World Heritage Sights Rated

by Erik Olsen on

My wife and I are planning our upcoming trip to Norway and we’re trying to decide whether it’s worth the effort to take a boat called the Coastal Steamer up to the Western Fjords…places with pretty much unpronounceable (and unspellable) names like Geirangerfjord and Naroyfjord (names, several letters of which, do not seem displayable here because they are, well, weird-looking letters). Well, there I was contemplating whether these places would be worth seeing, and I discover that they are both top scorers in the World Heritage Site rating piece over at National Geographic.

The whole World Heritage Site system is wonderful. Think of it as the original 1000 Things to Do Before You Die…even though there are only 833 of them currently. The process of giving places around the planet World Heritage status began back in 1973 when UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) was entrusted with administering the program in an effort to identify and protect places of “outstanding universal value.”

The list of sites ranges across a wide spectrum of both natural and man-made places from astonishing ruins like Angkor Wat to, well, as I pointed out here, the Norwegian fjords.

Anyway, these places are always worth pointing out and the nicely done ranking system here at Nat Geo is a helpful guide for anyone putting together their personal “life-lists”.

World’s Most Expensive Cities

by Willy Volk on

According to a recent study by The Economist, the World’s Ten Most Expensive Cities are:

  1. Oslo
  2. Paris
  3. Copenhagen
  4. London
  5. Tokyo
  6. Osaka Kobe
  7. Reykjavik
  8. Zurich
  9. Frankfurt
  10. Helsinki

The most expensive city in the US is, of course, New York (thank you very much) — though it didn’t show up on the list until #28.

What major city ranked as the cheapest? Tehran. I’m telling you: it’s the place to head for skiing.

[Photo: Gabirulo]

Amazing Views of Norway at the Aurland Lookout

by Justin Glow on

At first glance I thought this was the Grand Canyon Skywalk we’ve written about before, but this is much cooler, I think. It’s the Aurland Lookout in Aurland, Norway. True Scandinavian design — think IKEA tourism, with a dash of Tony Hawk thrown in. The design makes it seem as if you can fall right off if you continue walking to the end, but in reality a sheet of plate glass protects would-be daredevils from sliding off the edge into the woods.

More images after the jump:

All images from Todd Saunders.

Sleddog Vacations: A Winter Travel Adventure

by Jamie Rhein on

Sometimes when one is looking for information on one topic, another topic appears. Such is what happened when I came across sleddog vacations. I wasn’t actually looking for information on sleddog vacations. They hadn’t occurred to me, but somehow with a click of a mouse, there I was wandering through websites on a winter sport that welcomes participants.

Winterdance Dogsled Tours in Ontario, Canada offers two-hour to full-day excursion packages, as well as a moonlight tour. You can stay overnight at their cottage or at one of the nearby resorts. Even with the two-hour tour you can try your hand at driving the team with an experienced guide as an instructor.

Ontario, Canada also has several sleddog races, although according to the website of Ontario Federation of Sleddog Sports, the lack of snow has led to some postponements and cancellations. They are scheduled through the first week of March and there are contact numbers to find out what’s up with each. Ontario Dog Sleding Getaways website has a list of resorts that offer sleddog vacations.

For some hardcore sleddog travel adventure, head to Iceland, Finland, Lapland, Norway or Sweden. Each has sleddog trips that run from a few days to a little over a week. I found a list of several choices at Adventure Sport Holidays. Lest you think this is totally roughing it travel where you freeze at night curled up in a sleeping bag trying to create warmth with your body heat, lodge and cabin stays are the nightly fare. Some packages like Dog Sledding Along the Finnish-Russian Border include saunas, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and elk viewing.

Norwegian Cologne Ad

by Erik Olsen on

It doesen’t matter if you’re a man or a woman…no wait, it helps if you’re a man. Um, a heterosexual man…to enjoy this video from Norway. Filmed like a scene out of Lord of the Rings, this is the kind of ad, that when it comes on screen in pubs, department stores and storefronts in a place, everything male stops and watches. I’m not sure how they pulled off some of the shots. I had to watch it six or seven or nineteen times just to try and count all the, um bodies, but suffice to say it is as fine a piece of commercial work as I’ve seen in a while.