BT Blogger Blab Redux

by Erik Olsen on

OK, so I have to finish up from my last post about the Budget Travel blogger roundtable I participated in last week at the Tribeca Cinemas here in New York City. So, yes, it was all very interesting and informative and I was able to chat with lots of folks who, in some form or another, have made travel part of their jobs. The BT folks did a marvelous job making us feel important and learned, even if nothing could be further from the truth. But I want to talk about my dinner after the event. You see, at the bloggers blab session, I spoke with a nice young lady who happened to work for one of my favorite outfitter companies around: Mountain Travel Sobek.

Over the years I’ve received through the mail several Sobek catalogs, and let me tell you, if you’ve ever wanted to be inspired and beaten down depressed at the same time, get your hands on one. The catalog is filled with the most wanderlust-inducing photos and trips you will ever see. Sadly, you will probably not find the time or the money to do many of them. But anyway, the company was started over 30 years ago by a group of guys who wanted to help people see the world, to EXPERIENCE it. One of these guys is named Richard Bangs

Bangs went on to do many other notable things with his career, and I’ve followed several of them over the years. First of all, he founded Terra Quest and then went on to become a founding executive at Microsoft’s Expedia, the online travel site that was sold off to (I believe) Barry Diller’s Interactive Corp. Then he started what I still regard as one of the best online travel magazines ever put together: Mungo Park. What’s sad is that the site no longer seems to be available and instead links to the Expedia site. Tragedy that, because the stories would still be lovely to read now. Mungo Park did some killer trips and pioneering Web journalism: they went riding motorcycles with Lyle Lovett in Chile, to the Triobriand Islands with Dr. Ruth, to Newfoundland with Martha Stewart. Oh, how we might long for the days when Microsoft threw money at online content.

Anyhow, Bangs then, or at some point thereafter, went on to do many other things, but most recently he hosted one of the first multi-media-based travel shows on Yahoo. This was at the time when Yahoo was all about original content and their newly-hired TV exec Lloyd Braun headed up a couple of Web-only programs. Kevin Sites’ Hot Zones was one of them, and the other was Richard Bangs’s Adventures. We’ve blogged about the show a bunch of times here. Why? Because it was great, absolutely great. But there was a problem with it: you couldn’t see it on a Mac. The Yahoo yahoos for some impossible-to-comprehend reason didn’t support Macs. Retarded! And then just recently, as we dutifully reported, they pulled the plug on Bangs’s show in part because it wasn’t getting the traffic they expected.

Double-retarded.

So anyway that is a LONG way to go (if you’re still reading) to discover that I arrived at dinner that night, and who is seated next to me at the table, but Richard Bangs. Imagine my delight. Honestly, this was like meeting Jay-Z or Steve jobs for some people. And there I was for the whole evening, quaffing beer and talking about travel, the Internet and all manner of other things with Bangs. A real treat, let me tell you.

Well, I’ve gone on long enough, but I have to say it was exciting for me and if you’ve read this far, well, thanks a lot. And do me a favor and send Yahoo a nasty note telling them how lame they are.

Chasing Crusoe Webumentary

by Erik Olsen on

Sometimes we find links to interesting sites in the most unlikely places. I happened to be surfing through some of the finalists for the Online Journalism Awards, a great place to see what is happening in the world of online journalism. Pawing through various sites and stories on Iraq and New Orleans, I then stumbled across this finely done documentary site that examines the lives and times of the mythical Robinson Crusoe and the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, the latter of which is thought by many to be the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s classic novel.

This is a travel story, but perhaps it might fall under the rubric of “unintentional travel” if there is such a thing. I imagine the folks on the ABC show Lost might think so. Anyway, rather than the product of some humongous mega-media-corporo-conglomo-ration, it was put together by students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as some visiting students from Universidad de los Andes in Santiago, Chile.

The site is well-designed and loaded with historical information about these two men and their times. We learn that the character of Crusoe is a blend of fantasy and reality…although given that Crusoe encountered only Friday and not a bunch of beautiful Tahitian women bearing palm-based foot massage oil, I use the term “fantasy” lightly. Regardless, it’s worth checking out and I salute the ambitious young team that put it together.

City of Contrasts. Bite Me.

by Iva Skoch on

If I read one more time that a place X is a “place of contrasts” I am going to scream or start sending letters, depending on which side of the contrast spectrum I will find myself. Beijing has been called a “city of contrasts” by CNN, Los Angeles by PBS, St. Petersburg by The Mercury Sun, Genoa by The New York Times (Et tu, Brute?) The list goes on.

In fact, when you type in “city of contrasts” into Google, you get 113,000 hits. You get hundreds of pictures when you type in the same in Google Images. The funny thing is, most of those pictures show no contrast at all, even if the most trivial kind. Take the picture displayed. The description says: Kazan, Russia: City of Contrasts. And, where would the contrast be? The ugly houses versus the less ugly houses?

What I want to know: Is there a place on Earth that’s NOT a place of contrasts? Contrasts are everywhere – the poor and the rich, the new and the old, the beautiful and the ugly. Contrast is a given. Even my kitchen is a place of contrasts, if you examine the unwashed dishes next to the hand-cut crystal glasses.

As places start looking more gentrified and similar, travel writers will really need to get more creative. That is one good thing globalization could accomplish.

This is the Life Contest

by Erik Olsen on

We mentioned a while back a pretty cool contest by the makers of Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky wherein they offered several lucky souls $100,000 and the opportunity to travel the world. The winners would globetrot and then send back their notes, photos and such on the various places they felt were the best in the world. The idea was to find “the best that life has to offer”. One assumes each leg of the journey involved quaffing Chivas…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

According to the listing at the time, said adventurers “must be curious, intelligent, with strong writing skills and a sense of the world around them”. If that doesn’t describe a gadling reader, I don’t know what does.

Well, the winners appear to be two people named Bill and Dana, and they offer their thoughts on these best places at the site here. So what are their findings? Well, here’s a sample to make you extra-special jealous:

Puerto Rico Island Hopping

by Iva Skoch on

From the East Coast of the US, Puerto Rico is an easy, short and cheap flight away. If you want to see the real beauty of Puerto Rico, get away from the mainland. The two islands off the east coast of PR–Culebra and Vieques–are both well worth the trip. There are no big hotels and no cruise ships, just chickens on the street and men playing cards.

If you rent a car to get around, you don’t have to drop off your rental car at an office. Just leave it parked on the street somewhere and they’ll find it (no kidding). But best just to walk or bike the islands, though, to enjoy the pace of life. And don’t forget to go swimming at night under their pitch-black skies, to experience the bioluminescent plankton in the water.

Getting there is half the fun, especially if you decide to take the island hopper plane run by Air Flamenco. It only costs about $50 and takes about 30 minutes. Sure, it is a little bumpy and the fact that the pilots look about 18 does not make one feel particularly safe (and don’t mind the red, flashing “STALL” warning light on the dashboard as you’re coming in for a landing), but seeing all the miniature “Robinson Crusoe” islands in the blue Caribbean sea from a bird’s perspective is a much better (and faster) option that taking the ferry. Try it at least one way.