Gadlinks for Friday, 1.8.2010

by Katie Hammel on
Happy Friday, faithful Gadling readers! Here are a few more travel tidbits to send you on your way to the weekend.
‘Till Monday, happy travels!

More Gadlinks here.

Win a free trip to Costa Rica from Nomadic Matt and Gap Adventures

by Katie Hammel on

Globetrotting blogger Nomadic Matt took his very first international trip to Costa Rica with Gap Adventures back in 2003. Ever since then, he’s been traveling the world, blogging about his adventures and teaching others how to make money from their own blogs. Now he’s paying his success forward, and awarding one of his lucky readers a free two-week trip to Costa Rica with Gap Adventures.

The winner will go on the Gap Adventures Costa Rica Explorer Tour that departs on March 28. The trip includes stops in Tortuguero, at Arenal Volcano, Monteverde and Manual Antonio National Park. Most breakfasts and a few lunches and dinners are included, but the winner will be responsible for other meals and activities not included on the tour. Airfare is covered in the prize, and the winner does not need to be from the United States.

The winner does have a few responsibilities though, other than just going on a pretty sweet (and almost totally free) trip. You will need to blog about your adventures both on the trip and afterwards, reflecting on the experiences had and the lessons learned. But don’t worry, Matt will be there to help you out with a blog set-up and tutorial. You will need a computer, digital camera or video camera though, and for that, you’re on your own.

So how do you win? You can check out the full list of instructions on Nomadic Matt’s website, but the gist is that you’ll need to write a 500-word blog post or create a 90-second video explaining why you want the trip and what you hope to get out of it. The top 50 entries will be voted on by the public, narrowed down to a field of ten, and then chosen by Matt and a panel.

You must enter by February 14th, and you need to be 18 year of age or older to win.

Nominate Gadling for best Travel Blog!

by Grant Martin on

Nominations for the tenth annual bloggies opened up late last week, the annual who’s-who of blogs out on the interwebs. Readers savvy in the blog community are encouraged to drop off their favorite nominations until February 12th, with categories ranging from Best African Blog to Best Photography Blog to most important of all: Best Travel Blog.

We’d love if you could stop by and drop off a vote of confidence for Gadling — it’s not even necessary to fill out a nomination for each category, you just have to nominate a minimum of three blogs.

Once nominations are filed then it’s off to the races on January 21st, when five of the top contenders in each section are revealed for public voting. Everything comes to a head at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas this March, where winners will be announced.

We promise to thank every single one of you if we reach the podium. Until then, you can nominate us by clicking here.

Which ethnic cuisine is the “safest” in the U.S.?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Responding to the question above, economist and Ethnic Dining Guide author Tyler Cowen answers, perhaps surprisingly, Korean food. He cites two reasons that a meal at a Korean restaurant in the United States will almost never disappoint:

“First, non-Koreans are not usually interested in the food… The lack of mainstream interest limits the potential for sell-out behavior on the part of the restaurant. Second, many Korean dishes, most of all the pickled vegetables, ‘travel’ relatively well and do fine in a culture — the USA — which is not obsessed with fresh ingredients.”

Vietnamese is usually safe, says Tyler; Thai and (I’ll add) Indian are becoming riskier than in the past as they gain popularity.

As for the “most dangerous” type of ethnic restaurant in the U.S., I’ll have to agree with Tyler when he points the finger at Chinese food. Sure, there are some amazingly good Szechuan restaurants out there, but I find that most Chinese restaurants are able to “coast” on the mainstream popularity of Chinese food. Same goes for the majority of Mexican and Italian restaurants, which are by and large mediocre.

This explanation, which Tyler calls “sell-out behavior,” casts light on why there are so many bad barbecue restaurants in Kansas City, a town known for excellent barbecue places like Gates, Arthur Bryant’s, and LC’s. And why pizza chains like Domino’s exist. In general, greater mainstream interest, whether it’s in barbecue, pizza, or ethnic food, means more less-than-discerning eaters who are willing to put up with ordinary meals.

More here.

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Gadlinks for 1.6.2010

by Katie Hammel on

Looking for more nuggets to satisfy your hunger for travel news and information? Check out some of these links from around the internets.

  • National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel Blog team found this one, but I had to pass it on. Check out Fun with TSA for a list of “travel safe activities” that you can still do on a plane, even in that last hour of flight. Some in-flight college courses anyone? [via Intelligent Travel]

More Gadlinks here.