Photo Of The Day: Summertime Exploring

by Anna Brones on

Warm days, balmy nights and time off. Summer is prime time for getting outdoors and exploring. Backpacking, kayaking, canoeing, walking, running; whatever your sport of choice, this is the season to be doing it.

Need some inspiration? This photo taken on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters by Flickr user Adam Baker should do it. Sunset on still water from your seat in a boat – what could be better?

Have a photo you want featured on Photo of the Day? Submit it to the Gadling Flickr Pool to be considered.

Major League Midsummer Classic No Cheap Ballgame

by Chris Owen on

Major League Baseball‘s All-Star Game is an annual game between players from the National and American Leagues, this year to be played in Queens, New York. Baseball fans will come from around the world to Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, spending as much as $1,437 per night for a hotel and up to $20,000 for a ticket.

There are less expensive tickets; online source Ticket Liquidator has a view from the cheap seats starting at $235 each right now. Assuming ticket price does not knock attending the All-Star game out of the ballpark, less expensive hotels are on deck too.

Checking in with hotel search engine Room 77, travelers can expect to pay an average $286 per night during All Star Week. They have the 3.5-star LaGuardia Plaza Hotel, located 2 miles from Citi Field, for $120 per night. Or make a vacation out of it at the Ritz Carlton Central Park for $608 per night.

At the park, major league expenses continue with the cost of food and beverages to get through nine innings. Offering a hot dog for $6.25, Citi Field ranks high in a recent CNNMoney report on which ballparks charge the most.On the topic of ballpark food, it could be worse though. Rangers Ballpark, home of the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, has a $26 hamburger among other offerings, as we see in this video:

Tel Aviv Gets First Beachside Library

by Meg Nesterov on

Need a good beach read? Visitors to Tel Aviv‘s Metzizim Beach can now borrow books for reading on the sand. The city has launched the first beachside library, providing over 500 free book rentals in five languages, including English, Hebrew, Arabic, French and Russian. Prefer to read online? Tel Aviv is also one of the most connected cities, with more than 80 free Wi-Fi spots for public use on the beaches, boardwalk, in parks and in major tourist areas.

Photo Of The Day: Yubeng Water Works

by Chris Owen on

This Photo of the Day, titled “Yubeng Water Works,” comes from Gadling Flickr pool member James Wheeler who captions the image:

“If you’ve been following my photos, by now you know I am a big fan of Norther Yunnan in China. This photo is of the water system in Yubeng. These pipes bring fresh … cold water to the houses in the small town.”

Want to be featured? Upload your best shots to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. Several times a week we choose our favorite images from the pool as a Photo of the Day.

Tips for being featured: add a caption describing the image and your personal experience when photographing it, details of the photography gear used and any tips you might have for others wanting to emulate your work.

Now, you can also submit photos through Instagram; just mention @GadlingTravel and use the hashtag #gadling when posting your images.

See Live Rocket Blast This Summer, Before Anti-Gravity Takes Over

by Chris Owen on

Visitors to Florida’s Kennedy Space Center have been lining up to see Space Shuttle Atlantis in a new $200 million exhibit that opened in June. But while traveling over 26 million miles, Atlantis’ glory days are over and the circa-1976 space ship will never fly again. Still, live launch viewing opportunities are available and this summer is host to one of the most exciting.

On Friday, July 19, NASA will launch a 191-foot Atlas V rocket, allowing visitors to view the launch from the Apollo/Saturn V Center, the closest possible public viewing area. That Atlas 5 rocket is launching the second Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite for the U.S. Navy, part of a new system that is providing improved ground communications for U.S. forces on the move.

A limited number of tickets for the Apollo/Saturn V Center launch, also viewable from a special area at the Visitors Complex with live commentary during the event, are available for an additional $20 plus tax on top of normal admission.

Blasting off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launch window is tight. To maximize the success of the mission, launch must occur between 8:51 and 9:35 a.m. ET.How many more rocket missions there will be is unknown. But in this video a former NASA engineer suggests that technology may already be available to build and use an anti-gravity drive, rendering rockets obsolete.