Video of the Day: Big Wheel vs. Bus

We’re all for using public transportation whether you’re at home or exploring a new city. It keeps excess cars off the roads, allows you to see a real cross-section of the population and is cheaper than taking taxis everywhere. That said, buses can be slow. Especially in major cities like New York. How slow? Well, comedian Mark Malkoff decided to find out. He raced a New York City bus across town on 42nd Street (right in the heart of Manhattan) while riding a child’s Big Wheel bike. Having ridden a bike in New York for years, I can tell you that it’s faster than taking a bus. But can the same be said for a tiny tricycle? You might just be amazed by the results (at the very least, you will be amused).

[Via our friends at Urlesque]

Photo of the Day- Yosemite National Park

National Park Week is happening right now in the United States, offering Free Entrance Days to America’s National Parks from now through April 24th. During that time, admission fees are waived as a special welcome to Americans visiting their national parks.

Today’s Photo Of The Day comes from Flickr member RuthannOC and is of Yosemite National Park.

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Photo of the day – Maldives arrival

When I was a kid, the Maldives were the stuff of dreams. A colleague of my father’s gave me a hardback Maldives-themed calendar one year for Christmas, with glossy photos of atolls peeking out of perfect blue seas in between calendar pages. The sand was so white and the palm trees were so green. Could any tropical islands be more beautiful than these?

Years later the low-lying Maldives began cropping up in stories about climate change. Rising sea levels may well make the Maldives uninhabitable by the end of this century. In the meantime, tourism is an enormously important to the Maldivian economy; according the CIA World Fact Book, tourism is responsible for almost thirty percent of the country’s GDP.

Frightening climate change projections notwithstanding, what more magical way is there to encounter a tropical dreamland than from a plane about to land? This image, snapped by Flickr contributor Mystrimus, captures the ineluctable anticipation that accompanies most arrivals on picture-perfect tropical islands.

Got a pre-landing photo to share? Upload it to Flickr’s Gadling Group Pool. If we like it we might just select it as a future Photo of the Day.

Photo of the day – monastery in the mountains

It’s appropriate that this cable car in Montserrat, Spain leads to a monastery, because I’d be praying the whole ride that we made it safely. Perhaps other visitors are less height-adverse because this is one of the most important religious sites in Spain, with many people making the trek each year up the mountain to pray at the sanctuary. It’s not just for pilgrims: Santa Maria de Montserrat is home to one of the oldest printing presses in the world, a museum with such art biggies as Picasso and Dali, and a nature park with some stunning views of Catalonia. Want to visit? It’s about an hour from Barcelona, more visiting details here. Thanks to Flickr user othernel for making the climb.

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Photo of the day: Ring Road, Iceland


I wish I were in Iceland right now. I’m not. Instead, I’m sitting at home writing in Austin where, as far as I can tell, the only ice is in the freezer. (Ouch. Bad pun?) But my friend Sarah Landau just wrapped up an honestly epic journey in Iceland. Traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles by car, she recently road-tripped around Iceland.

Iceland’s Ring Road
, also known as Route 1, is a main road in the country and it connects the habitable areas of Iceland (Iceland’s inland is mostly uninhabited). The road stretches around for 832 miles and, if you read any reviews of the drive, you’ll find that a lot of people refer to Iceland’s Ring Road as the drive of their lifetime. And man, I want to do it! But until I get to do it myself, I’ll marvel at the photos Sarah has shared with me. This shot above was taken on the Southern coast of Iceland.

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Photo By: Sarah Landau