Photo of the Day: Ansel Adams Wilderness

by Sean McLachlan on

Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen said, “The first great thing is to find yourself, and for that you need solitude and contemplation, at least sometimes. I tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing, noisy centers of civilization. It will come from the lonely places.”

The wilderness calls to us all, and it’s easy to see why in this beautiful shot by Buck Forester from Gadling’s flickr pool. It’s of the famous “minarets” above Lake Ediza in the Ansel Adams Wilderness in California. I love how Buck captured the early morning light on the peaks, and how the stream softens the bottom half of the photo in contrast to the jagged rocks above.

Do you have a great photo of the wilderness? Share it with us in Gadling’s flickr pool and you may end up as a Photo of the Day!

River cruises: they’re not for everybody

by Chris Owen on

Cruise lines continue efforts to make themselves different from each other. Major lines are doing all they can to make their ships the ones you want to sail. Some big cruise lines have smaller ships that some passengers prefer for a more intimate experience. Still, those all sail in the ocean while a growing number of people in the United States are taking a cue from Europe and trying a river cruise.

In Europe, river cruising is popular with a number of lines growing quickly to keep up with demand. A big factor in favor of these is the “unpack once and see a lot of places” thing that major cruise lines have going for them. River ships operate in the U.S. too, offering a really different way of seeing the country up close and personal. American Cruise Lines operates everything from an authentic paddle-wheeler in the Pacific Northwest to a new fleet of ships that sail the inland waterways of the East Coast.

This is a different experience from a major cruise line and one that’s not for everybody.

You won’t find a rock-climbing wall, a theater that seats thousands or a huge variety of restaurants, some included in the price, some extra. What you will find is an intimate setting on a relaxed sailing through some of the country’s most beautiful landscapes, stopping along the way to see and experience ports of call up close and personally. There won’t be an AquaTheater, AquaDuck or AquaSpa but there probably won’t be Mexican drug lords waiting for you to get of the ship in ports either. Safety is a big draw for these ships that are American-flagged and subject to American laws.Staterooms average about 220 square feet, considerably larger than a typical large ship offers. If the last ship you sailed on before one of these was say, Allure of the Seas, you’ll notice that there are fewer guests on board the entire ship than fit in a lifeboat on Allure. Yes, this is different. Still, twice daily stateroom service is offered as well as many of the service amenities a big ship has.

More of an all-inclusive experience, guests are invited to mingle before dinner with complementary cocktails and the dress code is always casual. On a typical evening, guest speakers bring local history, nature and culture to the table with rich stories of American heritage. There is no big showroom, long list of activities or things to do. In fact, if the big ship experience for you is about going all the time, doing something every minute, this is probably not the way to go.

But if a lazy day on the river, reading a book, flying a kite from an observation deck or enjoying coffee on an outside sun deck sounds good, this could be just what you are looking for.

Sailings are typically seven or eight-nights and itineraries include such titles as Maine Coast and Harbors, Columbia and Snake Rivers, or Chesapeake Bay with prices starting about $3500 per person. Fall Foliage sailings are very popular with river cruises and longer itineraries are also offered like East Coast Inland Passage, a fifteen-day sailing with a grand coastal tour of America.

About as close as you’ll get to a theme park at sea on one of these ships is a small putting green. Cruise vacations are about doing something really different than your normal life. This is another viable option.

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Geotagging your travels: why you should, and how to do it

by Dana Murph on

Even casual travelers know the wonders of GPS. It’s hard to imagine how we functioned on the road just a few years back without a satnav at our disposal, and now that our smartphones are also well equipped to guide us from point A to point Z (and everywhere in between), having a true sense of direction isn’t quite as necessary as it once was. But GPS satellites are useful for quite a bit more than just routing us. In the photography world, geotagging is becoming an increasingly attractive way to effectively track ones travels in a unique, refreshing visual fashion.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, geotagging refers to embedded GPS data on each image, which can then be read by various photo applications and mapping software. When you take a photo using any existing DSLR, a great deal of “metadata” is embedded onto each image; this data enables individuals to see what aperture, shutter speed, white balance setting and focal length (among other things) were used when a particular shot was composed. These pieces of information are remarkably useful when comparing shots after the fact, and geotagging adds one more vital bit of data to the mix: coordinates. Read on to find out how you can start adding GPS data to your images, and why you should make the effort to do so.

%Gallery-115291%The easiest way to make this happen is to buy a camera with a GPS or Hybrid GPS module built-in. A number of newly introduced compact models include this. Fujifilm’s FinePix XP30 has inbuilt geotagging support (not to mention a rugged, waterproof casing), and Casio’s Exilim EX-H20G is a non-rugged alternative with integrated geotagging. It’s an easy feature to find — either a camera has it built-in or it doesn’t, and manufacturers will generally go out of their way to ensure you know if a particular model does.

If you aren’t in the market for a new point-and-shoot, existing DSLR owners can upgrade their camera to support geotagging. Nikon makes a module of their own that fits certain models (GP-1), and if your camera doesn’t have a first-party add-on, Gisteq offers a (mostly) universal solution that connects via Bluetooth (PhotoTrackr Plus and PhotoTrackr Mini).

