Canada’s Wonderland gets a giga roller coaster for 2012 in Leviathan

by Joel Bullock on

Since Canada’s Wonderland opened hyper coaster Behemoth in 2008, it has boasted the country’s largest roller coaster. Next year, the Toronto area park will also be able to boast one of the tallest roller coasters in the World in the $28 milllion Leviathan. The massive steel roller coaster will be a lofty 30-stories (306 feet) tall. After what’s likely to be an impressive view on the lift hill, riders will be treated to an enormous drop at 80 degrees. The plunge will push Leviathan’s 32 person trains to an intense 90 mph. The ride’s 5,400-foot layout includes a number of high speed, heavily banked turns. Leviathan will also have a few camel back-shaped hills aimed at providing airtime moments when riders will be lifted gently out of their seats.

Roller coaster fans are especially interested in Leviathan as the coaster’s size puts it in a small group of 300-foot tall rides known as giga coasters. Coaster enthusiasts are also excited because it will be leading coaster designers, Bolliger & Mabillard’s, tallest roller coaster and the company’s first foray into this coaster genre. They have a track record of innovative designs including floorless coasters, dive coasters, and inverted coasters. It will be interesting to see what they can offer to this category of high altitude and high speed roller coasters. Canada’s Wonderland has moved to the top of my list of theme parks that I need to visit in 2012. Learn more about Leviathan at Canada’s Wonderland.



Nova Scotia, Cuban-Celtic-style

by Rolf Potts on

One of the best things about travel is the ongoing chance to have your most basic assumptions overturned by the unexpected realities of a new place. This happened to me a few years ago, when I traveled to Havana to learn salsa dancing, and instead wound up learning how to play the bagpipes.

Bagpipes, I discovered, aren’t some recent, quirky anomaly in this part of the Caribbean: The instrument was brought to Cuba in the late 19th century, when immigrants from Galicia and Asturias — Celtic regions of Spain — settled on the island. The bagpipers I met during my visit to Havana weren’t middle-aged hobbyists, either — they were hip young Cubans with a genuine passion for Celtic music.

Almost two years after I befriended these Cuban bagpipers, I had the privilege of accompanying them to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia for the fantastic Celtic Colors International Festival, a nine-day celebration of global Celtic music. Here, I was able to see my Cuban friends not just as musicians, but as first-time international travelers. What they found fascinating about Canada (such as the chaotic abundance of a Wal-Mart superstore) helped me see North America in a whole new way.


The audio slideshow above helps tell this story of my friendship with the bagpipers of Havana. Since that experience, they have gone on to host their own international Celtic music festival, called CeltFest Cuba, each spring in Havana. For more information, check out CeltFest Cuba’s Facebook page.

Watch the new Ski Channel movie trailer: “Winter”

by Kyle Ellison on

After hauling in 12 awards from various film festivals with the astoundingly successful 2010 release of their first film, “The Story”, the adrenaline addicts over at The Ski Channel have done it again with their second film, “Winter” which is set to make its debut in early October.

In addition to capturing the death defying escapades of some of the world’s top adventure athletes, the film also features 5 tracks off of the soon to be released album “The Sea of Memories” by the rock artist Bush. The album’s feature track, “The Sound of Winter”, provides the background for the high-energy trailer and is poised to become one of the top singles in the nation.

With their first film having been filmed on location in Nepal, Antarctica, Chile, Alaska, Argentina, British Columbia, and the United States, “Winter” promises to take the viewer on a global whirlwind to some of the planet’s most remote destinations in ways, which according to the trailer, “push the human spirit to its limit…and then a little further”.

Launched in 2008, The Ski Channel is a Video on Demand Cable network that also operates one of the largest ski sites on the web. Features on the site regularly range from breaking ski news to equipment guides, and it also serves as a portal for adventure sports ranging from BASE jumping to Adventure Racing.

Watch the trailer, check out the site, and I guarantee you won’t be sitting in your seat for much longer.

Visa-free travel by the numbers

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Visa-free travel is easy travel. Procuring visas takes time, energy, and money, and is beyond debate a pain for frequent travelers. The erection of visa barriers responds to a number of factors, though it can be said without too many qualifications that the citizens of rich countries tend to have a much easier time accessing the world visa-free than do the citizens of poor countries.

The Henley Visa Restrictions Index Global Ranking 2011, excerpted in the Economist last week, was just published by Henley & Partners, an international law firm specializing in “international residence and citizenship planning.” Henley & Partners divide the world into 223 countries and territories.

And who gets to travel with few visa restrictions? The best citizenships for visa-free travel belong to nationals of Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, at 173 apiece. On their Nordic heels is Germany at 172 and a mess of countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom) at 171. The United States isn’t too far down the list, tied in fifth place with Ireland at 169. The US comes in ahead of Switzerland (167), Canada (164), New Zealand (166), and Australia (166).

Some of the least lucky countries, according to the Henley Visa Restrictions Index survey: India (53), China (40), Iran (36), Lebanon (33), and Afghanistan (24).

[Image: Flickr | megoizzy]

Gap Adventures, Planterra raise funds for Kenya drought relief

by Kraig Becker on

Earlier this week, adventure travel company Gap Adventures and non-profit organization Planeterra joined forces in an effort to raise funds for drought relief in Kenya. The two organizations challenged the adventure travel community to raise $25,000, and that community responded en masse, raising the funds in just six hours.

The severe drought that has hit East Africa has created significant problems for the inhabitants of that part of the world. Many of them have left their homes in Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Kenya for refugee camps located in a northern part of that country. That influx of people has put a severe strain on the aid stations there and stretched already thin resources to the limit.

In order to relieve that strain more water stations need to be built, which is what Gap Adventures and Planeterra had hoped to accomplish when they appealed to their travel communities for funds. What they didn’t expect was such a generous outpouring of support from travelers, who helped them reach their goal in a short time, but kept giving even after the target amount was hit. In fact, the donations are still coming in, and are being accepted and managed by CARE Canada.

As one of the leading adventure travel companies in the world, Gap has always been at the forefront of giving back to the countries which they visit. The company also helped to launch Planeterra, a non-profit that offers assistance to local people around the globe, helping them to create a sustainable approach to tourism and preserving their culture.

Raising $25,000 in just six hours is very impressive and heartwarming. It is a testament to how much the travel community wants to give back to the places that we visit, and while we’re all facing challenging economic times, we can still find a way to reach out and help others in their time of need.

[Photo courtesy of CARE Canada]