Travel through Asia by country:
Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
Travel through Asia by popular city:
Bangkok, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Moscow, New Delhi, Tokyo
Travel through Asia by popular things to do:
Travel through Asia with our writers:
Infiltrating North Korea, Keyhole Into Burma, Band on the Run ... in China, Chinese Buffet, A Canadian in Beijing, Volunteer Vacation: Tajikistan
“Ten Days in Thailand” from fredparis11 on Vimeo.
This video of Thailand is gorgeous. Chronicling ten days spent in the country, filmmaker Fred Albrecht captures his moments spent in Thailand with precise beauty. It seems as though each shot could suffice as a telling photo on its own – a characteristic that truly distinguishes the best films from the rest. If you need a relaxing break from your day, take a moment to watch the scenes in this video unfold.
In keeping with Japan’s reputation as a most hospitable country comes this video from LiveLeak. Two Canadian backpackers are attempting to purchase subway tickets so they can visit Tsukiji Fish Market, but have problems with the dispenser.
No worries! Apparently, in Japan, live, smiling attendants pop out of tiny, hidden slots in automated machines. Perhaps the U.S. should take note, and use this strategy to help stimulate the job market. If only we could get rid of automated phone prompts.
Now try saying that five times fast.
This Photo of the Day, from Instagram user terra_tripper, features a golden Buddha statue nestled in the sands of Sanur, Bali.
Ostensibly, he’s there to imbue the beach with peace and zen. We just think it makes for a cool picture.
Do you have any great travel photos? You now have two options to enter your snapshots into the running for Gadling’s Photo of the Day. Upload your shots to the Gadling Flickr Pool, or mention @GadlingTravel and use hashtag #gadling in the caption or comments for your post on Instagram. Don’t forget to give us a follow too![Photo Credit: Instagram user terra_tripper]
Have a friend in Austria while you are in Austin and want to take a trip together this summer? How do you figure out where to meet? Do you choose a destination in the middle, or one with regular cheap flights from both of your destinations? A new website just launched in beta, designed to make planning group travel an easier process. TripCommon is a flight search engine that computes the cheapest common destinations, giving you the option to filter by region (maybe you’ve both always wanted to explore South America), activity (make it a beach trip), and where you have local friends (if you link up to Facebook).
What makes TripCommon genius is that it doesn’t just find random points on the map that are midway between you and your friends (you can enter up to six cities for big group travel planning), it finds destinations that have the lowest average price. Maybe you are in grad school and have a fixed budget; you can find places with the lowest cost from your city. If you have frequent flier miles to burn and your friends are the ones looking for the cheapest seats, you can sort by lowest price from one of their home cities. You may discover destinations you never thought about (Canary Islands sound nice for summer!), and make the trip planning process a lot more equitable.
Start planning your group trip at www.tripcommon.com.
[Photo credit: Trip Common]
Coffee addicts bound for Scandinavia might want to consider a dip in an icy fjord as an alternative morning pick-me-up. The Wall Street Journal has calculated that a grande latte in Oslo will run Americans a jolting $9.83.
Helsinki and Stockholm are also cities offering the top five most expensive Starbucks lattes once the dollar is converted into the local currency.
The paper did the math on 25 major cities around the world (including Beijing at $4.81) to illustrate an economic principle called “purchasing-power parity,” or “a crude way to compare the relative strength of currencies.” Of course, avid travelers don’t need this Starbucks-green bar graph to know that the peso is a lot friendlier to gringo wallets than the euro is, but that conventional wisdom doesn’t always translate in the language of Starbucks economics. Otherwise, how would one explain that a grande latte in London is cheaper than one in Atlanta, despite the dollar’s weakness in the U.K.?
According to the WSJ, most foreign Starbucks are significantly pricier than the U.S. outlets it also includes, but hey, maybe that’s what average Joes deserve for patronizing an American company overseas instead of opting for a local purveyor.
How much is too much to nurse your Starbucks addiction abroad?
[Photo Credit: The Nomad Within via Flickr]