This is a rather interesting project that mixes art and travel in a cool, Webby way. Called the Place project ,the conceit is rather simple: there is a box, a book and a camera, and designers from around Latin America and North America got to contribute their ideas and designs. The result nicely laid out here in a site called Place Project, reveals a delightfully eclectic mix of cultural perception and vagabonding.
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
Triptie
Another interesting concept in the Web 2.0 world of travel-related sites. Here is a site called Triptie that, as they put it seeks to create an “online community of travelers, all devoted to planning and sharing their trips.” The idea is that you become a member and go to the site and plan and upload your itinerary. Others have done the same, thus creating a kind of community of itineraries that, one assumes compiles a list of the best places to go, things to see, places to stay and eat etc. Sort of a take off on Amazon’s “people who bought XXX book also bought YYY book. That is, the presumption is that the brains and decisions of multiple travelers is better than those of a single traveler. Very Web 2.0, as i said. I have to say it looks intriguing. The site is in beta, but if you want to learn more, there is a nifty video that helps explain the concept further.
Paddle Bolivia
The world is filled with wonderful places to paddle, and we’ve done our best here at gadling to bring some of them to your attention. But most of these places are on the ocean, from the lovely San Juan Islands in the Northwest to, well, exotic places like The Na Pali Coast.
Yes, in checking back on some of the places we’ve mentioned, I was reminded recently of a piece in Outside that took a group of paddlers to the highlands of Bolivia. It’s a somewhat older piece (2000), but a solid one, that takes readers and paddle fiends to some really wonderful paddle spots from the altiplano to the jungle, some of these spots feature class V rapids, so I’m talking about spots that are not for the feint of heart.
I confess that paddling the altiplano is something I’d never heard of until reading the article by Jon Bowermaster (a gadling favorite) who did it for his Ocean’s 8 project, an immensely cool project launched by Bowermaster to paddle 8 major areas around the world. But this article does a superb job describing the allure and opportunity of paddling in a lesser known country.
Word for the Travel Wise (09/10/06)
Okay, everyone – big sigh of relief this week. I’m departing from languages of the Silk Road to return to some you may actually try to learn further than my everyday Gadling feature. Today I point your attention to Uruguay’s thermal waters as featured on the front page of their tourism site. Perfect place to head if you’re planning an early escape from North American winters. Go check it out.
Today’s word is a Spanish word from Uruguay:
nadar – swim
Amerispan, Cactus Language and IMAC are all good starting points to learning abroad. A free membership at Spanish Unlimited gives you the opportunity to learn a new word everyday by email, gain pen pals and hear audio of the words. Their website is actually a good resource tool for many different Spanish related topics. I won’t even begin to list some of the texts out there that could further your studies because there are entirely too many. If you know of some language books that would be useful please feel free to list them.
Past Spanish words: escalar, cercano, realidad, enfermo, jalar
Passport Rules Changing
Making my way to Canada this year to spend a week in the gloriously beautiful Canadian province of Newfoundland, I discovered a nasty little surprise. My wife and I got to the airport and discovered that Newfoundland requires Americans traveling there to bring a passport or birth certificate to enter by air from the United States. I had no idea. For years living in Seattle I came and went to Canada and needed only to show my drivers’ license. I was pretty damn upset because no one told us that the rules had changed, and so we had to go back and get our passports and needless to say, we missed our plane.
Well my hardies, the rules HAVE changed, although they have not taken effect Canada-wide quite yet, and when they do take effect, they will cover Mexico as well. Yes, visitors to the NAFTA states North and South will soon have to bring along passports to cross the country’s borders…well, the key is really getting back in. The rules take effect December 31 for air travelers to and from the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada.
A year later, on Dec. 31, 2007, the requirement will be extended to all land-based border crossings as well.
Now, this could be either a good thing or a bad thing.
It’s certainly a bad thing in that it makes going to Mexico and Canada a bigger pain in the buttocks. I keep my passport in a safe, locked place in my home, and I am just not sure that if I decide suddenly to take a road trip to Montreal that I’m going to remember it. I suppose I’ll have to. It may also be bad in that it might discourage Americans who want to travel “abroad” from going because they either a) don’t have passports or b) forgot them.
But perhaps we should look on the bright side. Maybe the new rules will inspire people who don’t yet have a passport to go out and get one. Given the rather awful statistics that say only 20 percent of Americans carry a passport (thus speaking loudly and clearly to our deficiencies as an internationally-aware, culturally sensitive nation) putting them in more Americans’ hands could very possibly help improve our awareness of those “others”, AKA foreigners, on the other side of the border.
By the way, Lonely Planet has been pushing this whole idea for a whle, and ,in fact, THIS is National Passport Month. So how’s that for good timing?