AvidTrips this week announced the results of its first Top Adventures survey taken in June 25 at this year’s Adventures NYC in Central Park. From a field of 60 domestic and international adventure destinations, the results reveal the world’s top three adventure travel destinations as The Galapagos Islands, the South Island of New Zealand, and Machu Picchu respectively. That caught my attention. Going further I discovered a really easy to navigate, focused adventure travel website that offers a wide variety of adventure travel options complete with ratings on difficulty and activity levels, price and more.
“The launch of our annual Top Adventures survey is part of our ongoing efforts to bring the world’s most amazing adventure trips to travelers” said Sanem Eruçar, Founder & CEO of AvidTrips.
Respondents were asked to select up to three places they most want to visit. In addition to ranking the Galapagos Islands number one, results revealed differences in desired adventures by age and gender.
The South Island of New Zealand emerged the top pick among female adventurers, followed by Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands. Male adventurers picked the Galapagos Islands first, followed by Patagonia and Yosemite National Park.
Travelers in the 18-34 age group would like to visit the South Island of New Zealand, the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu, whereas adventurers in the 35-54 age group selected Bora Bora, French Polynesia, the Galapagos Islands and Yosemite National Park as their most desired adventure destinations.
AvidTrips is a different sort of website that empowers adventure travelers to discover and book adventure trips directly with the world’s leading adventure tour operators, skipping the travel agent.
“Whether you’re a horseback rider or trekker, scuba diver or cyclist,we aim to bring you the widest selection of the most exhilarating adventure experiences – so you can focus on finding the trip that’s right for you.” says AvidTrips on it’s website.
After joining via Facebook, users can pick activities and see a map of where they are being offered world-wide. I chose “climbing” and was presented with a map showing organized tours at various locations, complete with a description of what is being offered and a price.
Just for fun, I picked a tour called Everest Base Camp with Island Peak (like I could survive it) and got a quick overview of what to expect along with a detailed description of all that would be happening. Included too were alternative but related tours and resources for further investigation.
This is good stuff to simply kill some time on a hot summer day or get a serious idea of what is involved, when the best time to go is and what costs might involve.
The Statue of Liberty is beyond iconic. It’s the sort of place that most visitors to New York seek to visit, even if they’re not sure why, the sort of place with a symbolic and cultural reach that goes well beyond your average top tourist attraction. Today’s beautifully realist Photo of the Day, by Flickr user jwannie, depicts the Statue of Liberty as many visitors might encounter it, framed by a boat window.
Have an image that you’d like to see as a future Photo of the Day? Submit it to the Gadling Group pool on Flickr. If we like it we might just select it to be a future Photo of the Day.
Summer is in full swing, all those summertravel tips are either being used or ignored and it’s time to head to the beach. If that beach is open. An annual survey of water quality and public notification at U.S. beaches found that the number of beach closings and advisories in 2010 reached 24,091 the second-highest level in 21 years.
Our friends at WalletPop.com reported last month on The Best — and the Dirtiest — Beaches in the U.S. They told us about the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and their 21st annual list rating many popular beaches. Let’s take a closer look at the top beaches that made “Superstar Beach” status in the NRDC 5-star rating guide. Those Superstar beaches deserve special notice for not only receiving a 5-star rating this year, but for having perfect testing results for the past three years, indicating a history of very good water quality.Delaware:Rehoboth Beach-Rehoboth Avenue Beach, in Sussex County
“Rehoboth Beach is a beautiful small town on the East Coast featuring enjoyable year round weather, beautiful real estate, great restaurants, and tax free shopping – all just two hours from Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia. Rehoboth Beach offers plenty for the whole family to do, including its one mile Boardwalk, its beautiful clean beaches and water, and its many other recreational activities.”
“A sun-dappled and libido-fueled testament to hedonistic beach life, come the height of summer, tens of thousands of fun-seekers flood into Dewey Beach, Del., a costal town with a year-round population of about 350 that can swell to 30,000-plus on summer weekends. On a mile-long stretch of sand between the quiet seaside town of Lewes and the popular family resorts of Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island, this is where hard-partying, binge-drinking youth congregate for all-night wilding.”
