South America

Travel through South America by country:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

Travel through South America by popular city:

Bogota, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro

Travel through South America by popular things to do:

Adventures in the Amazon, Falkland Islands, Iguazu Falls, Tierra del Fuego

License Plates of the World

by Justin Glow on

The other day I ran across this website, LICENSE PLATES OF THE WORLD, which has got to be the largest collection of – you guessed it! – license plates on the Internet (and not just because the title is in all caps, but that helps). If it’s not, well, then please show me an online collection of license plates larger than this one. I dare you! I spent the better part of an hour going through and finding some truly bizarre plates from places like Antarctica and – get this – Texas!

It reminds me of when I was a kid, traveling the country with my family, kicking the back of the driver seat and asking, “Are we there yet?” No, my father would say, encouraging me to play one of the many car games kids played to pass the time. I always enjoyed the license plate game, where you had to find a plate from every state in the US. Alaska and Hawaii were usually quite rare, but if you spotted one you were pretty much ensured a victory.

Think of this website as an online, globalized version of that game. Only the license plates on the website are indexed by country and state, so you don’t have to sit in the car and search the backs of random cars. Okay, so it’s nothing like the game I played as a kid. But it does involve license plates!

LP’s The Perfect Day

by Erik Olsen on

I have to say I love the fact that Lonely Planet is really branching out in the travel writing genre. Take a look at their catalog, and you can see that they’ve really moved beyond basic travel guides into vast new realms. I posted recently about the lusciously photo-illustrated book “The Middle of Nowhere” which I have right here on my shelf and which I go to whenever I need a quick inspiration for where to go next. But that book is hard backed and rather pesado, and so as I carry around a version of something similar, albeit smaller.

I just got my hands on “The Perfect Day” by Lonely Planet. The book provides bite-sized summaries of what constitutes the perfect day in multitudinous cities around the globe. From New York City to Phuket, Madrid, Dubai and so on, pretty much every major and medium city is covered. The writers are mostly LP authors and/or travel writers, so I suspect you can trust their advice. I like this book for its quick insight and it portability. It lacks a certain depth, but that’s not what it was intended for; The Perfect Day was written to whet your appetite about a place, and I think it pulls that goal off nicely.

The Craziest Drivers in the World Are…

by Iva Skoch on

How does one define a “bad driver”? In a good portion of the civilized world, we tend to think of it as someone who drives fast, passes without seeing what’s ahead, doesn’t stop for pedestrians, honks impatiently … and frequently breaks the law.

This definition does not apply in other places. Take Eastern Europe: Bad driver is typically seen as someone without the skills to drive a bad car 100mph on icy roads, someone who frequently slows down traffic by driving the speed limit or someone who doesn’t take off within exactly one second of the light changing. This school of thought automatically makes every person above 55 and 95 percent of women bad drivers. Really, the only “good drivers” would be single, childless men between 18 and 30. And, according to some, good drivers would definitely not be Australians.

Some say that the people of Rome are the world’s worst; others think Buenos Aires is crazier. Several sites are dedicated to the awful drivers of the Arabian Gulf (aka Persian Gulf). A few Mexico Cities, LAs, Rios. And finally, one study shows that Russians are the worst in Europe, with 25 percent admitting to having sex while driving.

I cast my vote for the drivers in Egypt, the world’s most enthusiastic honkers.

Tip for Tipping

by Iva Skoch on

We have covered the very fragile topic of tipping outside the US before…it is a tricky one. I have seen a few website and guides which instruct tourists on tipping and I have never felt comfortable with any of them. Ehow.com for example, has a tip for tipping in the Czech Republic suggesting people should round up to the nearest koruna. That is absolutely not the case. You would round up a 179 crown bill up to 200, not 180.

I do not quite understand why Americans–the world’s richest nation–are so concerned about tipping (specifically over-tipping) when traveling abroad. When in doubt, I find that you can’t honestly go wrong with tipping more, even if people tell you tipping is not necessary. Often they are just being polite. If you can tip 15% at home, why not do it abroad?

Yes, you might be paying more than people usually get, but it is better than trying to figure out the tipping etiquette in each country or under-tipping. Yes, you want to be treated like a human being, not a walking bag of cash (ehm, good luck with that). Yes, there is the argument that service workers in the US only earn a minimum wage and they depend on higher tips. I would argue that the US minimum wage is still much higher than “regular wages” in 99% of the rest of the world. Plus, the entire world knows that it is customary in the US to pay generous tips. They see by the clothes you wear that you can afford it. Why not just do it?

Kayaking the Galapagos

by Erik Olsen on

It’s one of hose paddling trips I’ve ALWAYS wanted to take. There are your supreme paddling spots and then there are the supreme among the supreme and the Galapagos falls into this latter category. This piece by Tim Farmer
first appeared in the December 2006 issue of Canoe & Kayak, and in it, Herr Farmer paddles this amazing island chain where Darwin first glimpsed the flora and fauna that would lead hm (eventually…that is) to think up the theory of Natural Selection. But the paddling there is said to be some of the finest in the world, and a quick read of this article explains why.

Pristine waters, ample wildlife, a respectable climate all many many miles away from any pollution addled civilization. The islands are a volcanic archipelago composed of some 13 major islands and a handful of smaller islets. They are scattered over 28,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, so yes, you are about as far away from things as yo can get. Short, I suppose of paddling Easter Island off Chile, the world’s most remote island…which would also be cool to paddle, albeit more boring in a way since there is not nearly the same amount of wildlife there. We’re talking, of course, about iguanas, tortoises ,dolphins etc. There are many restrictions to paddling and diving around the Galapagos, but if you go with a local outfit, they can help you with them.

Man, hard to come off of a trip to Detroit and see this kind of article.