Ajungo, the new social network platform just for travelers

by Jessica Festa on

Sick of searching through advice sites and hearing reviews from who only knows? Wish you could connect with other travelers about past or upcoming trips and events? Love social networking but wish you could interact with others in your travel niche? Then there is a brand new social media website just for travelers that brings together all of these platforms into one site.

Ajungo, created by Ben Barton and Steve Shea, is a brand new networking site that allows travelers to connect before, during, and after a trip. Here is how it works:

1) Create a profile and link all of your social networking sites. What this does is allows the site to funnel through your social networking platforms to pull information and funnel it around specific
destinations.

2) Find others who have been to your destination of choice and look through their posted trip or ask them for advice. Or, you can find others who will be in your destination of choice and plan to meet up or travel together.

3) Create your trip canvas, which consists of enabling the sites real-time travel guide feature so that the site can pull your photos and updates while you’re on your trip. This allows other travelers to learn from your experience as well as acts like a blog or trip journal by keeping your trip memories organized and sharing them with friends.

The goal of the site is to make travel more social as well as more comfortable for people going to new destinations. And, if there is any information that you do not want shared, the site will not post it without your permission.

Make connections with travelers, view their trips, find travel buddies, or just interact with others in the travel community. It is all possible on Ajungo.

The World Rafting Championship is underway in Costa Rica

by Kraig Becker on

The World Rafting Championship begins tomorrow in Turrialba, Costa Rica, where teams from 35 countries are already busy preparing to compete against one another in a variety of races. Both male and female competitors will challenge each other, not to mention some of the wildest whitewater on the planet, over four days of events that will culminate with a new champion being crowned next Monday.

Over the past few days the teams have been arriving in Turrialba, a small jungle town located not far from San Jose that is a popular destination for whitewater adventures. They’ll spend some time getting acquainted with the course, and tomorrow’s opening ceremony will officially kick-off the event, with the races beginning on Friday. Those races consist of the Sprint, Head-to-Head, the Slalom, and the Downriver, with each team earning points based on their placement in those individual competitions. At the end of the Championship, the team with the highest score will take home the trophy.

The rafting competition takes place on the Pacuare River, a fast-running and pristine waterway that has its origins on nearby Mt. Chirripo. The stretch of river that the teams will be running includes Class IV+ rapids that pass through a lush jungle environment that is home to a variety of wildlife, including monkeys and jaguars, as well as an amazing array of colorful birds.

By all accounts, Turrialba and the Pacuare are an adventure traveler’s paradise, with plenty to offer visitors. I’m looking forward to seeing it for myself, as I’ll be attending the Rafting Championship for a few days, and will get the opportunity to experience it first hand. Look for updates not only on the event, but also the amazing destination that is hosting it, very soon.

Key to Costa Rica offering 10% discount on Fall tours

by Jessica Festa on

Key to Costa Rica is offering a 10% discount on tours going to Costa Rica now through November 30, 2011. The focus of these tours is eco-tourism, with itineraries being planned by green travel consultant Beatrice Blake who has not only lived in Costa Rica for 13 years, but has been advising travels since 1996. For those who may not be familiar with eco-tourism, it is a type of travel, usually to a protected or fragile area of land, that is low-impact on the Earth and is meant to educate travelers, provide money for ecological programs, and give insight into the culture.

Travelers have the option to create customized Costa Rican tours or choose from one of the Key to Costa Rica trips, such as Enchanting Costa Rica, which includes bird watching, hiking, visiting an organic coffee farm, and lodging in traditional-style thatched roof cabins. Trips include itineraries for active families, children, nature lovers, and bird enthusiasts. There are also tours specifically for those who want to experience Slow Travel as well as those wishing to volunteer in the region.

An introduction to ceviche

by Kyle Ellison on

I was recently made aware of the unsettling fact there are people who are not familiar with ceviche. As this is easily my favorite dish while traveling both home and abroad, this disturbs me so much I immediately find it necessary to share its flavors with the world.

In the midst of a roadtrip across the state of Oregon, a fellow hiker on a Crater Lake trail inquired about the Spanish phrase etched across the front of my turquoise tank top: Mancora, Peru “El mismo Caribe pero con ceviche“. I informed him that I had picked it up in the Peruvian town of Mancora and that it proclaimed the town to be “the same as the Caribbean but with ceviche“.

That’s when it happened.

“What’s ceviche?”

