First Same-Sex Marriage in New Zealand Takes Place on a Flight


New Zealand recently legalized same-sex marriage and in celebration, Air New Zealand launched a contest that would grant a couple a sky-high wedding ceremony aboard one of their flights. This video documents the wedding of the two women who won the contest, making theirs the first same-sex marriage in New Zealand.

This isn’t the first mile-high marriage; it isn’t even the first in-flight same-sex marriage. In 2010, a captain diverted a flight into Canadian airspace so a same-sex couple on board could wed. Two same-sex marriage ceremonies took place on a SAS flight in 2010. And in 2008, a couple was married while on top of a plane.

But weddings aren’t the only out of place events that occur in air. A woman recently began to give birth on a plane. Coincidentally, something somewhat similar happened to a friend of mine who went into labor during her layover at LAX. I guess you never know when you’ll get a little extra in-flight entertainment.

Book A Night On An Airplane With AirBnB

Vacation accommodation website AirBnB has no shortage of unique places to stay, from a “boatel” aboard a converted ferry, to a private island in Fiji. For airplane nuts and those wanting the luxurious exclusivity of a private jet, AirBnB has a collection of airplane accommodations.

Accommodations range from a New Zealand two-unit motel inside a 1950s Bristol freighter plane (rates start at $180 per night, sleep in the cockpit or tail), to $10,000 for a night on a Gulfstream G5 jet in Beverly Hills (rate includes one hour of flight time and three hours of flight attendant service. Divide that by 18 passengers and that’s…still a lot of money, but a priceless experience. Don’t want to leave the airport? If you can find a flight into Teuge Airport in the Netherlands, you can stay aboard a former government plane, now fully tricked out into a private suite. If you’d prefer a more traditional place to stay, you might enjoy the Wine Country Airplane House in Sonoma county, which has not only an airplane tail on the front of the secluded house, but also a piece of the old Golden Gate Bridge.

Check out more unique AirBnB listings in their collection of wishlists.

Photo Of The Day: Yemen Beach

Looking at the gorgeous beach landscape above, you might think you were looking at Hawaii or New Zealand. Today’s Photo of the Day was actually taken in Yemen, a Middle Eastern country, which just celebrated its Unity Day after being consolidated in 1990, and the first Arab country to give women the right to vote. With borders on the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, there’s no shortage of beaches, but while the US State Department still has a warning against travel to Yemen, you might just have to enjoy them virtually.

Want to see your travel photos as a Photo of the Day? Share your Creative Commons shots with us on Flickr in the Gadling photo pool.

Video: New Zealand Time-Lapse

Flights to New Zealand from the USA are expensive. Thankfully, I have expertly created time-lapses to hold me over until I can get myself out to the seemingly mythical and definitely awe-inspiring country. This time-lapse by Bevan Percival is gorgeous. The images in the film were shot during 2012 over the course of two months spent in the North Island of New Zealand. Rushing fog over steep and lush hillsides is met with startling views of jagged mountains against nearly barren expanses of desert. Scenes like these make this video the beautiful work of art it is. Enjoy.

[Thanks, Laughing Squid]

Trekking Couple Circles Planet Three Times In 424 Days

They started trekking the planet more than a year ago, promising to travel the globe bringing children in classrooms from around the world with them, virtually, as they visited scores of countries and continents. Now their journey is complete and Darren and Sandy Van Soye are back to tell about it.

The story begins in February 2012, when the couple from Southern California started on a global adventure to raise awareness about world geography and make the subject more accessible to children. Hoping to visit 50 countries on six continents in 424 days, they planned to share the journey with more than 700 classrooms representing 50,000 students.

“Our dream is to educate children about geography and world cultures so we’ve planned the ultimate trek around the world to do just that,” Sandy Van Soye told Gadling when they began. In January of this year after passing the 50,000 mile mark, they had stopped in 40 countries with another dozen or so to go before returning to the United Sates. At the time, they had already beaten their own projections with 850 classrooms in 20 countries following their journey online.

Now with their world trek complete, the Van Soyes have traveled a total of 77,000 miles or the equivalent of three times around the earth at its equator. Their trek is an impressive amount of travel in such a short period of time for sure. But how they went about it is even more interesting.Starting on January 28, 2012, the journey began aboard a cruise ship, Princess CruisesPacific Princess, a small ship, which proved to be an efficient mode of transportation.

“We used cruise ships to get us between continents so that we could see more of the world,” said Sandy Van Soye. Spending 97 days of the nearly 500-day trek at sea the couple racked up 35 ports in 18 countries. An impressive number but travel via cruise ship is not the fastest way to be sure. From San Diego, it took 29 days to reach Sydney Australia, normally a 16- or 17-hour flight. But along the way, they visited Hawaii, American Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand.

After a seven-day trek in Tasmania, the team boarded another cruise ship, Ocean Princess to travel near Australia’s eastern coast, along the way visiting the Great Barrier Reef, the city of Darwin, Bali, Indonesia, and Ko Samui, Thailand, before arriving in Singapore. At each stop, they selected travel plans that would show students following along the natural beauty and unique people they encountered.

On land for the next eight months via a series of multiple day hikes, they visited 27 more countries in Asia, Europe and Africa before boarding the Pacific Princess in Rome. That Mediterranean sailing crossed the Atlantic Ocean, sailing up the Amazon River all the way to Manaus, Brazil.

Two months on land took them through 4,600 miles of South America before the final leg of their trek a voyage on Star Princess in Valparaíso, Chile, for their fifth and final cruise home.

Of all the places they went, which was their favorite? Kenya because of its rich culture and natural beauty

“It is a place that kids (have) heard of, so it was a pleasure to go there and talk more about it,” said Sandy of their visit to three Kenyan schools, one in the Maasai Mara and two in the Samburu region.

The biggest surprise along the way? Riga, Latvia

“There was just so much to see and do here and, though it is a capital city, it was relatively inexpensive,” said Sandy.

In addition to a lifetime of memories, the Van Soye’s trek produced a library of 60 four-page education modules for teachers available as supplements to existing classroom materials.
Also, their Trekking the Planet website contains free articles, quizzes, more than 70 documentary videos and a summary infographic: “Trekking The Planet: By The Numbers.

So is that the end of the road for this couple? Hardly.

Driven by the fact that nearly a third of U.S. young adults cannot locate the Pacific Ocean on a map, Trekking the Planet hopes to help educators change these statistics with future geography-oriented projects.


[Photo credit – TrekkingThePlanet]