French museums soon free for visitors under 25? Oui!

by Alison Brick on

French national museums and monuments have just gotten one step closer to cool. Admission for visitors under 25 will soon be free, according to French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday.

That’s for the 18 national museums, including the Parisian favorites: the Louvre (usually 9 Euros) and Musée d’Orsay (9.50 Euros). The new policy comes just in time for summer backpacker travel–it starts April 4.

The country’s trial period seems to have worked out–from January to June of last year, visitors of all ages got free admission to 14 of the country’s museums.

Sarkozy’s plan to promote French culture also includes building a new history museum, lifting a partial freeze on state funding for the performing arts, and forming a new arts council.

Click the images to learn about the most unusual museums in the world — covering everything from funeral customs, to penises, to velvet paintings, to stripping.



Undiscovered New York: Unique NYC shopping

by Jeremy Kressmann on

New Yorkers, you might be surprised to discover, like to shop. Whether it’s for sky-high stilettos or a jar of saffron, a copy of Candide or specialty cameras, you can be sure that if it can be purchased they probably sell it somewhere in New York City’s Five Boroughs.

Under normal circumstances New York is a city where conspicuous consumption rules and money is no object. But as many Americans can attest, the current economic climate has hit retailers and consumers hard, and everyone is cutting back and feeling the pinch. Yet all the bad news has had a curiously positive effect on the New York retailing scene. For all the talk of excess, New York remains a surprisingly affordable and remarkably diverse place to shop if you know where to look. A place where consumers value quality, craftsmanship and creativity and a good bargain above all else.

So instead of dwelling on New York’s gilded streets of consumption like SoHo and Fifth Avenue, we’d like to take you inside some of the city’s quirkier and more interesting retail establishments. Looking to “shop like a local” and pick some highly original New York bargains along the way? Welcome inside Undiscovered New York’s guide to unique city shopping…
The types of goods sold in New York are literally endless. To pretend to create any kind of comprehensive list would be both fruitless and foolish. Instead, we’re going to be listing of some of our favorite retailers from across the city in gender-neutral categories such as books, travel, music and food. Men’s and women’s clothing could make an entire post of its own and won’t be covered here – if you’re looking for more fashion info, definitely check out New York Magazine.

Travel Stores: As befitting a travel blog, it’s only fair we mention a few New York retailers who specialize in travel accessories and products. Our favorites include:

  • Kiosk (95 Spring Street, Manhattan) – The globally-savvy owners of New York’s Kiosk have carved out an interesting retail niche. Rather than concentrate one specific type of product, they’ve unearthed a variety of small inexpensive curiosities from around the world, ranging from the practical to the whimsical. The collection of items, which includes everything from Finnish bottle openers to pitting spoons from California, is highly diverse and constantly changing.
  • Flight 001 (Multiple Locations) – Flight 001 is a retailer that specializes in a highly curated collection of great travel products, spanning the gamut from travel luggage and guidebooks to packing aids and pill bottles. New York happens to be blessed with three of the chain’s seven U.S. stores, two which can be found in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan. Stop by and pick up some carry-on bags, a travel wallet and some shampoo sheets for your next trip.

Books: Reading comes as naturally to New Yorkers as breathing. As a global center of the publishing industry and home to a highly literate citizenry, this is a city that takes its books seriously, whether it’s the latest Dean Koontz paperback or a store that sells antique books from the 19th Century.

  • The Strand (828 Broadway, Manhattan) – Boasting its status as the “Home of 18 Miles of New, Used, Rare and Out of Print Books,” The Strand Bookstore is the undisputed champion of bookselling in New York. Be prepared to walk in and get lost in aisle after aisle of books covering every possible subject matter. The prices are pretty good too, frequently below retail.
  • St. Mark’s Bookshop (31 Third Ave, Manhattan) – what St. Mark’s bookshop lacks in size compared to The Strand, it more than makes up for in its meticulous collection of quirky and eclectic book offerings, including everything from progressive political manifestos to international magazines and large-size art books.
  • powerHouse Books (37 Main St, Brooklyn) – half art gallery, half bookstore, the cavernous retail space for DUMBO-based book retailer powerHouse never fails to delight. The store has a particularly good collection of coffee table-size photography books.

