Country Sites: Virtual Finland

by Erik Olsen on

I’m going to start a series of posts on specific country Web sites, selecting one or two sites that really do a great job selling and explaining a particular country. And today, I am beginning the series today with a post on Finland:

Lots of countries have tourist sites that they use to provide information on the people, the places to see, the food and culture of a place. But few others I’ve seen are quite as well-designed and comprehensive as this site for Finland. Perhaps it’s the sleek, simple Scandinavian sensibilities at work, but I took some time looking around Virtual Finland site and found it wonderfully good. You can always visit Lonely Planet for information on a country, but sometimes it’s a good idea to go to the sites of the country itself. This is a perfect case in point.

From history to culture to food to travel to great photos, the folks at Virtual Finland have done a truly superb job on this site, for visitors and Web-lookie-loos alike.

Scaling Australia’s Mountains

by Erik Olsen on

To be honest, when I think about mountains in Australia, my mind goes a bit blank. Isn’t the land down under just a
broad, flat place without as much as a molehill? Well, no. Not really. But sort of. The top ten peaks in Austrailia are
all in the 7,000 to 10,000 foot range. Not Everest, but perhaps not to be mocked. Turns out, too, that they can all be
climbed in about three days, or so was the case with
writer Andrew Bain
who did them all in that span of time.

Backpacker Gear Awards at REI

by Erik Olsen on


In the spirit of beginning more features on gear, we’re linking to the REI store and the

Backpacker 2005 Gear Awards. As time goes by, we’ll do more gear reviews for sure, but you can’t go wrong checking
the site out for the items that backpacker selects as their best for the year. Good stuff here. Tents, backpacks, GPS
units. A good place to start as you’re gearing up for the season.

Portable Solar Charger

by Erik Olsen on

What a great idea. Engadget posts about a solar
charger for all those little devices you may want out in the wilderness with you. (Game Boy under the stars?) The
Voltaic Solar Backpack will charge your portable devices via solar photovoltaic cells, providing a way to charge up
your cellphone, PDA, toy console or other small devices. Sadly, as the post mentions, NOT your laptop. But that’s still
pretty cool.

Social GPS

by Erik Olsen on

Engadget has got a post on the free Earthcomber
mapping software that you can get for your PDA. Using the software, users can now mark and share info, either via their
PalmOS PDAs or on Earthcomber’s web site, and can make the info public, private or accessible only to members of a
defined group. It seems like a great way to “socialize” a great technology.