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

Summer Skiing Way Down South

by Erik Olsen on

Here we are reaching the end of a lovely summer, lots of vacations taken, a few scares here and there, but so far rather sedate for most. But perhaps you’re one of those skier types who did not get enough out of our last winter’s snowfall. Then what can you do about it now? Well, as most of you probably know, it is wintertime in the Southern hemisphere and that means that there is skiiing to be done in places like Chile.

Way down south, there are several excellent resorts to choose from, including Portillo, Valle Nevado, and Termas de Chillán. The snowfall in Chile is said to be excellent, with as much as 280 inches at Portillo and much “corn snow” to be shredded. I’ve skied Chile myself and consider it excellent terrain. And one of the best parts is topping off the day with a nice Pisco Sour. Yum.

Budget Travel is talking about decent package deals to get down there just you and your boards starting at about $1200 for a week.

VR Mag

by Erik Olsen on

I’ve done enough posts here on panoramic photography that folks know I’m passionate about the stuff. Whenever I find a great new site dedicated to the form, I always try to post about it. Now, this is not a new site to me, I’ve been aware of it for a while, but I realized recently that I’ve never drawn your attention to it. Now is the time.

VR Magazine is a wonderful online resource dedicated to everything panoramic. The panoramic photographs here come from all over the world and are shot by a very wide array of terrifically talented folks. You can spend a great deal of time just poking around and finding superb work, but let me draw you attention to a few highlights.

First of all, for a great use of pano photography as documentary work, check out this full screen picture on AIDS in Mozambique. And this one of a demonstration on Cairo over the Lebanese conflict gives a very interesting, untraditional perspective you don’t get in normal pictures.

Then for tourist-related photography, take a look at this series on Chenonceau in France, as well as the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan (which I have visited). All great stuff amid tons of other pictures that are well worth some exploration click time.

Unusual Hotels of the World

by Erik Olsen on

Travel and Leisure and most of those other big glossy magazines are always going to offer you the well-known, glitzy hotels as recommendations of places to stay on your travels. But what about the lesser-known, off-beat places? Places like the Aurora Ice Museum in Fairbanks, Alaska? Well, over at Unusual Hotels of the World, you can find a wild assortment of bizarre, but certainly entertaining places to rest your weary bones. The site is rather simple, not wonderfully designed, but the list of ideas is extensive and quite fascinating. Want to sleep in a cave? Well, then try the Desert Cave Hotel in Turkey. What about a tree house? Then try Kadirs Tree House Hotel in Turkey.

Good recs, all for the adventuresome person looking for something different. The site offers not just a list of these places, but also rates and booking opportunities.

Worldhum Travel Zeitgeist

by Erik Olsen on

We’re always eager to see what’s happening over at one of our favorite travel sites, Worldhum.com, and I just noticed today they’ve launched a rather cool new feature called Travel Zeitgeist. For those who don’t know the meaning of the word, Zeitgeist comes from the German language and means “Time Spirit” or the spirit of the times or how/what people are thinking at a particular moment. You know what I mean. Cool word. Kind of like Weltanschaung, another favorite.

Anyway, the Worldhum folks have made this little list which they’ll do every week that captures the essence of the week…what people are blogging about, what they’re searching for, the best-selling travel book on Amazon, etc. A cool idea. Wish we’d thought of it.

Bang Bangs You’re Dead

by Erik Olsen on

I have to say, this is really quite a bummer. It looks like after just a single year from launch, that Yahoo is canceling Richard Bangs Adventures, a great online video travelogue that we blogged about a few times here.

They said that the program, which featured Bangs, a hardened veteran explorer, travel writer and business person, had failed to build “a large and loyal audience”. The reason cited was that there were roughly month-long gaps between new installments and this turned people away.

Um, hello. Can I also raise my hand here?! No one in my building could see video on Yahoo for some stupid reason on their end (we can see YouTube, Google video and most other types). The video would just stop there and turn and nothing would ever come up, so to enjoy the program I’d always have to watch it at home. But you can be sure if I was having this problem, so were thousands of others. Maybe Yahoo should have done a bit more beta testing.

Anyway, it’s a big loss for several reason, but tops is that it makes it less likely that big companies will experiment with original content…I mean nicely produced funded stuff. And that is a huge shame. Anyway, I wave a fond farewell to Bangs and Company and only wish they’d figured out the technical probs before they went and pulled the plug.