Food: New Yorkers seem to have a nose for sniffing out the most diverse and delicious food from around the world, and the city’s specialty food retailers are no exception. Here’s a few of our favorites:

  • Despaña (408 Broome St, Manhattan) – if you’ve ever visited Spain, you know how crave-worthy the food can be. That’s why Spanish-specialty store Despaña has become a New York foodie’s best-kept secret. The store’s deli country can slice up specialty Spanish meats like Jamon Serrano and regional canned delicacies like white beans and clams.
  • Sahadi’s (187 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn) – if Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue is the cultural epicenter of the city’s Middle Eastern food scene, Sahadi’s is most certainly its bullseye. The gourmet grocer stocks all manner of specialty olive oils, nuts and imported delicacies from far flung locales like Turkey and Lebanon.

Music: Similar to their zeal for the written word, New Yorkers are avid consumers of music. The city offers an awe-inspiring diversity of music shops, whether you’re hoping to go digging through crates of used vinyl or just pick up the latest CD by that teen-pop sensation.

  • Other Music (15 E. 4th St, Manhattan) – nobody has their finger on the beat of New York’s fickle music consumers better than Other Music. Their highly-knowledgeable staff is great at picking out those hidden gems and introducing you to new genres and up-and-coming artists. In addition to new music, the store also stocks vinyl, used CD’s and sells tickets to many of the city’s best upcoming concerts.
  • Halcyon (57 Pearl St, Brooklyn) – New York DJ’s, vinyl-lovers and beat junkies head to Halycon to get the latest and greatest sounds destined for the dance floors and turntables of New York. In addition to being one of the best places in the city to get your hands on electronic music, Halcyon also stocks a nice collection of books, clothing, artwork and quirky toys.
  • A-1 Records (439 E. 6th St, Manhattan) – frequently described as a “crate-digger’s paradise,” A-1 Records upholds the legacy of a once-thriving music scene in New York’s East Village. If you’re looking for more obscure finds, this is a great place to look. Vinyl only.

Wow, that’s a lot of stores! As you’re beginning to see, New York is home to some of the country’s best independent retailers, specializing in everything from Lebanese olive oils to vintage books. But maybe there’s an independent New York store that we didn’t cover? Feel free to leave a comment below and tell us your favorites.

Still traveling on $5-a-day budget, but switch dollars for euros

by Jamie Rhein on

Back in September of 2005, Adrienne wrote about Leon Logothetis, the ultimate frugal traveler who travels on $5 a day and the kindness of strangers for his show Amazing Adventures of a Nobody. Three and a half years later, he’s still at it, but he traded the $5 dollars for 5 euros for his journey from Paris to Moscow.

In this New York Times Q & A article, Logothetis, talks about his experiences and offers tips.

If reading that it’s possible to travel on just $5 a day gets you feeling excited and ready to sling on a backpack, consider Logothetis’s answer to what you can do on such a modest amount.

“Nothing.”

At least you can’t without help. Logothetis recounts how he has been given places to stay, been fed and offered rides. He’s found Americans particularly generous.

One tip he has for anyone who is relying on others is to not be upset if someone says “no.”

Reading about Leon’s experiences reminded me of my trip to Mali with a Peace Corps friend. We had very little money and wanted to budget most of our cash for the journey to Timbuktu. One night in Mopti, we slept at a guest house on a sheet covered mattress out on the balcony. Even that cost $1.50 or so, and that was years ago. I remember shining my flashlight of the bathroom, just big enough for the toilet, in order to get the roaches to scurry away. There was a certain thrill from seeing just how little we could spend and how much frugality we could stand. It was kind of fun in a sick sort of way.

The new season of Amazing Adventures of a Nobody airs on Fox Reality Channel starting on January 25.

Bowermaster’s Antarctica — Science in Antarctica

by Jon Bowermaster on

Thanks to the 1959 treaty that governs Antarctica, the entire continent is supposed to be devoted to science (rather than military exercise, national claims or mineral exploitation). And no one does science with more conviviality than the Ukrainians at their base in the Argentine Islands called Vernadsky.

I stopped in yesterday for a visit with the thirteen scientists and support crew who have been here non-stop since last February; only the cook remained from my visit of the year before, when we stopped a couple times during our kayak expedition … one night closing down the southernmost bar on the Peninsula and having to carry a couple team members back to our boat. (I’m still searching for that photograph of my pal Pete McBride dancing in a size 60 DDD bra that I know is hidden somewhere on my computer.)

