Budget Travel Online

by Erik Olsen on

The folks over at Budget Travel who have over the years published some of my
stuff, and who for so long have been a part of MSNBC.com (and basically made up the MSNBC.com
travel section), have moved over to a swell new site of their own.

Called Budget Travel Online, the site is packed with all the useful,
budget-minded content you’ve come to expect of anything done with Arthur Frommer’s name attached. it’s avery sleek,
simple design, several orders of magnitude better than the MSNBC site, IMHO, which is in serious need of a redesign.
And maybe that WILL happen once Microsoft officially dumps them.

Anyway, I’ll be posting some new stories from  the new Budget
Travel site as we go along, but in the meantime five the new look a, well, new look.

Ranger Shortage

by Erik Olsen on

My first job out of college (if you don’t count being a ski photographer at Squaw Valley for a winter), was working
for the Department of the Interior in DC. The crappy part of this job was that the DOI is an awful, lumbering
bureaucracy where it is very hard to get things done. The great part was that I often got to travel to the country’s
national parks which are the jewels in our crown, so to speak (the Park Service is part of
Interior). I saw Yellowstone, the Smokies,
Mount Rushmore (I even go to dance a jig on Lincoln’s head, something
very few people get to do), and more. One of the problems even back then was that the NPS staff always felt kind of
neglected. They were poorly paid and in some cases poorly treated.

Well, it seems things haven’t changed that much. According to
this piece in the LA Times, ranger
ranks are shrinking. We’ve added some new parks, but we’ve cut back on our rangers. So when the writer, for example,
head to Yosemite, she finds no one there to explain why Half Dome looks the way it does (it’s magic, lady! The mountain
elves did it with a really big saw!). Anyway, we need to think hard as a nation about how to protect our parks, and how
to make sure that the dedicated people who work for them (and for us) can get properly compensated and treated for
their fine work.

Mens Journal: Take a Year Off

by Erik Olsen on

I really wish Men’s Journal had a better Web site. It is a good
magazine (not great, though often with great articles), and deserves a solid Web presence. Why Jann Wenner and company
have not done a better job on the site is beyond me, since all they have to do is spruce up the design, post a few
articles and voila, they’d probably drive interest in the magazine itself and boost sales.

No matter. The point is I am a subscriber and there is a fine article in
this month’s issue about taking a year off. Wow, what a great idea.
I’d LOVE to do that, and someday in the near to distant future I will. But the fact is, I already did.  Several
years ago I lived in Chile for a year. In fact, I’m even mentioned/quoted in the article, which is nice. The bad part
is that they kind of took what I said out of context so that it looks as if I said the fellowshipp I was on – A rotary
Ambassadorial fellowship – was all shits and giggles, when, in fact, I had to do a fair amount of work. Yes, it was fun
as hell and I highly recommend it, but I did have to travel around the country and speak to various groups, and I had
to pick up some classes at the University of Chile.

Anyway, the peice is a good one. It proves some options for how to leave your job, how to plan for your year away and
even gives some suggestions on where to do. It could easily inspire you to ditch your job for a year of globe
galavanting.

Your Own NGS Poster

by Erik Olsen on

Pretty cool concept from the good folks over at Nat Geo. For your kids’ bare walls you can
now print posters from NGS photos on your
own printer. Check out the dozen or so photos that are available, and choose from several categories
including landscpe and fauna. The way it works is each photo comes as a ten page PDF file which you download
and print. Then you assemble them yourselves, hanging them like a checkerboard on your wall. Clever.

PolarHusky.com

by Erik Olsen on

It’s been a while since I last visited this
site about North Pole expeditions, so I thought I’d call it out again. It is very deserving of praise and
clicks. The site is filled with stunning imagery,
videos,
expedition details, and discussion of ANWR,
which is much in the news right now.  The site has been designed as a sort of online classroom to help kids
and adults better understand Arctic issues, including the matter of drilling at ANWR, global climate change and
indigenous cultures of the Arctic.