Oceania

Travel through Oceania by country:

Australia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

Travel through Oceania by popular city:

Auckland, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Wellington

Travel through Oceania by popular things to do:

Cook Islands, Sydney Opera House

Travel through Oceania with our writers:

In the Corner of the World, Work and Play in Queensland

VIDEO: Many steps around the world

by Meg Nesterov on


A new video by Japanese filmmaker Takayuki Akachi shows people taking steps all around the world. Sounds simplistic, because it is, but the video shows a beautiful slice-of-life from around the globe. His concept is described as “collecting the steps from all over the world and playing a music with the steps.” The artist specializes in a “lone backpacker” style of filming that allows him to travel without a film crew. This isn’t his first round-the-world video effort: last year he made the stop-motion Traveling Denim, documenting a pair of jeans over two years and 50 countries. Check out all of his videos on Vimeo.

Music by Dulo, video sponsored by Onitsuka Tiger sneakers. MANY STEPS from Takayuki Akachi on Vimeo.

Samoa leaps over International Date Line, be careful when booking a flight

by Sean McLachlan on

The Pacific Island nation of Samoa has changed its time zone ahead one hour. This isn’t some sort of island paradise version of Daylight Savings Time, but rather a shrewd business move.

By doing this they’re actually hopping over the International Date Line. The Samoan government wants the country to be in the same day as more westerly Australia and New Zealand, their main trading partners. So instead of being 21 hours behind Sydney, they’ll be three hours ahead.

While it seems to only be quibbling, actually it makes a huge difference. In an interview with the BBC, Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi pointed out that when it’s Friday in Samoa, their business partners in Australia and New Zealand are enjoying a lazy Saturday. Sundays in Samoa are the start of the business week in Australia and New Zealand.

The International Date Line already has several zigs and zags. Traveling from north to south, it takes a swerve to the east to keep Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula all in one time zone, then a sharp turn to the west to keep the Aleutian Islands in the same time zone as Alaska. Then it goes straight down all the way to the Equator, where it makes its biggest detour to the east to make sure Kiribati is to the west of it.

Another swerve puts Samoa to the east of the International Date Line. That bit is slated to change, so this is probably the last time you’ll see this particular map of the International Date Line. The Line doesn’t get back on its original course until it’s far to the south.

The move doesn’t happen until 29 December, so the Samoans, and airline companies, will have plenty of time to get adjusted. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one carrier screws up and sends their passengers to some sort of temporal limbo.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Scuba diver sets new depth record exploring New Zealand cave

by Kraig Becker on

An Australian scuba diver set a new record for depth recently while exploring a remote underground river cave in New Zealand. He, and his teammates, braved dark passageways, icy cold water, and treacherous conditions in an effort to find the elusive source of the Pearse River.

Diver Craig Challan descended to a depth of 194 meters or roughly 636 feet, as he cautiously made his way along the submerged cavern. That depth marked a record, but still didn’t finish the exploration of the cave, nor did it lead to the discovery of the river’s source. But it did show that explorers can go to even greater depths than previously thought possible.

In the video below, brought to us by National Geographic, who helped partially fund the expedition, you can see what the divers had to deal with while exploring the cave. As they dove they were looking for new lifeforms, while mapping the cave itself, in waters that hovered around 43ºF. All the while they had to deal with the potential for decompression syndrome, better known as the Bends.

In order to avoid that painful condition, they built a series of underwater bases where they would spend hours at a time, waiting for their bodies to adapt to the changes in depth. Watching the video I was reminded of the series of camps that are built on mountains like Everest, where climbers wait to acclimatize before moving up. This works in reverse, but is similar in concept.

While I’m fascinated by cave diving, I’m not sure you’d ever catch me that far beneath the surface and completely surrounded by water. Scary!


Five hot travel sites: Hejorama, We Heart, Beach Tomato, Pinterest, Sunset Travel

by Alex Robertson Textor on

These five travel sites are hot; all five are worth some serious browsing time. And while most are newish kids on the block, sustaining buzz left and right, the final of this batch is a tried-and-true evergreen, offering a sustained focus on a very popular region of the world.