While the base’s reputation among Antarctic cognoscenti is for concocting the best home-brewed vodka in Antarctica, its 63-year meteorological record keeping is without compare along the Peninsula, perhaps the best on the continent. As I walked the halls of the base yesterday, one chart kept in the weatherman’s office jumped out at me: A slowly rising line from left to right, beginning in 1945 – when the Brits built the base, then known as Faraday – and ending in 2008, charting the rise in average temperatures here on this island. In 1945, the average annual temp was -5.5 C (-10 F); this year, -2.3 C (-4.25 F).

%Gallery-40580%
Six degrees Fahrenheit warmer over the past fifty years makes it one of the greatest average temperature increases on the planet. And it’s not just the thermometer that tells the story. During the last winter – roughly March to October – for the first time anyone can remember the sea around the Argentine Islands never froze solid. This past year they also had heavier than usual snowfalls, thanks to a combination of the decrease of frozen sea (more open ocean means more evaporation and more precipitation) and warmer temperatures.

In the narrow main hall I clamber up a wooden ladder, to revisit the machine the Brits initially used to discover the ozone hole, which opens up above Antarctica each year. The Ukrainians have kept up the monitoring of the atmospheric hole; the current Mr. Ozone at the base showed me another graph, illustrating how the ozone hole grows to its largest in August (25 million square kilometers) and shrinks to its smallest in December (12 million square kilometers). While the hole has been shrinking in recent years (thanks to an international ban on hole-causing CFCs) everyone at Vernadsky takes it very seriously. Everyday before they go outside they check its size and the sun’s strength … and on some days decide not to go out if the hole is big and sun penetrating, for fear of burning eyes and skin.

Click HERE for more dispatches from Antarctica!

Gadling goes to Chichen Itza (and so does everyone else)

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Located in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula, Chichen Itza is one of Mexico’s most popular Mayan ruins, and for good reason. Only three hours by bus from Cancún, the thousand-year-old ruins transport you back to an age of hierogloyphics, massive temple-pyramids, and human sacrifices.

Are there tourists? Oh yeah, in spades. Tell someone traveling around Mexico that you’ve just been to Chichen Itza, and within ten seconds some variation of the word “touristy” will escape their lips. Sure, it can be a little crowded, but the tourists come for good reason– to see the mind-boggling, towering remains of this ancient civilization.

First populated by the Mayans around the year 500, Chichen Itza became an important political and cultural center as early as 800 before the civilization began to decline. In the 900s, the city was resettled and appears to have been invaded by Toltecs from the northern town of Tula, apparent from the fusion of Mayan and Toltec architectural styles. The city was abandoned in the early 1200s.

%Gallery-42086%

Another can’t-miss site in the park is the Gran Juego de Pelotas (Grand Ballcourt), where tour guides can be heard clapping throughout the day to demonstrate to their groups the court’s wonderful acoustics. (Go on, try it!) The Grupo de las Mil Columnas (Group of the Thousand Columns) is just what it sounds like– an impressive arrangement of, well, a thousand ten-foot-high columns. For more on the individual buildings at Chichen Itza, check out the accompanying slideshow.

If you go: From Cancún, buses leave for Chichen Itza every hour from 5 am to 5 pm. Expect to pay about US$10 if traveling first-class, slightly less otherwise. Buses typically stop at the park’s western entrance, though a few will drop you off in the nearby town of Piste. Ask before you get on. Outside of Cancún, almost any town in the Yucatan will have multiple buses going to (or through) Chichen Itza every day. The park gets very crowded later in the day, so try to go as early as possible.

Tickets for the ruins, purchased right at the entrance to the park, cost about US$9.

Where to stay: Day-trips to Chichen Itza are possible from tour agencies in almost any decent-sized town in the Yucatan, although the three-hour (at least) bus ride each way makes for a very long day.

A better option is to spend the night in Valladolid, a small colonial town about 25 miles east of the ruins. Places to stay are cheap and abundant and reservations aren’t required. If you’re looking for a more cosmopolitan city, head to lovely Mérida about 90 minutes to the northwest of the ruins. Bus tickets are sold inside the Chichen Itza visitors’ center.