Here’s another neat travel
blog I discovered while looking for foreign language schools abroad. Amerispan,
known mainly for their Spanish and French language learning opportunities in many great places across Central America,
South America, Europe and Canada has a good study abroad blog. Recent entries
have included fun world facts, Japanese rail travel, international cell phones and language resource guides. Thumbing
back through the archives one can find some very detailed tips and advice on making your studies abroad a little more
than book studies. Realistic expectations of homestay visits and cultural immersion with sports are only a few other
blog topics worth a read.
One for the Road (01/11/06)
If you’ve ever vacationed on the Outer Banks or are
interested in learning more aboue the history of the region and its fishing villages, you may be interested in this
memoir by Tom Carlson that was released in late 2005. Hatteras Blues: A Story
from the Edge of America focuses specifically on the fishing community of Hatteras Village, a tiny coastal town
struggling in the face of continued real-estate and tourism development. Carlson also weaves in a very personal tale
about the grief over the death of his wife. You can hear an interview that Carlson did with WUNC radio here and read the preface here.
Best Travel Blog: Vote for Us!
Hey, there’s nothing like a
shameless pitch. This site called the Travel Bloggers
Network is holding a "Best Travel Blog" contest where readers can select the best site out there…or at
least among the ones listed.
Gadling is one
of the listed sites and we’d be mighty grateful if you could feel it in your hearts to go there and vote for us. Why?
Because every day we work our fingers down to the cuticle to bring you the best news and recommendations for travel.
Travel is something we are passionate about, and we hope it shows.
So do us a favor if you are able and go
over and vote. From all of us here at Gadling: thank you!
Coming Eclipse
Truly ambitious travelers in search of a cool event
might be interested to know that coming March 29th, there will be a near total
has an article about the event and how the astronomically hard-core are heading to North Africa and Turkey to view
it. They are saying this is one of the longest and most accessible eclipses in years, and the fact that it is happening
in North Africa, a generally arid place, means that the skies are likely to be clear. One scientist in the story
estimates that if you are close in Bilma, Niger and Jalu, Libya, you are 80 percent likely to see the
One of the reasons that enthusiasts are so interested in this is that experts are saying that this may be the
biggest and best
years and that you’d have to wait until 2024 for the next great one.
Several operators are providing packages to see the
look and book early.
Dying Places
I metioned Angkor Wat just a moment ago as a place, along with the nearby town Siem Reap, that is experiencing some
incredible growth. Expensive hotels are going up everywhere and tourists are climbing all over the ruins themselves,
placing potential pressures on the place that could affect the ruin’s mystique. There is a genuine threat, I
think, that Angkor could experience serious over exposure in the next couple of years. Well, along these lines,
USA Today runs a piece
today about the threats posed to
several major spots around the world due to changing environment, bad
management and over-exposure.
At the top of the list is Mount Kilimanjaro, the 19,340-foot-high African
behemoth, whose glaciers are melting at super speed. (i.e. global warming). Similarly, the polar bears of the Hudson
Bay are experiencing a loss of habitat, that is, a loss of sea ice, which they depend on for getting around and where
they find seals to eat.
Another site in danger are the Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites on the
west bank of the Nile in Luxor, which are threatened by frequent flash flooding and the Egyptian government’s plan to
attract 10 million visitors to Luxor annually by 2010, a major and potentially dangerous increase.
I can
think of other places also in danger. Just take a visit to Yosemite valley in the summer, when hordes of people camp
out and make the valley like Disneyland. These are huge and important issues, and I confess I’d like to see a
documentary about this topic.