If you, too, find yourself agreeing with this question, do yourself a favor and put this dish on your culinary radar and search out the nearest available ceviche outlet immediately, even if that place is Baja, Mexico.A native dish of Central and South America, the simple, citrus infused masterpiece traces its roots to coastal Peru. A dish comprised of raw fish which is freshly prepared, the cubed meat is then marinated in lemon or lime juice and served with an assortment of onions and spicy chili peppers. Like any good regional cuisine, the exact recipe will vary from place to place, such as the Peruvian ceviche being drastically different than the ceviche found in Ecuador or Mexico where it’s garnished with a spice the Peruvians call aji.

Frequently served with a side of sweet potato or peanuts, those who are concerned about the idea of eating raw fish can find comfort in the fact that the citrus in the marinade actually serves to naturally cook the fish. The result of the spice, citrus, and freshly caught fish creates an oral explosion that will send you running back to a coastal town whenever given the chance. Some things in life are possible to have too much of, and ceviche will never be one of them.

Not to be relegated to Latin America, various forms of ceviche can also be found in places such as French Polynesia where the fish is instead marinated in fresh coconut milk and served with carrots and red onions. The Tahitians call this poisson cru. In Hawaii, locals have been known to doctor the fresh ahi tuna caught in the offshore waters and prepare it with anything from soy sauce to sea salt to seaweed. Known as ahi poke, the dish is starting to creep its way onto appetizer menus along the west coast of the U.S. and beyond.

Having grown up in the middle of the Pacific ocean (Hawaii) and a frequent visitor of Latin America, ceviche and its various forms have forever been one of my culinary staples. Understandably harder to acquire in places such as central Oregon, where I currently find myself singing the praises of raw fish, I nonetheless felt it was my social responsibility to introduce this dish to the greater traveling world.

If this introduction turns one person on to what is easily my favorite dish on the planet, I can consider this to have been a noble cause.

New National Geographic app puts the world in your hands

by Kraig Becker on

If you’re a fan of maps, then you’re definitely going to want the latest iPad app from Nat Geo. The new app, entitled The World by National Geographic, provides an interactive atlas that lets you explore the planet from your easy chair, while giving you multiple zoom levels, country facts, and wonderful photos from a variety of locations.

When you launch the app for the first time, you’ll be presented with a view of the Earth from space. If you’re anything like me, your first instinct will be to spin that globe, just like you would a physical one that exists in the real world. I was delighted to find that swiping a finger across this virtual representation of the planet did just that, with the animation running very smoothly. The usual array of iOS gestures work as well, and soon you’ll find yourself intuitively pinching to zoom, tapping on points of interest, and so on.

At the start, you’ll be able to easily identify the seven continents, with red lines clearly marking the borders between countries as well. You’ll also notice a number of yellow dots sprinkled across the globe that indicate that more detailed maps are available for that region. Some of those dots will be labeled, while others won’t indicate the area they represent until you tap on them. Double tapping will zoom the view in much closer, presenting a higher resolution version of that region that offers far more detail, including individual towns and villages, roads, rivers, and much more.

Along the bottom of the screen you’ll find alternative ways of navigating the app, including a “Maps” section that shows all of the individual regional maps that are available in the software. You can also search for countries by name or continent, which will show an alphabetical listing of those nations along with a graphical representation of their flag. In this mode, when you tap on the country you wish to find, the globe will automatically spin to that destination, while simultaneously zooming in to a more detailed level. You’ll also be presented with a number of facts about the country as well with such data as population, capital, currency, and much more placed at your finger tips.As you might expect, the “Photos” option presents a number of beautiful images from a number of countries, which are once again listed in alphabetical order. Tapping on an image displays a larger, higher resolution version and includes a caption to let you know exactly what the photo is and where it was taken. While you can spend a couple of hours flipping through the photos, I would have liked to have seen even more. As a fan of National Geographic’s trademark photography, I felt the offerings were sparse at times, with many countries having just one photo or none at all.

I’ve always been someone who has been fascinated with maps and atlases, so I found myself thoroughly enjoying The World, but if you’re not a map fiend, you may find yourself growing bored rather quickly. You’ll also discover that without an Internet connection, some of the higher resolution version of the maps won’t be available to you. That said however, this app isn’t designed to be a navigational aid, but more of a reference. In other words, you won’t be heading out on your travels intending to use this for finding your way around. Instead, you’ll curl up with it on the couch when the need to explore comes over you, but you just don’t feel like heading out the door.

The World is available now in the App Store for $3.99 and is yet another high quality app from National Geographic, who has put out a steady stream of them over the past year or so. Unlike most of their apps however, this one is only available for the iPad and won’t run on the iPhone or iPod Touch.