Photo of the Day (12.20.08)

by Brenda Yun on


I have a confession to make. I’ve been surfing my brains out lately, but as long as I’m working hard, I can play hard, right? The other day, I was surfing at Lighthouse, a shortboarding break by Diamond Head, on the south shore of Oahu, and it was one of those epic days when the wind was none and the waves were perfect peaks rolling in from the open ocean. About an hour into the session, it started to rain. I turned to my friend and told him, “I love it when it rains like this. The water looks like snakes.”

And here is the perfect “snake” of a groundswell. This awesome capture comes to us from localsurfer, who make North Devon, UK, his home. I love hardcore surfers like him who, rain or shine, snow or sleet, cold or freezing, can be found in the water living it up or on shore shooting these fabulous photos.

If you have some great travel shots you’d like to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day!

Photo of the Day (12.16.08)

by Grant Martin on

I’m off to the UK today, pushing back from Detroit airport at precisely 6:15 to coincide with this article’s publication. After spending the tail end of the workweek at Loughborough University I’ve scheduled some downtime in London where the British Museum, captured above by ultraclay!, is one of my top destinations.

Though I’ve been there several times, you just can’t beat the feeling of walking into the central atrium to stare up at the magnificent ceiling above the main reading room. And once you manage to pry your eyes away? You’ve got about two weeks of content to browse through in the halls of the museum. How exciting.

Have any cool photos you’d like to share with the world? Add them to the Gadling Pool on Flickr, and it might be chosen as our Photo of the Day.

See you tomorrow in London, and thanks to Marilyn and Janelle at the ITB for the rest of my itinerary.

U.K. Travel Insurer: Cuba as Dangerous as Afghanistan

by Josh Lew on

U.K travel insurance company Direct Travel Insurance Services has a blacklist. If a traveler is headed to Sudan or Afghanistan, they will need to seek their insurance elsewhere. But Cuba?

That’s right, Cuba. The insurer will not cover British travelers headed to Cuba. Perhaps someone in the company thinks that it is still the 1950s. Or perhaps someone in the company was robbed during a recent vacation in Havana. But that’s unlikely. Cuba is, arguably, one of the safest destinations in the entire Caribbean. Crime is virtually not-existent. It is much more dangerous to vacation on more popular islands like Jamaica.

But there is a more probable reason that English travelers are not able to get coverage for Cuba: AIG. The American firm took over Direct Travel Insurance Services and has extended its practices of not insuring Americans in Cuba to its new British customers.

Because of an archaic trade embargo, US citizens are not allowed to visit Cuba. thus AIG does not cover them. But there is no such law in England. Luckily for UK residents, there are many other travel insurers willing to cover tourists on their trip to Cuba.

[Via Havana Journal]

Photo of the Day (10/30/08)

by Kent Wien on

I was rather excited to see this in our Flickr Gadling group as a Photo of the Day entry. The mud flats reminds me of the summer days in Anchorage, Alaska when we’d head out “mud-sliding.” At the end of the day we were completely covered in mud. Ahh, good times.

This is also one of the first entries we’ve received taken with the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3. The LX3 is a pocket camera that’s getting the attention of some professional photographers. Rather than chasing megapixles, Panasonic has chosen to concentrate on the lens and chip size. So the low light capabilities with the f2.0 wide angle (24mm) lens stands out from the typical consumer digital camera.

Even so, it’s not easy to capture such a spectacular shot as this one of the beaches in Wales. He really pulled the most out of his camera, shooting this picture with a 60 second exposure. I’ve already set the full size version as my wallpaper.

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

Britons Bring Bowel Bacteria Onto Buses

by Mike Barish on

I’ve never been much of a germaphobe. I don’t carry Purell with me. I don’t wash my hands obsessively. And I don’t walk around with a mask on. But then I come across a story like this one on the BBC News website and I start to question whether I should live in a bubble. A recent recent study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (is there a better location for the study of tropical medicine?) has discovered that more than one in four commuters in the UK has bacteria associated with fecal matter on their hands.

Dr. Val Curtis, director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said, “If any of these people had been suffering from a diarrhoeal disease, the potential for it to be passed around would be greatly increased by their failure to wash their hands after going to the toilet.” That, quite frankly, is more than I need from my daily commute. I’m just looking to get from Point A to Point B. Point D(iarrhea) is not part of my plan.

I ride the New York City subways to work everyday and I will admit that I avoid holding onto the bars/poles in the trains as much as possible. If I have to hold on, I typically wrap my arm around the pole so as to keep my hands clean. But sometimes you just have to grab on. However, I’m fairly certain that I don’t have fecal matter all over my hands. Because I wash them after I use the toilet. It’s everyone else who is apparently wiping their asses barehanded and then touching everything.

So, as we approach cold and flu season, perhaps it’s time to remind ourselves to wash our hands often. And use toilet paper instead of just our hands. It’s a great big world out there but it’s the tiny bacteria that will kill you. Or at least ravage your GI tract. Be sure to wave at me when I pass by in my bubble.