Adventure Tours

by Neil Woodburn on

The centerpiece of this year’s Men’s Journal Adventure Issue is the adventures
themselves.  The May issue highlights a great selection of
“Classic Adventure Trips” and tells
us how to do them right.  Although I’m always a little skeptical when such articles point us directly to
tour outfitters who will help us do such things, the writers have at least included enough information to whet
appetites and get the old adventure spirit pumping.

While some of the Classic Adventures can be accomplished easily enough on your own—diving the Great Barrier
Reef, cycling through Tuscany, and surfing Scorpion Bay in Mexico—others are far more involved and you might do
well to consider some of the tour operators even if you hate this type of organized travel as much as I do. 
Let’s face it; you’re never going to raft the Zambezi River or race a sailboat across the Atlantic on your
own. 

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.

GADLING'S TAKE FIVE: Week of March 28

by Adrienne Wilson on

On this Friday it looks as if March has come to an end and before
we say farewell to the ‘madness’ that was, it’s time to take a look back at some of this week’s various travel-related
highlights. Shall we?

5. Where to
Wear Guides: Thanks to Karen’s watchful eye and her passion for shopping, she points travelers with a love
for collecting designer pieces and vintage threads globally to the pages of Where to Wear guide books. Find out where to
nab one of these pocket-sized guides for your next big shopping-spree in the big city.

4. iPod Resources: Even if I’m the
only person in the world without an iPod, Neil’s post on the growing number of resources available for travelers who
actually do have them makes me want to jump on the bandwagon quick. It’s not just music, movies and audio books
anymore. Think maps and find out how to download the handy subway maps for 23 cities around the world. Lost – no
more.

3. Delicious,
Mouth-Watering Kangaroo: At first I thought the story I found in the Miami Herald about one woman’s food
sampling experience in Australia was pretty interesting, (especially her short notes on the delicious Kangaroo meat)
until one of our readers pointed out how and where to snag pre-packaged Kanga meat in local Aussie grocery stores. Who
knew?

2.
Hidden Gems: Princeton, New Jersey, a photo essay: Journey with Sarah Gilbert and her fisheye cam through
Princeton to discover the areas best hidden coffee shops, ice cream parlors, Indian food, cheap gyros, camera shops,
and spots made famous on the silver-screen. It’s so majestic you’ll want to experience Princeton for yourself. I
promise.

1. Free Ways to
Travel: Excuse me? Yes, you heard correctly. Erik does a most wonderful job in helping us find a will, a
way and the resources to reach our final destinations without going broke. I kid you not, but have a look with your own
two eyes and start saving on your next Central American, African or New Zealand adventure quest. The possibilities are
endless.

One for the Road: LP Cities

by Erik Olsen on

I hope to get my hands on this fine
new book out from Lonely Planet so I can review it for our readers, but in the meantime, y’all might be interested just
to know about it. Yes, Lonely Planet, ye of the ever useful, sometimes too heavy, guides to everywhere, has assembled an
all-new coffee-table sized compendium called The Cities Book, that
takes a close and visually-pleasing look at the world’s 200 best cities.

Of course, one man’s
"best" is another’s "worst" (i.e. Bangkok), but you can usually trust the sensibilities of the LP
folks, and it is they who have put this thing together…along with the help of dutiful readers who contributed
comments based on their own whims and experiences. One thing: it ain’t cheap ($50). But that’s probably because they
have filled the book with many vivid photos from their extensive photo catalog. You know you want it. Well, you CAN
register to get your hands on a free copy over
at the Guardian…but you’ll have to do so lickety-split, the deadline is March 30.

Delicious, Mouth-Watering Kangaroo

by Adrienne Wilson on

There have been many a time where the words "I’ll eat anything" have tumbled from my tongue
usually following a ferocious growl from my stomach, but sometimes I go back on my exaggerated outcry for food. I won’t
anything. I won’t eat lobster, crab, liver or even liverworst. I once wrote on a napkin while dining in Madrid to never
eat another crawfish so long as I live. (I still have the napkin.) And I don’t care how good your mother makes it, I’ve
tried them all and the taste-buds don’t agree. However, this piece isn’t about me and my pabulum dislikes. It’s about
the things people will eat.

Take Marjie Lambert who writes for the Miami Herald about her dining adventures in Sydney, Australia. In
the beginning of her journey for fine dining with an unusual assortment of all things edible she found herself
consuming a large number of seafood dishes. Mahi Mahi, shrimp-fried dumplings, Balmain bugs and barrimundi all made way
to her palate, but she had eyes for other things. Things like kangaroo. She keeps the
details on trying the roo brief, but doesn’t deny it’s delicious taste though it was too spicy to really distinguish
the real kangaroo taste. If it’s your first time in Australia, don’t expect to find the animal on every menu. It is
considered a novelty dish.

Reading this makes me wonder. Would I too eat kangaroo? Does it really taste
like beef? I suppose I could take a Joey down if I had to, but they’re so gosh darn cute!