Climbing the Seven Summits

by Erik Olsen on

Maybe you’ve heard of this guy, but he deserves some Gadling accolades
anyway.
Britton
Keeshan, a  22-year-old Middlebury College student, earlier this year became the youngest person in history to
complete the Seven Summits by climbing
the tallest peak on seven continents.

The grandson of TV’s Captain Kangaroo, Keeshan summited Everest back on May 24. He was one of 17 climbers, guides
and Sherpas in his expedition to summit. The feat broke the 2-year-old record held by Japan’s Atsushi Yamada, who was
23 when he completed the Seven Summits.

Not many have completed the Seven Summit feat (about 80 at last count), but 33 of them are Americans. Among them is
Dick Bass who was the first ever to do so 1985. Keeshan began his quest for the Seven Summits when he was 15 and on
break from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He became obsessed with the effort after participating in a NOLS
program.

Micro Videos on Travel

by Erik Olsen on

I’m using the term micro-videos for a new (or not so new) way of telling travel tales
online. I have found several sites as I’ve clicked around the Web where individuals are posting more than their written
tales, but using video to tell the story of a place. These traveling story tellers use cheap video cameras and laptops
to produce on the road, cutting respectably professional pieces for download.

One of those, travelvideo.tv, is the brainchild of Bea Broda and Robert
Connolly, who, as an apparent husband and wife team, have produced micro-videos for sites and events around the globe.
I watched several of these and, well, they’re not bad…they’d make respectable Travel Channel segments for sure. The
cinematography is actually fairly impressive…at least for a 196 wide pixel window. Watch the segments on Germany…I
think you’ll be impressed.

I utterly salute whgat they are doing, but my question is, how do these folks make money?

Take a Russian Train

by Erik Olsen on

Soviet soldiers and citizens who crossed Stalin in any way whatsoever often found themselves loaded onto trains and
bound for Siberia to toil in the mines. But working in Soviet mines was a drag. The work was back-breaking, the wages
paltry, and the coffee—don’t even get me started on the coffee!

Well, now you can ride
the Trans-Siberian railway in style.  Riding in a skorry poezd, or fast train, you can watch the bleak Russian
countryside Russian whiiz by while sipping schnapps. Passport/Red Bear Tours has been operating a wide variety of
programs into Russia since 1989. The company claims to have genuine “Communist Party” flags that were flying atop the
buildings during the 1991 August Coup. Their journeys operate from either Vladivostok or Beijing to St Petersburg and
the reverse. This is the real deal…you can pretend to be either a Soviet prisoner on your way to slog in the mines or
an advisor to the Czar, speeding across the continent with a secret dossier. What fun!

The Earliest Engaged Travelers

by Erik Olsen on

Before kitesurfing. Before Tevas and gortex. Before even gorp and beef jerky (back then they had mastodon jerky), a
group of intrepid engaged travelers came to America for a new beginning (and because they heard the surf was
excellent). We used to think those first folks trundled here a mere 13,000 years ago, but now we realize (well,
possibly, the results are controversial) we were wrong. Not off by much, actually, just 37,000 years or so.

Yes, a new study of the earliest
Americans, led by scientists Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina, places man’s first footprints on the
continent at around 35,000 BC.  The site where the discovery was made is called the Topper site, apparently NOT
named after the 1979 TV program with Jack Warden, but rather a dig
site along the Savannah River.

Some scientists are finding the new, um, findings, difficult to swallow. Says Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor
at the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school’s museum:

“You almost have to hope for instantaneous expansion…We’re talking about a very rapid movement of people around the
globe.”

Ted, Ted, Ted, no big whoop. Didn’t you know the first humans got here on magic foot saucers? I mean, duh!

Da Vinci Tourists

by Erik Olsen on

Come on, you’ve read it. You know you have.

We’ll it should come as no surprise that there is a new breed of tourists out there called “Da Vinci Code Tourists“. Who are they? Well, as you might imagine, these are the folks who are flocking to Paris to uncover all the hidden little secrets so expertly written about in the bestselling Dan Brown book. Ranging from $3,000 trans-Atlantic tours, to the $400-a-day that a woman named Jean Traimond charges in Paris, for a tour debunking “The Da Vinci Code”, these tours are all the rage among the pulparati. Bring along your designer cilice for self-flagellation (I think Sharper Image makes one) and tuck the dog-eared copy of the book under your arm, and you’re all set.

But seriously. It makes perfect sense that the popularity of the book would lead to a tour in Paris. And I salute the folks who are going to Paris in the face of all the France dissing. And I know people get attached to things and want to learn more. I mean, right outside my apartment there are hordes of Carrie-ga-ga women striding around in newly-bought Prada as they take the Sex in the City tour. In fact, I wrote about the Apocalpyse Now tours happening in Asia now. But it seems sad to me in a way that we decide to educate ourselves only when motivated by this pulpy stuff (and the Da Vinci Code IS pulpy…this is not history, folks). I mean, didn’t you want to see the Louvre BEFORE you read the book?

I guess I’ll shut up. It just seems contrived is all. Crass and commercial and lame.