Once your camera is equipped to embed geotagging data, all you need is a program that’ll read that data. Apple’s iPhoto (displayed throughout this post) is a great example; any image that you load into iPhoto can be sorted by ‘Places.’ If you have an Internet connection, you’ll see pins populate the map (as shown here) in order to represent all of the locales where photos were taken. Google’s Picasa is another solid option, as is the popular Flickr.

What you’re left with is an incredibly visual way to look at a trip you recently took, all by way of photographs. In a way, these specific location points tell a story in an of themselves. Rather than simply telling friends and family that a certain group of photos were taken in Montana (for example), geotagging allows them to see exactly what routes you took on a road trip and precisely which trails you skied at Whitefish Mountain Resort. If you took multiple images at a certain place, you can easily sort those by selecting a single pin. The images throughout this article show (most) of the photos I took on my Casio Exilim EX-H20G while in northwestern Montana, including a number of shots while on Big Mountain itself.

On a grander scale, geotagging all of your images for the foreseeable future would enable you to create a lifetime travel map that visually shows where you’ve been in the world. It’s certainly a lot easier than trying to remember every off-the-wall stop you made, and it’s most definitely more satisfying than some Bucket List you’ve generated in Microsoft Word. On a smaller scale, sending your child off to camp with a geotagging camera would allow you to see where all the counselors shuttled your young one around — after all, kids have a thing for not keeping a very detailed journal, and this would make their job of explaining what all they did a lot easier.

Interested in getting started with geotagging? Listed below are a few recommended GPS-enabled cameras, geotagging add-on dongles and photo applications that work well with geotagged images.

GPS-enabled point-and-shoot cameras:

Geotagging add-on dongles:

Geotagging applications:

Old cruise ships get extreme makeover

by Chris Owen on

It’s part of the normal process of maintenance, taking a ship out of water from time to time to do things they just can’t do while in operation. That can include anything from scraping the hull, normally under water to replacing worn carpets. Recently, ships going into what is called “dry dock” are having some additional features added that reflect a changing demand by consumers.

Most recently, Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Sun came out of a 12-day dry dock where it received a bunch of new features. A focus on enhancements to the ship’s public areas, suites and restaurants added a Brazilian steakhouse, updated décor in all 33 of the ship’s luxury suites, improvements to the kids area and yes, replacement of carpets and wall coverings in public areas.

“We have a company-wide commitment to ensuring our ships are in excellent condition. Therefore, Norwegian Sun is the first of three ships this year that will enter dry dock for enhancements, along with several that will take place in 2012,” said Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian Cruise Line’s chief executive officer.

Other lines go through similar makeovers, adding features made popular by their newest ships to older models in an effort to keep them relevant. Sometimes, lines will borrow ideas from competitors too.

%Gallery-113908%Norwegian Epic’s solo studios were such a hit that Royal Caribbean is adding some to one of their older ships, Radiance of the Seas, during a makeover of sorts. Norwegian made headlines with single guest accommodations when it debuted Norwegian Epic last summer. Solo cruisers have long been an under-served market. Cruise lines base pricing on double occupancy and solo cruisers often pay double the per person rate.

Other lines have made significant investments in their existing fleets too. Carnival Cruise Line’s recent “Evolutions of Fun” program added Carnival “WaterWorks” Aqua Park and Serenity adults-only retreat, redesigned main pool area and new casual dining choices. Holland America too joined it with their $525 million Signature of Excellence upgrades, with enhancements to cabins, pool decks with their own version of the popular adults-only retreat and entertainment options featuring new on-board enrichment programs.

Celebrity Cruises is another great example of how sailing older ships does not mean you miss out on all the new features. Popular new Solstice-class ships have unique new features that have been added to older ships on their own makeovers. Some of the new updates include adding a signature venues “Tuscan Grille” steakhouse as well as the “Bistro on Five” and a popular ice-topped Martini Bar plus a new Cellarmasters wine bar, complete with the “Enomatic” state-of-the-art wine serving system allowing guests to select wines by the glass, at the touch of a button.

“All of our new venues and attributes are designed to enhance that all-important feeling of getting away and fully enjoying every aspect of Celebrity’s upscale on-board experience.” said Celebrity’s President & CEO Dan Abrahan.

Look for other lines to add new-ship features to their existing fleet too. As new ships sail, cruise lines are closely monitoring the performance of new features as well as comments by guests. You can bet if something is popular on the latest, greatest ship at sea, you’ll see it on an older ship sometime soon.

Video of the Day: Walking in Brooklyn

by Grant Martin on

I miss Brooklyn every day, though I never lived there for more than two nights at a time. Today’s video from Ken Ardito is a walk through DUMBO, the swatch of Brooklyn right under the Manhattan Bridge where the architecture is grand, the lofts more spacious and the grocery stores unparalleled. Though I was only there three weeks ago, it fills my heart with longing.