Go Now before They’re Gone: Conde Nast Traveler’s 20 Most Threatened Places

by Neil Woodburn on

Travel, on occasion, takes on apocalyptic proportions.

This is a fragile world we live in, after all, and it is no secret that marvelous destinations which beckon our travel spirit simply may not be around for much longer. Or, at the very least, will be so damaged by pollution, global warming, or the heavy hand of man that they will no longer be worth seeing.

This “see-them-before-they’re gone” theme pops up every once in a while in travel literature and when it does, we make sure to cover it for two reasons; we want you to go before they’re gone and we want you to do something to help prevent them from disappearing.

This month’s Conde Nast Traveler (May) has put together one of the very best compilations of “Places to see before they Die.” With an introduction by travel legend Pico Iyer, Conde Nast Traveler jumps into 20 of the most threatened locations around the globe, which, they tell us, “are just a fraction of those vanishing before our eyes.”

Six of the locations warrant an entire page in the print edition describing “what’s at stake,” “the threat,” “best-case scenario,” and “worst-case scenario.”

And don’t think these are obscure places you’d probably never visit. Many of these you’ve heard of before and even though you think you may not want to visit, you’re wrong.

The list is sad and poignant and includes such places as the Borneo rain forest, the walled city of Baku (Azerbaijan), the Jewish quarter in Budapest, the Florida Everglades, Tibet, the Galapagos Islands, Ha Long Bay (Vietnam), and more.

Take a moment and read about these places before they are written about only in the history books.

NPR Reporters Report on Favorite Foreign Restaurants

by Neil Woodburn on

There aren’t too many jobs better in life than being a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). Sure, the pay probably isn’t great, and the hours are probably long, but what can be cooler than filing NPR stories from another country?

NPR has a handful of such reporters across the globe. You know the ones, with the golden voices and inquisitive nature.

Recently, NPR asked their field reporters to report on themselves and file a story about their favorite places to eat, drink, and sleep while pounding their beat in strange lands.

The result is an impressive smorgasbord of mouthwatering local dives from Tuscany, Rio de Janiro, Hanoi, Istanbul, Lhasa, Moscow, Nairobi, and Shanghai. With titles like, Camel’s Milk Ice Cream at the Norfolk Hotel (Nairobi – photo above) and Slurping at Yang’s Fry-Dumpling (Shanghai), how can one resist not digging into what these fine reporters have to say about the cities they cover so very well.

Check it out; food has never been more newsworthy!

Dear First-Time Vietnam Visitor

by Willy Volk on

Lately, Budget Travel has been running a “Blog-Off Contest.” Yesterday, they announced the winner of the contest: Steve — known to Gadling readers as ourman from Our Man in Granada — earned the right to guest-blog at Budget Travel’s This Just In starting the week of May 21. He’ll also receive $500 in cash. Since he’s currently volunteering in Granada, he can probably stretch that money pretty far — I’m sure he can turn that into a few dozen bottles of Carib beer, at least.

Anyway, take a few minutes to check out ourman, er, Steve’s piece. Called “Dear First-Time Vietnam Visitor,” the piece beautifully explains the intricacies, contradictions, joys, beauty, and horror of visiting Vietnam. With his writing, ourman brings Vietnam to life. Even if you’ve never visited Hanoi, after immersing yourself in his piece, you feel like you’re right there beside him, haggling with vendors, stepping past people who’ve fallen in the street, negotiating traffic.

Dear First-Time Vietnam Visitor isn’t just travel writing. It’s travel transportation. It’s travel teleportation. It’s top-notch, and I’m really looking forward to seeing his contributions during the week of May 21. Congratulations, Steve! You totally deserved it.

Cyclo Ride: A Virtual Thrill

by Jamie Rhein on

Riding a cyclo in Vietnam is a bit like riding in a baby stroller if you can remember riding in a baby stroller. Except, in a cyclo, you’re moving in traffic and not safely on a sidewalk somewhere. As more and more people have cars and motorcycles in Vietnam, it’s getting harder to find places to get a cyclo ride. Although in Hanoi, there are still places where they are everywhere. At Virtual Tourist, you can find cyclo riding tips and comments from others who’ve been there. Once I stood on a street corner taking pictures of cyclos going by and the things they carried besides people. One had a coffin. I can’t imagine that cyclos will ever go totally out, and they may just be money makers from the tourist industry like they are in Singapore.

Here’s a video posted by budlake on You Tube of a cyclo ride in Hue that did make me feel like I was on a cyclo. The person holding the camera had the right idea. Just keep the camera steady and let the movement of the cyclo do the work. The result is that the viewer gets an idea of what it’s like to move in Vietnam’s traffic at a slower pace than the other vehicles passing by.

Photo of the Day (4/17/2007)

by Erik Olsen on

Conjuring images of both an exotic world and a scene from Apocalypse Now, this photo by LadyExpat really caught my eye. Taken around Bac Ninh, whch I am going to guess is nowhere near, say, Seattle (actually it appears to be in Vietnam), this is one of those photos that made me think of one of my own tris in Cambodia years ago.