iPod Listening When U Travel

by Erik Olsen on

Like a lot of people, I have fallen so in love with my ipod that, after my wallet, it’s the one thing I HAVE to carry with me when I leave the house. And before I go, I always make sure that it is loaded up with the most recent podcasts from NPR, as well as my Charlie Rose subscription on Audible.com AND many audio books from audible. I was happy to see Iva blog about audible’s content, especially about Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between, which I actually have in its atom-based, tree-pulp form and am enjoying immensely.

But for those who travel and are looking for walking tours and such to put on their ipods and other listening devices, here are a couple of ideas.

A company called AudioSteps offers audio walking tours of various cities around the country including New Orleans, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. For the internationally-inclined, especially those traveling to London, a company called BlueBrolly has a fine selection of audio walks for areas including Westminster, Soho, Chinatown, Greenwich, Covent Garden, St Paul’s and other spots around the English capital. Finally, PodGuides takes a step further and offers digital maps and small pictures, along with the audio tracks. A fine idea, and one I’m sure we’ll be seeing a LOT more of.

LP’s Middle of Nowhere

by Erik Olsen on

Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but over the last few years, Lonely Planet has seriously diversified it’s portfolio beyond guide books. I recently reviewed the superb Blue List 2007, and have been very much enjoying their newest New York City Guide, which came out in September. (I’ve only browsed it so far, but it is a SEROUS upgrade from their previous NYC edition). I plan to put it to use and review it in the near future.

But in the meantime, consider taking a look at The Lonely Planet Guide to the Middle of Nowhere. The good folks at LP have assembled 55 varieties of “nowhere”, broadening the concept to make nowhere a bit of a state of mind as well as place. The “nowheres” range from The Loneliest National Park in America (that is, Nevada’s Great Basin National Park) to the more obvious: i.e. the North Pole (a place where you can be “the only human being in an area 1 1/2 times the size of North America”) which appeals, I’m sure to the Ted Kazinski in everyone. The book is lavishly illustrated with photos and feels good to the touch, being hardback and perfect for the coffee table. The kind of book that friends will pick up and thumb through as they’re waiting for you to get ready, get dressed or do whatever you do wen people are waiting for you.

Missing Climbing Team in China

by Adrienne Wilson on

News in the climbing world hasn’t been too cheery as the search for three climbers in Oregon’s Mt. Hood continues (one was said to have been found dead) and the search is also on for two highly experienced U.S. climbers in China as well. Not to take away from the domestic search, but I’ve heard little to nothing on Christine Boskoff (one of the world’s top female high-altitude climbers) and Charlie Fowler (well-known mountaineer in the U.S.) who set out or Southwest China in October and are missing. The pair was last heard from on November 9th. As in the case with Mount Hood the weather provides less than favorable conditions for rescue teams to find anyone and avalanches are also a huge factor in the Fowler-Boskoff scenario. The area is said to be very prone to avalanches. There isn’t much more to comment on now, but if you’re following this story in addition to Mount Hood and would like to help someway or somehow it appears as though mountainfilm in Telluride has created a search fund for those that wish to donate and help expand the serach effort in China.

My hope is that both teams are located and safe from harm.

via CBS News

Skywalk at the Grand Canyon

by Erik Olsen on

If you’re like me, every time you go to the Grand Canyon, you don’t think, wow, what a glorious testament to the passage of time. No, you say to yourself instead: hey, why can’t someone come up with some cheesy new tourist attraction here like some kind of glass bottom trail.

And so it goes. A new attraction called the Skywalk is being built over the Grand Canyon. It is horseshoe-shaped (several pirate ship versions with a plank were rejected) and will jut from the canyon’s lip to offer a straight-down 4,000 foot, vertigo-inducing view of the canyon floor. How much would such an attraction cost, you might be wondering. A mere $30 million. And just so you libertarian watchdog types don’t get your panties in a knot, the Skywalk will be financed by a Las Vegas businessman. So you can also be sure that the cheesiness factor will be really low. In fact, the women wearing pasties and collecting your money are being trained to say “Hello” AND “Thank you!”.

Of course, this being America, lots of folks don’t like the idea. For example a group of Native American elders is debating whether the Skywalk will disturb sacred ground. What, disturb it more than 3,000,000 over-weight tourists carrying plastic Happy Meal gew gaws already do?

Tahoe Adventure Film Festival

by Erik Olsen on

I wish I was going to Tahoe this weekend. But there’s hardly any snow there, Erik, why would you want to do that?

Why? Because the Tahoe Adventure Film Festival takes place Friday and Saturday at MontBleu (once known as Caesars Tahoe), and it promises to be a very cool event.

They say that the festival is “the next best thing to doin’ it,” and by “it” we must presume they are referring to some kind of outdoor activity rather than say sex, although those are not, I suppose, mutually exclusive.

The show’s director is Todd Offenbacher, a one-time bodybuilder and the 1985 Mr. USA runner-up. He is also a hard-core outdoors junkie. This is the fourth year for the festival which consists of three parts: opening night, the main event and a raucous, adrenaline-addled party. Skiing god, Mohawk model Glen Plake will do a multimedia show-and-tell on Friday that examines his adventures.

By the way, the site is great and features an amazing series of video clips from the fest. Also, here’s the schedule. Like I said, I wish I was going.