New York City: Subway Discounts: Yay!

by Erik Olsen on

With the exception of certain slimy, hot summer days when you stand on the platform and
sweat like you’re in a Turkish bath, I love riding the subway. If ever there was a way to experience New York City life
in its most concentrated form, it’s riding the subway around Manhattan and into the boroughs. When you look at it that
way and put a price on it, the $2 per ride fee isn’t so bad. But maintaining that positive, romantic notion of subway
travel is, of course, impossible to do on a day to day basis. And so $2 starts to look pretty steep day after day.

Me, I probably ride the subway EVERY single day at least once, probably more like twice. Which means my transport
bill starts to add up. But this winter, I just learned
from this piece in the Times, frequent transit travelers like myself may get a bit of a reprieve.

The Times reports that the agency that runs the subway and bus system here, the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, will reduce subway fares by half, bringing them down to a nice round dollar. Unfortunately, not only will
this only be temporary over the holidays, but it will only be effective on weekends between Thanksgiving and New Year’s
Day. Not perfect, but I’ll take it.

According to the piece they are doing this to encourage the use of mass transit, to relieve traffic during the holiday
season, and help out the folks who use fossil fuels.

This is good news if you’re planning a trip to New York for the holidays…something I always recommend.

 

A Short Word for Beulah

by Adrienne Wilson on

Tomorrow we’re embarking on a journey to very big places in a city filled with V.I.P’s, babbling
homeless, cuisines from around the globe, fashionistas and a sea of yellow taxi’s.
While all these things are beyond exciting I’d like to reflect on a place and piece of where I come
from. I’d like to give a quick shout out to Beulah. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. I never spent more than a day in the
tiny stretch of community, no more than three miles long, located in Mississippi. Don’t even bother
googling the name - you won’t find much. You’re
probably wondering why bring it up, waste my time and what on Earth would take me to
Beulah, MS?

My Grandmother lives in Beulah, but for those without friend or family, banging down walls to get into the
town, let me sum it up for you. The latitude of the area is 33.786N and longitude is 90.979W. If you’re into taking
your GPS device for a spin and killing time, then finding Beulah might be the perfect day-trip. However, you’ll
want to pack a good lunch due to the lack of fine dining around and plan to drive a little ways into Cleveland or
Greenville for your hotel stay. Feel free to grab a can of pop from the little and only gas station in the area before
you move on out and up north. If you happen to look back upon the little community in the Mississippi country
you’ll notice the sign pictured above, which suggests there is a ton of great fishing fun to be had. I never saw
the lakes or ponds at that, so keep it moving folks because we’re heading to the big city!  

Coming Tomorrow: Gadling CityScapes

by Erik Olsen on

Tomorrow we are going to try out a new feature which we hope you’ll like. We’re calling them Gadling
CityScapes, and the idea is simple: We’ll take one city and make every post that day about it.

 

We’ll cover hotels, sights, cultural events, food, blogs, travel ideas, you name it, we’ll cover it. If you have any
cities you’d like to see covered, by all means let us know. In the meantime, we’re kicking this thing off tomorrow with
one great city, the place I consider one of the greatest places in the world: New York City.

Tune in tomorrow.

Nat Geo’s 100 Best Adventure Books

by Erik Olsen on

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting
fat, please put a penny In the old man’s hat.

On second thought, get that penny out of there and buy yourself a good book this winter, one to sit down by the
crackling fire with where the chestnuts are roasting over the Duraflame and your head will spin with images from some
greatest adventure yarns.Yes, here is a list of
National Geographic’s Top 100
Adventure Books of All Time. It is really an excellent way to build your library and get your adrenaline gland working
without leaving your chair. Many of the obvious ones are here…Into Thin Air, the Perfect Storm…but there are also some
gems you may have never heard of.

For example The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1922). Garrard was with Robert Falcon
Scott on his doomed 1910 Antarctic expedition.  Or Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands, in which the author
writes about his travels in the Empty Quarter of Africa, a place that even now is as desolate as the moon.

So check out the list and add some fine reading to your cold winter days.

Gadling Podcast: Intv. Fabien Cousteau

by Erik Olsen on

It’s time for a very special, all new interview podcast from Gadling. Like our interview a
while back with Shadow Divers’ John Chatterton,
this one ties in very nicely with sister blog Divester, as it is largely about scuba
diving and exploration. 

So for this new podcast, we sought out and interviewed someone whose name will
unquestionably sound familiar.  Fabien Cousteau is
the grandson of uber-famous, French-accented ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, whose TV program The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was a viewing staple at my home and
was one reason I (and many others I’m sure) learned to dive.

Anyway, Fabien is also a big-time explorer and, as you might have read
right here recently, has pioneered a new type of submarine that is shaped like, and swims like, a Great White shark.
Nicknamed "Troy", the shark sub is designed to allow Cousteau, who rides inside, to film Great Whites in
their natural habitat with as little external / foreign stimulus as possible. You’ll hear why this is important in the
interview. 

So
we hope you like it. Cousteau is an immensely charismatic, terrifically bright guy, and I think you’ll find the story
of the shark sub very cool.

Listen
now

00:50   Intro and babble
05:40   Start of Interview

05:50   Growing up Cousteau
08:10   Human Environmental Impact
09:00  
Previous Work
09:22   Filming Orcas
10:00   Growing up with Sharks

13:06   Mind of  a Demon Show
14:25   Eliminate External Stimulus

14:50   Shark Sub Idea
17:35   Go Beyond Cage