Babes in New Zealand

by Erik Olsen on

Slate’s travel pieces are too
few and few between. They only seem to pop up every few weeks or so, and yet, when they do, I always enjoy the stories.
What I like the most is that Slate let’s the writers breathe a bit. The dispatches usually take place over the course
of a week, and during that time the writers get to explore many aspects of a place, they meet different people and you
get to watch the transformation of the writer’s perspective from day to day. Compare that to a standard travel piece
which usually doesn’t have the kind of room to move.

Well, I just took a
read of the new series of dispatches out on by Elisabeth
Eaves, and it is one of the better pieces I have read in a long while on the Kiwi nation. Eaves heads to NZ with an
adventuresome friend Kristin who, Eaves writes, "has never met an outdoor solo sport she doesn’t like". Eaves
is no outdoorsy slouch, but she’s obviously got to push herself a bit given the fact she has chosen to land herself in
the outdoors capitol of the world. So the pair embark on a trip that includes hiking, sea-kayaking, on- and off-road cycling, windsurfing, and rock climbing. And then of course there’s the whole bungee
jumping thing.

The stories that unfold here are filled with humor and pain…like real
physical pain, and each one delivers a dose of insight into what New Zealand is all about: the gorgeous vistas, the
gaping space, the often kooky people. And of course, in the end, it also helps that both Eaves and her friend are,
well, rather good looking. Give it a read. 

Red Corner: Biking Through the Ghost Towns of Chernobyl

by Neil Woodburn on

If yesterday’s post about touring Chernobyl whetted your appetite for nuclear adventure, take a moment to check out the following site.

Kiddofspeed.com chronicles the adventures of Elena, a Ukrainian woman with a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle and a passion for riding it through Chernobyl’s Death Zone-a place where “nature is blooming” and “one can ride with no stoplights, no police, no danger to hit some cage or some dog..”

Elena takes the time to educate the reader about the tragedy which occurred at Chernobyl and the dangers of radiation. She then presents a virtual tour of what is left at ground zero and the surrounding areas which were evacuated shortly after the disaster and remain a ghost town today.

It is difficult to describe the power and emotion the site evokes. Each photo is a terrifying snapshot of post-apocalypse that no Hollywood movie has been quite able to capture; the eeriness of empty buildings, villages with no people, the long stretches of lonely roads, schools so quickly evacuated that notes are still posted on the walls, family photographs askew on apartment floors, calendars frozen on the date of the explosion, silence everywhere, and overgrown fields where wild herds of horses gallop freely.

Elena also takes care to describe the various radiation levels she comes across on her journeys and how quickly her Geiger counter can jump by merely stepping a few feet in the wrong direction.

Although this site has been around for a while, and challenged by critics who claim it is fake, Elena’s careful documentation leaves no doubt in my mind that her expose of this terrifying nightmare is indeed the real McCoy. Check it out. It will be the most extraordinarily sobering thing you do all day.

Mountain Bike Trail Wiki

by Erik Olsen on

A gadling reader was kind enough to point out a cool new
resource for fat fire riders in search of the next greatest trail. They have built a trail wiki that allows you to
find trails in your city or state (or village, hamlet, principality) and/or in Wiki fashion to add your own.

I was thinking of several sweet trails in the Seattle area that I remember well. And that made me do some looking
around because I was trying to remember the name of the trail, and I discovered this nice site on biking in WA
State.

Anyway, take a look. It’s definitely a work in progress. The listing they have done, like this one for a trail calle Maxwell
Road, are pretty solid. It gives a nice description of the trail and how to get there. But there are still very few
trails mentioned. but maybe with some exposure they can get good folks to take some time and contribute.

Google Transit

by Erik Olsen on

Having just spent a week in Vegas checking out all that
companies like Google are up to, I was not surprised to see the newest addition to the Google family of helpful Internet
products. In fact, I’d heard about it while gabbing with some Googling buddies a while back, and their presence at
CES was, as you might expect, pretty big. 

Google had a massive booth at CES with a big crane that
lifted colorful primary color pillows and dropped them in big plastic boxes, and they demoed their mapping products
among other stuff. Well, along these lines, Google Transit has just
launched in beta. The product is only available for Portland, Oregon, but it offers the opportunity to plan your route
around the city using public transit and/or driving and/or walking. A while back I blogged about a Google maps app that
did this thing for New York.

Now, I’d love to see the Google folks do it. How great would it be to be
able to type in your home address in the, say, West Village, and then your destination on the Upper East Side, and to
get subway stops, bus routes, walking times, etc. This could be very cool.

The Google folks
themselves explain what they’re doing:

Do you live in or near a city? Want to go
someplace—to the airport, to dinner, to work every day—and not worry about the hassles and expense of
driving and parking? Google Transit Trip Planner enables you to enter the specifics of your trip—where you’re
starting, where you’re ending up, what time of day you’d like to leave and/or arrive—then uses all available
public transportation schedules and information to plot out the most efficient possible step-by-step itinerary. You can
even compare the cost of your trip with the cost of driving the same route!

At the moment we’re only offering
this service for the Portland, Oregon metro area, but we plan to expand to cities throughout the United States and
around the world.

Best Travel Blog: Vote for Us!

by Erik Olsen on

Hey, there’s nothing like a
shameless pitch. This site called the Travel Bloggers
Network is holding a "Best Travel Blog" contest where readers can select the best site out there…or at
least among the ones listed.

Gadling is one
of the listed sites and we’d be mighty grateful if you could feel it in your hearts to go there and vote for us. Why?
Because every day we work our fingers down to the cuticle to bring you the best news and recommendations for travel.
Travel is something we are passionate about, and we hope it shows.

So do us a favor if you are able and go
over and vote. From all of us here at Gadling: thank you!