, you can win a copy of The Best Travel Writing 2006 and The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2006.

As WW points, out, Solas is an Irish word for “light,” which means, um, make sure you write with your lamp on.

VR Mag

by Erik Olsen on

I’ve done enough posts here on panoramic photography that folks know I’m passionate about the stuff. Whenever I find a great new site dedicated to the form, I always try to post about it. Now, this is not a new site to me, I’ve been aware of it for a while, but I realized recently that I’ve never drawn your attention to it. Now is the time.

VR Magazine is a wonderful online resource dedicated to everything panoramic. The panoramic photographs here come from all over the world and are shot by a very wide array of terrifically talented folks. You can spend a great deal of time just poking around and finding superb work, but let me draw you attention to a few highlights.

First of all, for a great use of pano photography as documentary work, check out this full screen picture on AIDS in Mozambique. And this one of a demonstration on Cairo over the Lebanese conflict gives a very interesting, untraditional perspective you don’t get in normal pictures.

Then for tourist-related photography, take a look at this series on Chenonceau in France, as well as the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan (which I have visited). All great stuff amid tons of other pictures that are well worth some exploration click time.

Worldhum Travel Zeitgeist

by Erik Olsen on

We’re always eager to see what’s happening over at one of our favorite travel sites, Worldhum.com, and I just noticed today they’ve launched a rather cool new feature called Travel Zeitgeist. For those who don’t know the meaning of the word, Zeitgeist comes from the German language and means “Time Spirit” or the spirit of the times or how/what people are thinking at a particular moment. You know what I mean. Cool word. Kind of like Weltanschaung, another favorite.

Anyway, the Worldhum folks have made this little list which they’ll do every week that captures the essence of the week…what people are blogging about, what they’re searching for, the best-selling travel book on Amazon, etc. A cool idea. Wish we’d thought of it.

Bang Bangs You’re Dead

by Erik Olsen on

I have to say, this is really quite a bummer. It looks like after just a single year from launch, that Yahoo is canceling Richard Bangs Adventures, a great online video travelogue that we blogged about a few times here.

They said that the program, which featured Bangs, a hardened veteran explorer, travel writer and business person, had failed to build “a large and loyal audience”. The reason cited was that there were roughly month-long gaps between new installments and this turned people away.

Um, hello. Can I also raise my hand here?! No one in my building could see video on Yahoo for some stupid reason on their end (we can see YouTube, Google video and most other types). The video would just stop there and turn and nothing would ever come up, so to enjoy the program I’d always have to watch it at home. But you can be sure if I was having this problem, so were thousands of others. Maybe Yahoo should have done a bit more beta testing.

Anyway, it’s a big loss for several reason, but tops is that it makes it less likely that big companies will experiment with original content…I mean nicely produced funded stuff. And that is a huge shame. Anyway, I wave a fond farewell to Bangs and Company and only wish they’d figured out the technical probs before they went and pulled the plug.