Starting February 13, the Park Service will begin charging $4/person for anyone looking to camp inside the park. On that same day, a new online reservation system will go into operation, allowing visitors to book a campsite up to 30 days in advance. Permits will also be available within the park itself at the Backcountry Office inside the Sugerlands Vistor Center. The NPS hopes these options will allow campers plenty of flexibility in their plans even if they are attempting to make a last minute booking.
Visitors to the park should see a direct impact from the fees that are collected as they’ll help fund additional staff in the Backcountry Office and put more rangers into the field. Those rangers will help ensure a safer and cleaner environment for hikers and backpackers, while enforcing regulations designed to make the park safer.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the entire U.S. system. On an annual basis it sees more than 9 million visitors pass through its gates. With over 522,000 acres of wilderness, it is also one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States, which only adds to its popularity as a great travel destination.
The Strong National Museum in Rochester, New York, is an interactive, collections-based educational institution devoted to the study and exploration of play. Housing the world’s most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play in its National Museum of Play, the Strong recently added the new “LEGO Travel Adventure” exhibit.
The new interactive attraction has large displays built entirely out of LEGOs, chronicling the history of world travel.
Popular are free-building LEGO DUPLO brick station tables where visitors can choose a destination and build a means of transportation to get there with LEGOs. Intended to foster creativity and solve travel-related problems, kids and adults explore the often-unknown world of travel side by side in the familiar world of LEGOs.“It’s just what you put into it, and whatever you use from your own imagination. And that’s what’s always so exciting about playing and growing and learning, is using your imagination,” said Strong spokesperson Susan Trien in a YNN report.
The non-profit Strong National Museum also houses the National Toy Hall of Fame, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play and the American Journal of Play.
Have a favorite toy you think deserves recognition? Anyone can nominate a toy to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Final selections are made on the advice of historians, educators and other individuals who exemplify learning, creativity and discovery through their lives and careers.
The LEGO Travel Adventure runs through May 12, 2013, and is included in the price of general admission.
This is not the first time LEGOs have been associated with travel either. In “Leggo My Love Boat,” Gadling brought you coverage of a full-scale model of Princess Cruises‘ original Pacific Princess Love Boat built by professional LEGO builder Ryan McNaught that took 250,000 LEGO bricks and six months to build.
Fascinated by LEGO’s? This video has more:
[Photo Credit- Courtesy of The Strong, Rochester, New York]
It seems that there is no shortage of travel apps that do everything from guide us around an unfamiliar city to share our travel experience with others. In the beginning it was a rush-to-market situation that had travel app software developers working overtime, just to get a brand out there for us to try in one way or another. If that app did something unique, all the better. Now, after working with them a while, gathering user information and tweaking apps already in place, a new generation of travel apps seem to be a bit smarter, faster and more relevant.
In “Travel Apps That Actually Do Something,” we talked about apps that rely on existing data and don’t really do anything special. A variety of GPS-based apps, for example, take that same satellite signal and do different things with it. One uses it to give us driving directions, another to connect us with others in the area or find a restaurant, hotel or area attraction.
New generation travel apps, like Gogobot’s new Android app released this week, do more.Via their iPhone app, Gogobot’s social network of travelers have been able to search and book hotels, restaurants and things to do in thousands of destinations around the world.
The new Android version goes a step or two further, allowing the ability to search and book that hotel on the fly with filters for real-time hotel pricing and availability, user ratings, hotel class and social recommendation. Adding new, rich content and ability from OpenTable, Gogobot users can now search and select a table on the go too.
A smart integration of Google Street View for Android uses the phone’s compass to turn an Android device into a virtual window, with 360-degree views of Gogobot locations.
“With our new Android app, Gogobot has responded to the needs of avid travelers who are Android users with an experience uniquely tailored to maximize the device’s capabilities,” said Gogobot CEO and co-founder Travis Katz in a press release.
Not just adding an Android version of their iPhone app, Gogobot is addressing the future too. With mobile predicted to take over PC’s as the most common web access device as soon as 2014, as many as one billion users are expected.
“This means travelers will be accessing – and creating – an increasing amount of information via mobile apps,” added Katz, “both in real time and around such destinations and venues as restaurants, hotels, shops and sites.”
Want a first-look at Gogobot’s new Android app? See this video:
The announcement came quietly last week, amid bigger, louder clamor over another airline’s new branding. Delta Air Lines will be changing its mileage program for the 2015 status year, and in a very big way. Coming up, passengers will soon be required to spend a minimum amount of money on the airline per year in order to reach elite status. So, for example, for one to reach Platinum status, it will soon be required to earn either 75,000 miles or 100 segments and spend a minimum of $7,500 on the airline per year. The full qualification table pulled from Delta’s announcement is below
MEDALLION QUALIFICATION
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Diamond
MQDs
$2,500
$5,000
$7,500
$12,500
and
and
and
and
MQMs
25,000
50,000
75,000
125,000
or
or
or
or
MQSs
30
60
100
140
This change shouldn’t be a surprise for regular travelers. Skymiles has been eroding for several years now, and this is the next step in completely trivializing the program. Options for low-cost mileage redemptions have nearly evaporated, and many passengers are holding onto stockpiles with nothing to buy. One disgusted passenger on the forum Flyertalk puts it this way:
“[Delta]… rarely has the seats to begin with. It’s of such limited utility to me that anytime I see even the most mundane 25,000-mile award within the U.S., I’m tempted to grab it.”
