Gallery: More travel sketches from BBC’s Tim Baynes


We wrote yesterday about Tim Baynes’ delightful travel sketches from around the world on BBC and liked them so much we came back for more. You can (and should!) get lost for hours looking at his drawings on Flickr with fun anecdotes and scribbles bringing depth and humor to his slice-of-life artwork.

Check out some of our favorites in the gallery below, from a look inside the BBC Starbucks to the madness of Dubai immigration during the ash cloud to a quiet barbershop in Tripoli.

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See more of Tim Baynes’ work on the BBC, his personal Flickr stream, or order a copy of his book Doors to Automatic and Cross Check, direct from the artist.



All photos courtesy of Tim Baynes.

An easy way to get to Libya

If you haven’t thought about Libya since Ronald Reagan had a few bombs dropped on it a quarter-century ago, maybe it’s time to put it back on your radar. The country has new visa access and has put some serious cash into its infrastructure, including a national railway network. So, it’s easier to get there and easier to get around there. And with the latest deal from Cox & Kings, “Timeless Treasures of Libya,” you now have all the pieces in place.

Granted, Libya probably isn’t on your list, but an open mind will put it there. “With its rocky recent history, Libya is often a destination overlooked and overshadowed by other nearby travel locales,” said Thomas Stanley, Centre Head and COO of Cox & Kings USA. “But the Mediterranean is timeless and Libya is an undiscovered cache of history. It does not disappoint in offering travelers a sense of discovery in a land virtually unknown to the modern world. The archeological riches of ancient Libya are some of the most unobstructed and best preserved in the world.”

Don’t worry about the confines of package travel. The folks over at Cox & Kings say that the itinerary is customizable and available “at any time.”

[photo by Rafael Gomez via Flickr]

Dakar to Paris: Layover in Algiers or Tripoli?

You think that you know things about airlines until you start searching for flights in and out of African. There, the old knowns of KLM and British Airways go out the window and replacements like Afriqiyah Airways and Air Algerie come into play, carriers that many never knew existed.

The current itinerary on which I’m working involves a one way flight between Dakar and Paris, a three thousand mile trip over the Sahara Desert, Mediterranean Ocean and Southern France. With a connection.

Where is that connection you ask? Depends on the airline. Of the above two airlines, one (I’m sure you can guess which) involves a four hour layover in Algeria‘s capital, Algiers, in the Houari Boumediene airport. The other offers a similar stay in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.

The most comedic part of the operation in the the fare codes. Typical local carriers have complex fare codes like QE07A0NA to dictate the rules and routes of a flight. On Afriqiyah Airways? My fare basis (copied above) would be “BLOW.”

Whatever. The real question is whether I should fly through Algiers or Tripoli. Technically it would be interesting to spend a day or two exploring the cities on my layover (if that’s possible,) but North African nations aren’t the most welcome place for Americans — and could I go to a country that bans alcohol? I would have to bring a book or something.

So where would you go?

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Photo of the Day (03/03/08)

If I could only use one adjective to describe this photo, I would say “beautifully vertical.” OK, that’s not exactly one adjective, but close enough. I love the long, slim lines of the men and the buildings. I am guessing the streets are so narrow in order for the building to provide as much shade as possible.

The photo was taken by a Czech travel photographer Daniel Michalek last fall in the center of Tripoli, the capital of Libya…another one of those countries I would love to visit. You can check out his other photos here.

***To have your photo considered for the Gadling Photo of the Day, go over to the Gadling Flickr site and post it.***