Laughing Squid’s Rusty Blazenhoff did us all a favor when she took a photo of a mural she recently passed in New York City. At East 7th Street in the East Village, Blazenhoff came across a new mural of the late Adam “MCA” Yauch from the Beastie Boys (Adam Yauch died on Friday, May 4). Created by a team called Cram Concepts, this mural has likely found a welcoming home in the East Village. Go see it for yourself if you’re in the area.
Meet The 2012 National Geographic Emerging Explorers
Last week National Geographic announced the 2012 class of Emerging Explorers, honoring 15 men and women who have already made outstanding contributions to their field while still in the early stages of their careers. The distinction is bestowed upon adventurers, scientists, photographers and storytellers on an annual basis and includes a $10,000 award to help fund further research and exploration.
Among this years recipients are Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who is employing satellites to help her find hidden sites in Egypt and conservationist Osvel Hinojosa Huerta, who is studying the impact of the diminishing Colorado River on the American West. They’re joined by Engineer Ibrahim Togola, who researches clean, renewable energy sources for West Africa and Barrington Irving, whose long list of accomplishments includes being the youngest person to fly solo around the world. To discover more about these four explorers, and the rest of the class, click here.
Reading through this list is not only interesting but also inspirational. This is a group of people who are dedicated and passionate about exploring the world around us, and each of them are doing some really impressive work in their particular field. Each of them was nominated for this unique honor by a network of experts who recognized their talent, dedication and potential, and most had no idea they were even being considered before the selections were announced.
Congratulations to the entire 2012 class of Emerging Explorers.
[Photo credit: Shekar Dattatri/Conservation India]
US News Ranks Best Summer Vacation Spots
“US News & World Report” has this week released their annual “best” list of vacation spots for your upcoming summer travels. We’re always game for a trip, and this magazine, known for its endless parade of lists, seems to consistently do one of the best jobs we’ve seen of matching trends with traditional data analysis.
“The summer vacation is an established American tradition,” said Chad Smolinski, Vice President of Rankings and Reviews at U.S. News & World Report. “Taking into account over 300,000 user votes and thousands of travel expert opinions, the U.S. News vacation rankings provide travel recommendations you can trust.”
For the category of “Best Summer Vacation,” Nice, Mykonos and Maui round out the top three. Maui also makes the top three for two other categories, including “Best Beaches in the USA” and “Best Family Beach Vacations in the USA”.
Budget cutting? Try Yellowstone, Santo Domingo or Lisbon, the top picks for “Cheap Summer Vacations” or perhaps Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, which, along with Yellowstone, make the list of “Affordable Family Vacation” spots.
Other expected destinations, including Orlando, Anaheim and Hawaii (Maui, the Big Island and Kauai) made the top three spots on the list.
[Flickr via sunsplash]
Japanese Woman Becomes Oldest To Summit Everest
A 73-year-old Japanese woman by the name of Tamae Watanabe extended her record as the oldest female to climb Mt. Everest when she reached the summit for a second time this past weekend. Watanabe first climbed the world’s tallest mountain a decade ago and that previous record has held up until she decided to raise the bar herself.
Climbing with Asian Trekking, Watanabe scaled the 8848-meter (29,029-foot) mountain from the North Side, which falls inside Chinese controlled Tibet. She topped out, along with four other climbers, early Saturday morning after climbing throughout the night. The team spent a brief time enjoying the view from the world’s highest point, before starting their descent back to one of the high camps on the mountain. The following day Watanabe and her teammates all proceeded back down to Base Camp, where they are now preparing to head home after spending nearly two months on the expedition.
As we mentioned over the weekend, Saturday was summit day on Everest and as predicted, the climbers went to the summit in droves. The weather did take a turn for the worse late in the day on Saturday, however, and high winds forced a number of teams to retreat back down the mountain. Most of the remaining climbers are moving into position to take advantage of a second weather window that is expected to open later this week.
Incidentally, the distinction for being the oldest person to climb Everest belongs to Min Bahadur Sherchan, a Nepali man who was 76 years old when he reached the summit back in 2008.
[Photo credit: AP]
Location-Based Smartphone App Makes Travel More Social
There are many smartphone apps that exist to make travel more social. These apps allow you to find travel buddies, see who will be at your accommodations and even stay in people’s homes for free. However, there is a new app on the market called Zamp that is helping travelers to discover who’s nearby and connect with them in real time.
The app is a location-based service that travelers can use to share and receive tips, arrange meet-ups and coordinate transportation. For example, through their airport check-in, users can see who’s on their flight, send messages and plan trip details like taxis and tours. There is also a fun feature that tracks users’ travel stats, like miles traveled, most frequented routes and preferred airlines. And to help service providers, Zamp allows for immediate user feedback to be given.
While this may not sound new, Zamp places an emphasis on making travel more social.”Many other travel services place an emphasis on travel booking or planning or post-travel reviews,” explains Sam Zebarjadi, one of the founders of Zamp. “We are focused on making travel more social, as it happens, and the platform is really built as an intelligent analytics and data engine.”
At this time, the company is working on building strategic partnerships to create more features and enhance the user experience. For example, they have teamed up with the Frequent Flyer Network to create a branded travel “lounge,” where users can communicate in real time from anywhere in the world. They’re also working with TripIt to enhance the flight check-in service.
Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android. Free. Click here to download.