Delta’s spin on the change, for their part, is that they need to make room for their most valuable customers. From their release last week, they state:
“These changes are a result of considerable research that we’ve conducted including conversations with hundreds of customers, many of whom expressed a desire to see the Medallion program truly target our best customers”
Delta would never release data on the ranks of their Skymiles program, but this suggests that their stables may be bloated with elite (and thereby costly) travelers and that they need to be thinned. It makes reasonable business sense: reward the travelers who spend the most money on the airline.
But what about the budget traveler? Delta is effectively moving its focus to high-paying passengers with this change, and budget travelers – some of whom are the biggest fans of the airline – will be left in the cold.
Proof will come when the budget travelers shift their business away from Delta and the costs of running their elite program drop over the next two years. If elite ranks stagnate and the frequent fliers keep coming, the airline can move forward with a smaller, more robust and profitable mileage program. And if membership spirals down to a handful of deranged loyal fliers, they’ll know that their mileage program is officially dead. In the end, that may have been part of the plan.
Daniel Suelo is easily the most famous homeless person in America. His story has been featured in Details, ABC News, BBC, The Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Oregonian, and a host of other publications. And last year, a division of Penguin Books published a book about Suelo’s life, “The Man Who Quit Money.”
Suelo, 51, who changed his given name from Shellabarger, (Suelo means “soil” in Spanish) spends most of his time sleeping in a cave but he’s not your ordinary homeless person. He’s a college graduate (University of Colorado Boulder) who served in the Peace Corps and once held regular 9-5 jobs before completely swearing off money in the Fall of 2000. In fact, society might view him as homeless, but in fact, he has two homes – one inside a small cave near Arches National Park and a small tent site on private property within the city limits of Moab, Utah.
Since he gave up using money, people from around the world have made the pilgrimage to Moab to seek Suelo’s advice on how to live for free. He runs his website from the public library in Moab and is happy to share his living without money survival skills with anyone who cares to listen.
Suelo and I were supposed to meet up while I was in Moab last week but since he has no phone, he isn’t the easiest person to reach. I caught up with him on the phone while he was house sitting for a friend to ask him about living and traveling without money and how his life has changed since “The Man Who Quit Money” was published.
It was freezing at night in Moab last week. I know you do some house sitting for people in the winter, but are you still sleeping outdoors even in this weather?
Right now I’m house sitting but I was living out just a few weeks ago. It’s not that bad when I’m in my sleeping bag and tent; it’s not as bad as people think it is.
What kind of sleeping bag and tent do you have?
I’ve had different sleeping bags. I find them in dumpsters or just lying around. I double up sleeping bags in the winter.
I imagine you have to sleep with quite a few layers of clothing?
Not really. I take my pants off and just sleep with a shirt and underwear.
So when you have a house-sitting gig, you don’t dread going back to your cave when it’s over?
No, not at all. I feel more liberated when I sleep outside. This is the first year I’ve used a tent. I used to just use a tarp. I found two tents – and I put the small one inside the larger one and it’s actually quite insulated in there. I light two or three candles and I’m amazed how warm it is. I’m warmer in there than in a house.
Has your life changed since the book came out?
In a lot of ways, it has. I went on half of the book tour with the author and I’ve had a lot more visitors.
How was the book tour?
We didn’t stay in any hotels. Penguin Books gave Mark a very low budget for the tour. He wanted me to come along so we crashed with friends and strangers. Sometimes we didn’t know where we were going to sleep that night and someone would always offer us a place and we camped out a few times. It was really fun. It’s fun not knowing where you’re going to sleep at night.
Do you think he envies your lifestyle?
In some ways, I think he does. He used to kind of live this way himself, so it’s nostalgic for him.
You both worked at a restaurant in Moab together, right?
Right – we worked at a natural foods restaurant together that isn’t here any more.
Have you had to move to a different cave since the book came out?
No. People still can’t find that place. Over the past decade, I’m always camping in different places, but I have this one cave that’s been pretty stable for me.
In the book, there’s a scene where a ranger evicted you from a cave. So after you were evicted did you move to a new cave?
Yeah, I switched caves. I found a much more stealth one.
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Tell me about your cave?
It’s way back in one of the canyons here. It’s way up on a ledge. It’s quite stealth. I’d say it’s about an hour walk from the nearest road.
But you also have a crash pad set up outside on someone’s private property in Moab, right?
Right. I have a tent there too.
What’s your cave like?
