Lonely Planet’s Blue List

by Erik Olsen on

Here at gadling, we’re all about finding new travel ideas. And equally, we’re about pointing you to places where those ideas are most abundant. Well, where abundance is concerned, I have just closed the covers on a cornucopia of ideas that, frankly, has me feeling a little exhausted right now.

Lonely Planet’s new edition of its Blue List series is a compelling page turner that, if you’re like me, will cause an immediate shortage of yellow post-its. Those post-its now cling to the inside pages of my Blue List guide, making it look a bit like a paper peacock flattened by a semi.

The Blue List guide, subtitled “The Best in Travel 2007” provides page after page of sumptuous photos and informative text about interesting places and things to do in them all over the globe. The ideas start off with a calendar section that groups together events by month. For example, December has the Festival of the Oases in Tunisia and the Hornbill Festival in India. Chances are, you’ll have to Google these for more info, but they’re a fine start.

Other recommendations in the book are broken out by activity, so if you are, for example, a fan of scuba diving, you can get a good idea of the top trips for bubble blowers. The books lists the Cocos Islands in Costa Rica and Chuuk lagoon in Micronesia among their top spots. Or let’s say you have long believed in UFOs and want to design a trip for you and your ET-loving friends? Well, you can do that, too, with their paranormal trips section.

Then savor my favorite section, called the Go List, which breaks out LP’s top picks for places to visit in the coming year. We’re NOT talking Florida and Vegas here. We’re talking about exotic, less-explored locales like Maluku, Indonesia and Gabon. Then there’s a section on gadgets and the best places to wed and dark travel and, well, more and more.

If I have any complaints, it that while the book really whets your appetite, you don’t leave feeling completly satisfied. In fact, you leave a bit hungrier than before. But as I say, maybe that’s what Google, or LP’s country-specific guides are there for. Either way, keeping to their fine tradition of helping you REALLY get out there, the good folks at Lonely Planet have done a fine job with this new book.

Crackers!

by Neil Woodburn on

Here is a wonderfully simple concept I’ve been searching for for many years now: A cracker container.

Well, duh!, you might say, they’ve always existed.

Not really. I’ve backpacked nearly every summer for almost 25 years and often bring cheese, salami and crackers along for lunch. My crackers inevitably get smashed when shoved into my back and jostled around for 5-6 miles. I’ve looked for containers before, but nothing has ever been that perfect cylindrical shape that holds the crackers tight enough to keep them from crashing into each other and which also takes up little room.

Enter the Round Cracker Desidry™ Container.

This nifty little plastic wonder, available at the Container Store, perfectly holds all the unbroken Ritz crackers required for a weekend backpack trip. Equally as cool, there is a small concave which holds a desiccant packet to absorb moisture and help keep your crackers extra cracker good.

Mmmm….

Bend to Baja

by Erik Olsen on

We’ve tried to give props to the good folks at Stellar Magazine when at all possible because we love the stuff they do. The online travel/adventure/sports magazine is a killer way to tune out from a day’s toil and immerse yourself, albeit virtually, in the outdoors.

But Stellar does more than publish great Web content, they have also done some epic publishing projects like The Powder Road, a book and accompanying multimedia Web site that rocks hard.

Now comes a new addition to the Stellar oeuvre ,a book about surfing the Pacific Coast called Bend to Baja .As the title suggests, a group of intrepid surfers, some well-known, makes a wave-based journey from Oregon to Baja, California (MUCH more on Baja coming shortly, as I literally returned last night from a week of paddling there). The Web site here has a lot of info about the book and the surfers who participated as well as a few nice excerpts for your printing/reading enjoyment. So take a minute kick back and take a look at this new book. And if you’ve got a surfer friend, maybe think of Bend to Baja as a nice Christma….um, Holiday, gift.

Meteor Showers Expected

by Neil Woodburn on

Get yourself out of the big city and to somewhere very, very dark.

Today kicks off the annual Geminid meteor shower in which the faithful nighttime observer should be able to witness at least one falling star a minute for most of the night.

The shower will peak Wednesday night/Thursday morning when up to 120 meteors an hour will be lighting up the skies. That’s a whole lot of wishes to make!

The Geminid meteor shower is one of Mother Nature’s greatest performances. Do yourself a favor and head up to some high mountaintop with a coffee maker and plenty of warm clothes. Then sit back and enjoy the show.

Banff Film Tour Kicks Off

by Neil Woodburn on

The films are loaded in the back of the van and the engine is revving.

That means it’s time for the Banff Film Festival to hit the road and tour the world with its fine collection of award-winning mountain and outdoor films.

The schedule has now been inked and can be found here.

The tour begans appropriately enough in Canada and will pop around the Great White North the remainder of this month and most of January.

Those of us in the USA hoping to catch this amazing festival will have to wait until the van crosses the border and sets up shop in Bozeman Montana on January 19th. Then it is a three-month whirlwind tour through North America and then on to the rest of the world.

Me? I’ll have to wait until March 17/18 to catch it in Santa Monica. I’m sure it will be as great as it always is.