Travel and Leisure's 50 Romantic Places

by Erik Olsen on

For the most part, I don’t do a lot
of linking to Travel and Leisure Magazine. I think it’s a fine glossy,
and I’ll often pick it up and thumb through it, but the clientele it serves, I think, tends to be a bit more, shall we
say, sybaritic, that the average gadling reader. The magazine tens to be about luxury travel, and the ideal gadling
experience, I think more often involves tents than gilded bathroom fixtures. Now that said, we are very much into
romance and love. It’s a wonderful thing to take an adventure with your spouse or significant other, and sometimes
along the road, you really want to find a place that caters to your every whim,  where you might drop a bit more
cashola than usual because you feel like you deserve it.

And so I offer this great little list of places to
go on your next romantic trip. From exotic places like the Capella Lodge at Lord
Howe island in Australia,  to the Losari Coffee Plantation Resort & Spa in Indonesia, and the Snaefell Peninsula in Iceland, there are some seriously cool recommendations here,
enough adventure, love and luxury here to experience in a lifetime.

Word for the Travel Wise (04/08/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

You would think the weekend would have
come to show me some sort of mercy. Offer a little rest and relaxation, but such is not the case. There is much to do
on this Saturday evening so I’m cutting to the chase with this one with updates to follow.

Today’s word is
a Thai word used in Thailand:

wan sao – Saturday

There is an accent mark over the ‘a’ in sao that I didn’t have, so double check with another
source and while you’re there seek out the rest of the days of the week.

Learning Thai dot com is a great starting point for some basic Thai words and
referrals to additional resources. For a brief history of the language, Thai alphabet, and pronunciation guide go to Omniglot. (A pretty clean and simple site with good details.)
Another good source would be the Pimsleur language audio CD’s. I used these
to prepare for my trip and they worked great! Before making the purchase look into your local library. There are several
libraries carrying these audio CD’s and many more.

Past Thai words: hàat sai

Mustang: Hidden Kingdom of Nepal

by Karen Walrond on

From CNN.com:  Pasang Gurung, a Tibetan
monk from Nepal’s desert of Mustang, has accomplished something no person from Mustang has done before:  he’s made
a film of his region, hoping of attracting Westerners to his beautiful, but impoverished region.  The video is 42
minutes long, and featurers scenes of Mustang’s desertlands, as well as shots of life in the area — pictures of
temples and monks, and even yaks.

"I want money to come to our … monastery. I want more money to come
to our region, because then local people will get employment, and living standards will go up," says Gurung.
"Tourism is the only way out because our beautiful land is all we have."

The monk’s life story is an amazing one, as
is his mission.  It makes me want to travel to his homeland myself — and I haven’t even seen the film.

Space Tourism Training

by Adrienne Wilson on

If you thought
the 840-something vaccinations needed to go certain places in Asia and Africa was outrageous enough to keep you from
ever stepping foot on either continent or far too draining to endure before reaching the final destination imagine the
training involved before going into orbit. Seems many of you are rather excited and hopeful about touring the galaxy
one day when, say Richard
Branson’s Virgin Galactic drops prices to those similar to Southwest flights. That’s awesome! Rock on and good luck
to you.

My question now is are you cut out for it? You couldn’t have thought they were just going to seat you
in a shuttle and fling you out into the cosmos? Did you? I’m sure we mentioned this CNET news piece somewhere in the past,
but as a refresher I thought to mention again, just in case. For those seriously considering travel to space now is the
to start training and for that you may wish to travel to Singapore first.

A while
back Space Adventures announced its plans to build a space station on the small island nation with a Singapore-based
consortium. The space port will offer suborbital flights, operate astronaut training facilities and will also be an
educational visiting center for the public. Prospective space tourists can get a glimpse and understanding of the
forces experienced during the rocket launch. Medical and physical ability will be tested
and includes a simulated water landing. This is just the tip of the comet people, to see more of what’s require
check out this great photo gallery found on
CNET.

Daily Candy Everywhere Weekend Guides

by Adrienne Wilson on

There are some new
things happening over at Daily Candy so take note. For starters the free daily insider’s guide to what’s hot, new and
undiscovered most recently added Atlanta to
its roster of cities, so rush over Atlanta and see what they’ve got in store for you. Not in Atlanta? Not in any major
city, but still want to do what’s considered ‘cool’ for the weekend? To our advantage the good writers are now serving
Everywhere Weekend Guides to the
masses.

In this latest edition
they suggest we travel to one of the most comfortable places known to man in all the world – the couch. They call it a
FCC marathon night and it doesn’t even involve the sweat. Celebrate Francis Ford Coppola’s birthday and rent a few
movies like the Outsiders and the Godfather Triology.
Everywhere Weekend Guide also suggests you trade in the
strawberries and opt for raspberries on your shortcake instead as well some Sunday afternoon reading on young love in
Panama. All of which may not be as awesome as jetting it to Tokyo this weekend, but hey it’s better than nothing.