Cruising Antarctica

by Iva Skoch on

It used to be that people who wanted to get away from it all went to their summer homes. Today, they go to Antarctica. I suppose there are not many places left on this planet where you could experience the ultimate emptiness. Not many that could be reached via cruise ship anyway.

Several cruise companies offer the so-called adventurous trip to Antarctica, yet conveniently experienced in the comfort of a luxury ship. Indeed, people seem to want to experience emptiness, but they prefer being surrounded by excess in order to fully grasp it.

The travel section of The Sunday Times had a piece on Antarctica this weekend where the author is suggesting that Antarctica will not remain pristine forever, since there are some 50 billion barrels of oil beneath the Ross and Weddell seas alone.

Not sure if the invasion of cruise ships is much better that the invasion of oil diggers, but hey – we all want to see the march of penguins first hand, don’t we? Well folks, from the tip of Argentina, it’s an easy trip and from November to March is the best time to go.

Fall Issue of Planet Magazine Out Now

by Adrienne Wilson on

Every time Planet mag hits the shelves I feel as if I have this reader loyalty type thing to spread the word and paint the town with the news. If you’re not a subscriber I suggest you sign-up today. With just four issues a year it’s easy to let one slip by and well, you don’t want that do you? So how about I stop sounding preachy and things on the glossy and just tell you what’s inside this issue?

There’s the usual Satellite, Diary, Divinity, and Greenspace pages, but also inside, especially for fall and the 5th anniversary issue are pieces on Élodie Bouchez, Roberto Rossellini, Baptiste Ibar, Kirby Dick, and Katharine Hamnett among many others. As far as I’m concerned Planet magazine nails it when it comes to global culture!

And that’s my two cents for now.

World TV

by Erik Olsen on

Video is exploding on the Web, but unless you’re really interested in Chinese lip-synche rappers, fake teen diaries or monkeys touching themselves, it’s hard to find anything of much depth. Well, here’s a possible solution. If you haven’t seen it before Jump TV, is a rather interesting online subscription service will allows media fanatics to have channels from around the globe beamed directly to your computer.

From Thai TV Global to some British programming to Nepal 1 in India and TRT Int’l in Turkey, you can watch a snapshot of global programming as it unfolds. Apparently there is a cost for each channel, especially groupings of channnels like the “Romanian Package”, but perhaps that’s a small price to pay for global enlightenment.

This is the Life Contest

by Erik Olsen on

We mentioned a while back a pretty cool contest by the makers of Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky wherein they offered several lucky souls $100,000 and the opportunity to travel the world. The winners would globetrot and then send back their notes, photos and such on the various places they felt were the best in the world. The idea was to find “the best that life has to offer”. One assumes each leg of the journey involved quaffing Chivas…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

According to the listing at the time, said adventurers “must be curious, intelligent, with strong writing skills and a sense of the world around them”. If that doesn’t describe a gadling reader, I don’t know what does.

Well, the winners appear to be two people named Bill and Dana, and they offer their thoughts on these best places at the site here. So what are their findings? Well, here’s a sample to make you extra-special jealous:

Triptie

by Erik Olsen on

Another interesting concept in the Web 2.0 world of travel-related sites. Here is a site called Triptie that, as they put it seeks to create an “online community of travelers, all devoted to planning and sharing their trips.” The idea is that you become a member and go to the site and plan and upload your itinerary. Others have done the same, thus creating a kind of community of itineraries that, one assumes compiles a list of the best places to go, things to see, places to stay and eat etc. Sort of a take off on Amazon’s “people who bought XXX book also bought YYY book. That is, the presumption is that the brains and decisions of multiple travelers is better than those of a single traveler. Very Web 2.0, as i said. I have to say it looks intriguing. The site is in beta, but if you want to learn more, there is a nifty video that helps explain the concept further.