tripwolf and Footprint Handbooks team up

by Brenda Yun on

There are definitely some crazy partnerships popping up across the world wide web, but this one doesn’t really surprise me too much. The up-and-coming social travel guide tripwolf.com teamed up with the fabulous Footprint Handbooks to provide even more travel information at your fingertips.

The idea here is to merge tripwolf’s user-generated content with the professional tips from Footprint. The beginning phase will begin by integrating Footprint’s Peru Handbook on the tripwolf site. Both European-based companies are hoping to develop increased readership and interest in travel destinations that are jointly covered.

What’s even cooler is that tripwolf, which is already available in English and German, will soon be accessible for Spanish, Italian, and French speaking travelers in a few months. While I find tripwolf only somewhat useful, the Footprint Handbooks are great travel resources particularly for people traveling in Europe.

This kind of partnership, which comes a year on the heels of the mega merge between BBC and Lonely Planet, appears to be a sign of the times: that the world is flattening, and traveling will become that much easier with a consolidation of worthy travel tips and information.

Travel Read: The Lost City of Z

by Brenda Yun on

If you’ve ever wondered whether an ancient civilization existed in the depths of the Amazon jungle in Brazil, then David Grann’s quest to uncover the truth behind the deathly fascination over “The Lost City of Z” will captivate you and leave readers completely stunned by his discovery.

Part memoir and part non-fiction, this book has several interesting layers — the most important of which is the unsolved, mysterious disappearance of famous explorer, Percy Fawcett. Having led several expeditions in the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazons, Fawcett was dead-set on being the first to discover Z. Several of his expeditions ended in death, and when he disappeared in 1927, rescue expeditions to find his three-person team also met similar, dangerous fates.

Grann himself became so fascinated by the story that he — a self-described urbanite — journeyed from his comfortable Manhattan dwelling to the U.K. and then to the Amazons himself to set the story straight.

While at times I would have preferred to read a detailed story of Fawcett’s expeditions (through Grann’s well-researched notes from Fawcett’s and expedition mates’ journals and dispatches), Grann instead weaves a complicated but gripping tale of the events and relations that led to Fawcett’s disappearance. The story is told from several points of view: from Grann himself as he embarks on his own quest, Fawcett via his journals, his son Frank (who was part of threesome that disappeared), and Fawcett’s wife Nina to name a few. These various perspectives and voices help to clarify the real truth from the myth, but also keep readers bouncing between storylines. The two most important characters are Fawcett and Grann himself, but it might have been more fitting for Grann to tell Fawcett’s story rather than his own.

The mythic proportions that became Fawcett’s story, though, are tough to tie together in the end, and the end of Grann’s book falls just a tad flat. Grann does solve the mystery behind Fawcett’s disappearance, but after all the build-up and Fawcett tall tales (some of which involve Fawcett being nearly bulletproof and fighting off enormous anacondas), there’s really no satisfying end to this story that will live up to Fawcett’s reputation as one of the greatest explorers of our time.

David Grann has agreed to be interviewed within the next week for Gadling. If you have questions you’d like me to include in the Q & A with the author, add it in a comment to this article.

Moon Travel Guides enjoys a handsome facelift

by Brenda Yun on

My brother-in-law, Jason Salter, has been working long hours for Five Paths, his web developing company, updating the website for Moon Travel Guides for over a year now. His hard work has paid off, and Moon was so pleased with the results that Gadling recently heard from a Moon representative alerting us to the latest changes and features on its new (and quite modern) online look.

Redeveloping an already existing site was quite complicated, but Jason reports that about 10,000 pages of content were added to Moon’s website, and it will grow exponentially in the near future to about 100,000 pages of online travel information, which is fantastic news for online travel information seekers.

On the new Moon website, there are now full descriptions of all published Moon books, which are easily searched by using the blue “Find Books” widget. Jason also tells me there is deep content for select books. Destinations in Central and South America are particularly well-developed, but Jason assures me that an increasingly larger number of books and sections are already being built.

