Audio Walks of a Lifetime

by Erik Olsen on

Podcasting is huge, and my guess is that it will continue to grow quickly. I listen to podcasts pretty much every day for stories on news, science, humor and, of course, travel. Perhaps one of the best uses for a travel podcast is the walking tour. There are many walking tour podcasts out there. We’ve blogged about a number of them. One of the better ones ,in fact, even if they are a bit too “hip” for my taste, are the tours by Soundwalk.

Well, now our good friend National Geographic has entered the fray with their Walks of a Lifetime series of podcasts. They cover lots of major, walkable cities like Amsterdam, Venice, Charleston, Rome…and so on. I listened to a few of them ad fond them informative, even if I didn’t like the guy’s voice all that much. But still if you were heading to one of these cities and could take a stroll with your ipod and learn something, why not do it. Of course, you’ll want to put the ipod on pause and actually talk to people, otherwise you’ll come across as the typical rude American who tunes out to the world around him/her.

Paris Too Hardcore for the Japanese?

by Adrienne Wilson on

Oui… This news seems almost too hard to believe, but I’m not Japanese nor have I traveled to Paris, so I’ll need the help of some Gadling readers on this one. I’ve noticed several sites reporting news that the romantic French city of Paris leaves many Japanese tourists feeling beat up and have gone as far to say that they need psychological counseling upon their return. Huh? The New York Post states that Japan’s Embassy has sent four people back home this year, including two women who thought their hotel room was bugged. That sounds quite over the top if you ask me. Reuters reports that the Japanese flock to Paris with high expectations of this dream world, a dream city and later find that the French character is extremely opposite of their own. In Japanese shops customer is king and in the French shops they barely pay you a glance. All of these mixed city feelings are classified as Paris Syndrome. The source of these reports comes from the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

So tell me is there anyone out there aside from the Japanese who have had Paris Syndrome or any Japanese out there that can provide their two cents?

via WorldHum

24 Hours in Vegas with the Pogues

by Neil Woodburn on

Sometimes a band is good enough to jump on a plane and fly somewhere to see them. When that somewhere is Vegas and the band is the Pogues then fun is guaranteed for all.

Although I had tickets to see them in Los Angeles, a friend who really wanted to see the band couldn’t make the show. Plan B, concocted two days before they were to play in Vegas last weekend, was to catch them live in the City of Sin.

We bought tickets online Thursday, booked a flight and Saturday morning we were on the way.

Vegas is the perfect 24-hour city for me. Any longer and I begin to hate it. So we booked our return ticket for Sunday and crammed in the perfect Vegas weekend.

I won’t bore you with the details, but it was the ideal balance. We flew in, checked into our hotel, grabbed lunch at the ESPN Zone and watched the UCLA game, headed off to gamble, quit while we were ahead, wandered to the House of Blues for the concert, ate some bad pizza afterwards, gambled some more, crashed for the night, then flew out the next morning. Perfect!

Now the question most of you might be asking here, is who the Hell are the Pogues and why are they worth flying all the way to Vegas to see?

Well, I ordinarily wouldn’t spend any time writing about a band on a travel site, but this isn’t just any band. The Pogues are an Irish band who take the quintessential elements of traditional Irish music and punk it up. It’s not every day that you see a slam-dancing mosh pit grinding away for a band that incorporates the accordion, tin flute, banjo, mandolin, saxophone, and harmonica–along with the more contemporary guitar, bass and drums. The result is a cultural explosion unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.

Lead singer Shane MacGowan, is reason enough to see the band. He is perhaps the ugliest musician in rock and roll and the drunkest – two rather extraordinary accomplishments considering the rock and roll world. He is, however, brilliant. His boozy, sped-up renditions of Irish ballads and scrappy original compositions are utterly unique. And, his alcohol-infused performances are a controlled train wreck that you just can’t look away from. Spend a few minutes surfing YouTube.com for Pogues videos to get a feeling for the music.

And if you find that they are worth flying across the globe to catch their next show–and they are–then book a ticket to Glasgow and catch them in Scotland on December 12.

Photo of the Day (October 23, 2006)

by Iva Skoch on

Following on my post about the Li River, near Yangshuo, China, here’s a shot I took from the kayak. The rain had just finished, but we could hear thunder in the distance. The river was moving swiftly, carrying us past this “commuter.”

Don’t Drink the Water

by Iva Skoch on

The famous River Jordan, described as a raging or “violent” river in the Bible, is now just a sad trickle of raw sewage and agricultural runoff. Even on the site where John the Baptist performed the ritual on Jesus, Kasr Al-Yahud (near Jericho), the river is now “an opaque, brown, sluggish” mess.

Apparently, Israeli water diversions, started in the 1960s, have been a large reason for the ninety percent drop in flow over the years. However, Syria and Jordan are also to blame. Now, a planned, joint Syrian-Jordanian “Unity Dam” threatens to do even more damage by stopping the river’s largest tributary, the Yarmuk, and possibly completely drying up the river in parts.

Rather than the “original” spot four miles north of the Dead Sea, most religious pilgrims have had to move their re-enactments of the baptism to Yardenit (near Alumot, near the Sea of Galilee), over 60 miles away to the north, to the only clean-water spot: a lonely 3km stretch on the 200km river.