Minnesota: Park Point Lafayette Community Club Beach, in St. Louis County
“As you drive along Duluth’s Skyline Parkway, you will see something unusual as you look down towards Lake Superior. In the central part of Duluth, just across the Aerial Lift Bridge, is a long strip of land. Park Point is the world’s longest freshwater sandbar (more than five miles long) that stretches out into the largest freshwater lake in the world.”
“Where else along the Seacoast can you find 80 free evening concerts taking place throughout the summer and fantastic fireworks displays every week? Where else can you spend a spectacular summer day on the sands, sandwiched between refreshing Atlantic surf and row after row of accommodations, amusements, boating adventures, restaurants, and shops?
Only at Hampton Beach, a great beach and a whole lot more!”
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an environmental action organization that uses law, science and the support of 1.3 million members and online activists to protect the planet’s wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.
There is a tourist trap in South Carolina called South of the Border. A combination truck stop, motel, roadside attraction, carnival and snack stand, it’s high kitsch of the first order, bordering on exploitative with its stereotypically Mexican “mascot” Pedro. A couple days before the Fourth of July, when I drove through, it’s also a bonanza for fireworks, all manner of which are legal in South Carolina, even if they’re sold at exit one, just south of the border with North Carolina.
Traveling the American Road – Exploring South of the Border
It started as a half-way point on the haul down to Florida, a convenient place for New York- and Boston-area families to spend the night while driving to Walt Disney World and Miami. But faster speed limits, not to mention cheaper flights, a growing number of chain hotel outposts and the economic downturn, have left South of the Border as more of a curiosity than a much-needed overnight waypoint. It’s hokiness is no longer a draw but rather something to be snickered at after you get back in your car and continue down I-95.
One saving grace is Fort Pedro, an explosives depot masquerading as a fireworks stand. A $699 collection of bombs, mortars and various other sparklers was the most expensive package I saw; simple firecrackers seemed unavailable in any quantity shy of 1,000. Packages as bright as the magnesium blooms they promised went on, row after row, as giddy shoppers stacked their carts. One group had assembled an arsenal so formidable it seemed destined for either resale in a control state or the ultimate end to the chunk of South Carolina in which they’d be ignited.
My friend Rob, who was along for this part of the ride, suggested we buy dozens of sparklers to hand out during the Fourth, the better to make friends with. Our best find were yard-long behemoths, in a pack of eight, for about a buck a pop. We declined to purchase super-light hot air balloon-inspired lamps, like you see in Southeast Asia, for fear that we’d spark yet another Lowcountry brush fire. I did buy a South of the Border bumper sticker for a dime.
The rest of the attractions were by turns unappealing or disappointing. The reptile house didn’t seem worth an outlay of $8. The hat shop had precious few hilarious headpieces. The most that can be said of the ice cream stand is that it serves ice cream.
Visitors can ride to the top of the famed South of the Border sign, taking in the view from the “sombrero.” But the open road was waiting. We didn’t feel the need to hang around any longer: we had real stops to make.
OK, so “death by cruise ship” is not exactly the kind of story that makes us want to break out the suntan lotion or brush up on our Bingo skills but it happens. People can and do die on a cruise ship for a variety of reasons. Earlier this week the decrepit Russian ship that sank in the Volga river was aTitanic-like example we might not think possible today. But it happened and over 100 people died. Still, there are other ways to die on a cruise ship. Some you really have to try to make happen, others just sort of happen all on their own.
Fall off the ship
Its not as hard to do as we might imagine. But people who do this really have to be determined to be successful. Nobody simply falls off. Nobody really gets blown off by high winds either. If the ship is in a high-wind situation, open decks get closed for obvious safety reasons. Suicide By Cruise Ship is a common reason though as well as alcohol/drug-induced shenanigans close to the edge of the ship. Most common reason for falling off a cruise ship: sitting/standing on the guard rail of a balcony stateroom.
Get murdered
A 57-year-old Los Angeles County teacher pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Thursday in the beating death of his wife on the Carnival Elation in July 2009. KTLA.com reports that Robert McGill admitted that he “deliberately and intentionally” killed his wife, Shirley McGill, after an argument. The couple were celebrating Robert’s 55th birthday and Shirley’s retirement by going into the port city of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico according to court papers. Witnesses aboard the ship saw McGill just before he beat his wife of five years to death in the bathroom of their cabin saying he was stumbling around and barely able to walk.The Ship Sinks
Again, that does not happen all that much. Like never. Finding out what went wrong is the focus of investigations into the sinking of that Russian river boat. These things are not supposed to happen in today’s world and that incident could have been prevented had the ship been maintained properly and commonly-accepted safety protocols followed.