It goes back about 15-20 feet. It’s like a crevice in a cliff. It’s about 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide, 15 feet back. I have a few buckets of food in there, plus my sleeping bag, some books, and I built a little wood stove from a cookie tin. And I have candles and oil lamps too.
What percentage of what you eat comes from garbage bins?
When I’m here in Moab, 80% of my food is castoffs, stuff from dumpsters. The rest I forage – wild edibles and people give me things, though I discourage people from buying me anything.
So if I bought you some muffins you wouldn’t eat them?
I do it but I discourage people from doing that.
Is the stuff you find in garbage bins mostly expired?
Most of it is past the sell-by date but not the eat-by date. I don’t think I eat more expired food than anyone else. A lot of the food I find in dumpsters isn’t even expired.
I know you love to travel. What kind of travel tips can you offer?
Traveling is easy. I travel more now than I did when I had money. I just go out and hitchhike.
Is it hard to get rides?
It’s harder than it used to be but it depends on where you’re going.
How long do you usually wait for rides?
I would say it’s usually half hour to an hour. My hair is gray now and when you’re hitchhiking at this age, people wonder why. Why you aren’t settled down with a job and a car? A young person is out for adventure but when you’re older people think you might be mentally ill. Sometimes people will say, ‘You’re not an ax murderer are you?’
But if you were, you probably wouldn’t admit it, would you?
That’s what I tell them.
And they still let you in the car?
Yeah. It’s just a release of tension. A joke.
So how does one avoid looking like an ax murderer while hitchhiking?
Just be yourself. Smiling is good if it’s genuine. Be clean. A couple years ago, I found a guitar in a dumpster, and I’ve found that people are more likely to pick you up if you’re carrying a guitar.
You can’t be an ax murderer if you’re carrying a guitar, right?
Right!
Do you travel with a tent and a sleeping bag?
I don’t carry a tent – that’s too bulky. I just bring a tarp and a sleeping bag usually. There are so many places to sleep. I usually just find a grove of trees somewhere, or in abandoned houses, or the roof of a building, places like that. Someone gave me a hammock and one time, the people I was with, we strung hammocks up in a park in San Diego between trees about 20-30 feet high and no one thinks to look up, so you’re stealth sleeping up there.
Most of the reviews of the book were positive, but some people said you were a mooch or a parasite.
We braced ourselves before the book tour for that because there’s been so many nasty comments about me on the Internet but people were positive on the book tour. It’s easier to be nasty when you’re anonymous on the Internet.
In a lot of ways, the negativity feels confirming though. I’m glad I’m riling people up, making them think. People aren’t going to think unless they’re upset.
I read in the book that people are sometimes hostile toward you when they encounter you dumpster diving?
Sometimes I ignore people, other times I challenge them. Why is it that throwing away food is fine but retrieving it in a world where people are starving is bad?
Will you have to retire from this lifestyle when you get too old?
I don’t want to go back to using money. Worrying about the future is the worst thing you can do. The Peace Pilgrim was my hero – she walked the country for almost 30 years and she was like 80 and was still healthy. She was in an auto accident; otherwise she could have kept going.
When you follow your heart and don’t baby your body too much, you’re healthier than someone who’s sitting in a nursing home. I’m a strong believer in natural selection though. When it’s my time to go, I’ll go.
I know you do some volunteer work but how do you spend your time when you’re not on the road?
I do a lot of reading and writing. I hike.
I’m sure Mark Sundeen didn’t get rich writing this book, but he did make money off of your story. Does that make you uncomfortable?
Not really. Most authors don’t make much. He’s struggling like everyone else. I feel good about helping him make a living. People say you aren’t contributing to society, well what is contributing to society? Why does there have to have a monetary value for it to be considered a contribution?
How do you contribute to society?
I guess I would ask somebody, ‘What does a tree or a dog or a bird contribute to society? Is stopping to talk to someone in the street contributing to society?’ Or if they don’t have time to stop and talk because they have to get to work, are they contributing to society?
Have you been tempted to use money over the last 10-12 years?
I’ve taken things people bought for me – more for their sake than mine. People want to be generous and they like to give. Most of the time, I get too much and I want less.
You don’t ever walk by a bakery, for example, and see something in the window and think – that looks delicious; I wish I could go inside and buy that?
Honestly, I don’t feel that way. There’s a grand feeling of gratitude when things come on their own time. In the money culture, we spoil that sense of fun and gratitude. I like the feeling of hunger when I experience it, but I don’t experience it that often.
Do you hope that people will follow our example in living without money?
Deep down, I like the idea that my example might inspire people but I won’t worry about it if people don’t want to do it. I do like to proselyte though.
Why do you love to travel?
This is why I live the way I do – I don’t like to be tied down. I feel more free to travel now than when I had money even though it’s harder to get places. I just get up and go when I want to. I like the sense of freedom that travel offers. Especially when the travel is random. Sometimes I don’t know where I’m going. I have no idea what’s around the next corner. And I like that.