If you don’t like searching for information based on the destination, you can also search for content based on activities using the “Find Activities” widget. This is a great search tool for someone like myself, as I’m always on the lookout for awesome surf spots in the world!

There are Q&A pages for authors of selected books, and maps for those books. Finally, Moon is hoping its readers can correspond with the authors through their author blogs.

Unlike Lonely Planet, which has been slow to move its content online, Moon appears to be fully embracing the world wide web, and I’m sure its readers are grateful.

A book for women that most women travelers might recognize

by Jamie Rhein on

When I read about Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s intriguing book My Little Red Book yesterday, I thought about women travelers and the calculations many make when hitting the road as to not be surprised by “that time of the month.” Sorry guys.

Nalebuff has collected 92 short memoir type pieces from women of all ages around the world about their first period experience. As the book review in the New York Times indicates, each selection is presented as a slice of life. Each, though, is part of a whole and offers up an aspect of the lives of young women not often talked about. From the book review, the stories are a cultural journey into what ties half of the world’s population together.

Nalebuff, who is only eighteen years-old, thought of this book after her own horrifying first period experience and began to interview female family members to find out about theirs. In the process, she found out intriguing, but not normally talked about stories like that of her great aunt Nina who avoided being strip-searched by guards at the German border while she and her family were fleeing Poland for France during World War II because “HER FRIEND” made a just in time first visit.

Again, reading about this book reminded me of certain traveling moments and the number of times women who scale mountains, trek across deserts, scuba dive in waters where a shark might lurk and perch precariously on top of a cargo truck on an adventure down a narrow highway, might sigh with relief at the sight of a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom that they’ve just dashed into because, despite careful calculations, travel can bring about the unexpected.

At the book’s Web site, people can add their own stories.

Launch party, noir night, and wanderlust mixers at Idlewild Books in NYC

by Brenda Yun on

I love being an island girl and everything, but I’ve longed to live in the Big Apple. Now there’s another great reason travel junkies who live in NYC to cheer: Idlewild Books, the hippest travel books and international literature store in the city, is offering up some cool events and mixers to wash the “stuck in the city” blues away.

Idlewild Books, New York City’s newest travel- and world-literature bookstore located on the second floor of 12 West 19th Street, caters to literary travelers seeking worldly inspiration. Books are organized by country, with guidebooks, nonfiction, and fiction mixed together.

This (Thursday, February 19th) evening at 7 p.m., Idlewild will host the READRUSSIA.COM LAUNCH PARTY, celebrating the launch of Russia! magazine’s new daily lit blog. The party is sponsored by Jewel of Russia. Russian vodka punch will be served, Russian music will be played, and Russian snacks will be available. This new website will provide broad coverage of all Russia-related topics.

Shortly following this launch party, Idlewild will host INTERNATIONAL NOIR NIGHT on Tuesday, February 24th at 7 p.m. The editors of PARIS NOIR and ROME NOIR will be on hand to engage in readings and disucssions of the latest volumes of Akashic’s terrific city noir series, which are set in Paris and Rome (obviously!).

If those two events are enough, Idlewild will be hosting WANDERLUST MIXERS in March! Where else can frequent fliers and globally-minded singles find love? In an international bookstore, of course! Tickets to these mixers can be purchased at Idlewild Books or on the store’s website, www.idlewildbooks.com. Wine and snacks and a $15 Idlewild gift card is included with each $35 ticket. The MIXER FOR STRAIGHT SINGLES AGED 25-44 is on Wednesday, March 4 at 7:30-9:30 p.m., and the MIXER FOR LGBT SINGLES AGED 25-44 will be on Wednesday, March 25, at 7:30-9:30 p.m..

I’m so excited about these Wanderlust Mixers! What a cool idea — and great way to meet some cool travel-inspired, and literary people.

Idlewild Books owner, David Del Vecchio, a much-travelled former United Nations press officer opened this independent bookstore in the Spring of 2008. If you can’t make it to one of the events listed above, there are certainly more cool soireés to come. Check the frequently updated website for the upcoming readings and activities.