Disappear
This week marked six years since George Smith mysteriously disappeared from Royal Caribbean‘s Brilliance of the Seas. He was on an eight day honeymoon sailing when something went terribly wrong and he somehow went overboard to be lost at sea.
It’s a tragic yet fascinating story that captivated media world-wide at the time and maritime personal injury attorney Jim Walker was all over it.
“Our firm represented Mr. Smith’s wife, Jennifer Hagel. She hired us to obtain answers to what happened to her husband and to seek compensation for his death” Walker says on his CruiseLawNews blog wrapping up a week-long series of posts about the event today.
The incident started a firestorm of attention on the cruise industry how it does business and what they could do to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.
“Mr. Smith’s disappearance, and the manner in which Royal Caribbean chose to handle the incident, brought much needed attention to the cruise industry” said Walker adding “The events which followed Mr. Smith’s death led to five Congressional hearings into disappearances and crimes on cruise ships, culminating in the passage of the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act in 2010.”
Bad medicine
Cruise ships have what amount to fully-functioning hospitals aboard that can handle anything from a case of motion sickness to surgery.
Don and Marlene Bryce were celebrating Don’s retirement and their 53 years as a married couple on Holland America Line’s Rotterdam. Eight days into the cruise, Don became ill so Marlene called the ship’s doctor who gave Don medicine for vomiting reports injuryboard.com. Apparently treating Don for motion discomfort, his condition worsened. Marlene communicated to the ship’s infirmary several times over the next few days that Don was not getting better only to be told to give him more medicine.
12 days into the cruise, in the middle of the night, Don’s skin was turning dark. Marlene called for a nurse, who never came. Give him water and food, she advised over the phone.
Finally at 4:50 a.m., after Marlene called again, a nurse arrived. By this time Don’s skin was dark, and he was cold. Then he collapsed and died. The doctor arrived two minutes later.
“I was probably five feet away from him on a chair and saw him die,” said Marlene tells KOMO and ABC News.
Under maritime law, cruise lines aren’t responsible for the actions of the doctors they hire, since the doctors are independent contractors.
Not everybody dies
In defense of the cruise industry, the number of people who die while on a cruise is quite small, probably about the same as the number of people who die licking stamps.
CruiseJunkie.com tracks this sort of thing and list Cruise and Ferry Passengers and Crew Overboard. Since 2000 the number they report is 164 people. That’s out of an estimated 83 gazillion people who have taken a cruise and lived to tell about it. The cruise line with the most people overboard? No, not the Funships of Carnival Cruise Line but Royal Caribbean according to CruiseJunkie.
Is there hope for me?
If all this has you a bit worried about your upcoming cruise-of-a-lifetime and you don’t want it to be the last, following some simple safety tips will probably reduce the odds of dying on your cruise.
Watch the drinking– As noted here, alcohol and/or drugs are a common ingredient in the recipe for death by cruise ship. Its really easy to get loaded on a cruise with crew members walking around with trays of drinks that you don’t even have to carry cash to buy. Going ashore in Mexico is not like going to your favorite local Mexican restaurant. They play by different rules and not one bar will be held accountable for selling you too much liquor like they might stateside.
Be medically responsible- Tell your travel agent or the cruise line in advance of any existing medical conditions you may have no matter how small. Once on the ship, pay a visit to the ships infirmary to be sure they got that information and to put a face with it. Later, if you have to call about a problem, odds are someone you met will answer. Medical professionals naturally “size up” people when they meet them then note differences if they meet again.
Don’t go if you don’t want to– Going along on a cruise vacation because that is what the rest of the family or group wants to do is not a good idea if you too are not into it. This is not like a theme park ride. This is a floating city and a closed environment you can not walk away from. That can lead to all sorts of bad, negative things. What might have been a simple misunderstanding on land can become a major problem at sea resulting in really destructive behavior.
Death by cruise ship? It can be avoided pretty easily.