Some are good for general contemplation, while others are good for thinking through potential destinations and ways of organizing future travels. These five include a community site, a lifestyle guide, a bespoke travel agency, an image creation site, and the online component of a print magazine.

1. Hejorama. A group travel community site, Hejorama is cute and spunky, though what sets it apart from others in its class is the high-quality quirk of its content. There are in-flight meal reviews, a journey to Ramallah, and an encounter with a taxi driver in Almaty (see above). Hejorama advances a philosophy of travel that is immediately compelling, quite untidy, and truly social.

2. We Heart. An all-purpose lifestyle guide, We Heart has strong coverage of innovative boutique hotels and other travel-related subjects. As far as travel inspiration is concerned, however, the site’s explicit travel content is just the tip of the iceberg. We Heart’s coverage of designers, branding projects, photographers, and design studios is a broad exercise in lifestyle inspiration that extends effortlessly to travel.

3. Beach Tomato. Those crafty folks behind the gorgeous bespoke travel company Black Tomato and the edgy expedition-led adventure outfit Epic Tomato recently launched Beach Tomato, a site that marries beach style to destination inspiration. Beach reviews, trend alerts, fashion recommendations, and even a post-beach hair care guide give the site a vibe that is distinctly girly.

4. Pinterest. Not a travel site, granted, but a gorgeous place to see beautiful images and find travel inspiration. Currently invitation-only, this image curation site is a seriously pretty procrastination aide. Pinterest’s travel category is great for daydreaming, though it’s by no means the only category of interest for travel obsessives. Browse through Pinterest and find “boards” organized around many subjects that refer to cultural exchange and any number of destinations: architecture, graphic design, even interior design.

5. Sunset Travel. We have enthused about Sunset in the past. One could reasonably spend the bulk of one’s traveling life in the western states of the US and Mexico and western provinces of Canada and never get bored. Sunset’s Travel microsite provides an awesome reminder of the dynamic nature of this exciting mega-region with its archive of very good service articles. With a beat that extends southwest to Hawaii, northeast to Alberta, and due south to Guanajuato, Sunset is a comprehensive Western travel bible.

[Image: Romain from Team Hejorama]

Last WWI combat veteran dies: where can you see his legacy?

by Sean McLachlan on

Claude Choules, the last known combat veteran of WWI, has died aged 110. Born in England in 1901, he was too young to enlist in the army when the war broke out in 1914, so he waited until he was 15 and enlisted in the Royal Navy, where he saw service throughout the war.

Unlike most veterans, he liked the service and stayed on. While working as a visiting instructor for the Australian Navy, he fell in love with the country and moved there. When war broke out again he fought for his new country in its navy. He retired after 40 years in service but never stopped being active. At the tender age of 80 he took up writing and penned his memoirs. Over time he became a pacifist and controversially refused to participate in ANZAC Day parades. There’s much more to his story, so check out the link and his memoirs, assuming the book isn’t sold out by now.

Choules fought on the sea, so with no battlefields to visit, where can you see the legacy of WWI’s last combat veteran? A good start would be the museums of the two navies in which he served. The Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth, UK, currently has an exhibition called Sea Your History: 20th Century Royal Navy that shows what life was like aboard naval vessels during the two world wars and beyond. This gives a good insight into what a teenaged Claude Choules had to endure. The Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre at Garden Island Naval Base near Sydney also has displays about life in the navy. I wouldn’t be surprised if both museums make special exhibitions to mark the passing of this remarkable man.

But you don’t have to go to the UK or Australia to see Choules’ legacy. He lived through the most momentous event of the early 20th century. The war changed Europe and the world. The millions of deaths seriously weakened Europe’s hold on their colonies and emboldened independence movements in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The old aristocracy found itself hit hard financially and began to lose their grip on society. Large numbers of women got to work in factories and other “man’s jobs” for the first time, and began to question why they couldn’t vote.

While the First World War wasn’t the sole factor in the end of colonialism or the rise of women’s rights, it was a major one. If you want to see Claude Choules’ legacy, just look around you.

[Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons]