Photo Of The Day: Hallabong


This Photo of the Day, titled “Hallabong,” comes from Gadling Flickr pool member Mike Rowe and was captured using a Cannon EOS 40D.

In the caption for this image, Mike describes something he found in his travels, has searched for elsewhere and had limited luck finding.

“Famous in Korea is the fruit called Hallabong. Seemingly a Japanese development called the Dekopan, the Koreans have adopted it and claimed it for themselves … sweet, much sweeter than most citrus, and a truly delicious fruit. I’ve not seen them in Australia yet, but … they can be found in the US.”

Have you ever done that? I did the same thing in the past. Then one day I realized that trying to bring home some of that experience is not nearly as good as being there. That I can only get them there fuels one more reason to return.

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 capturing 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.

Photo Of The Day: Guam Beach Bar

There’s something about a bar on vacation that relaxes us. It could be a fancy hotel bar, an unassuming neighborhood watering hole or a trendy nightclub; and it can be friendly and chatty, or anonymous and discreet. Perhaps it’s comforting to know that our cocktails are made more or less the same the world wide, there’s nearly always another person to strike up a conversation with if you need local tips, and there’s far less social etiquette and customs to break than in a restaurant. The bar in today’s Photo of the Day is on Gun Beach in Guam, a place foreign to many Americans even though it’s part of our larger nation. Flickr user Peter Rood notes that it’s a “great place to grab a beer after diving and watch the sunset.” The patrons in this bar could be tourists or natives, but everyone looks comfortable and relaxed, whether or not anyone knows their name.

Want to see your travel photos featured as a future Photo of the Day? Upload them to the Gadling Flickr pool, and if we can download and share here, we’ll be sure to credit you too.

Photo Of The Day: Vientiane Traffic Jam

Vientiane may be the quietest national capital in the world. The common aphorism that Lao PDR stands for “Lao, Please Don’t Rush” is particularly appropriate given the laid-back nature of Laos‘ capital. The Mekong river maunders next to the city and seems to vacuum out the impetus and pressure of daily life here.

But quiet though it may be, it is suffering from a growing traffic problem as more people purchase cars. Of course, compared to any other major Asian capital, its traffic jams are laughable. The above photo from Flickr user rkzerok shows central Vientiane around rush hour.

However, Vientiane was never meant to handle much traffic at all. Its tiny roads can seem pretty packed despite only boasting as many cars as a Wal-Mart parking lot. And in response, the Lao government has even implemented laws to ease the congestion.

Have a great travel photo you’d like to share? Add it to our Gadling pool on Flickr. We choose the best to feature as our Photo of the Day.

Photo Of The Day: Blue Ice

This Photo of the Day, titled “Blue Ice,” comes from Gadling Flickr pool member AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker and was captured using a Pentax K-5.

In the caption for this image, Adam humbly tells us this is “just another sunset in Quetico Provincial Park.”

Quetico Provincial Park is a wilderness retreat west of Lake Superior on the Canada-U.S. border. The 1,180,000-acre park is home to over 2000 unofficial, unimproved wilderness campsites and more than 600 lakes.

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 capturing 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.

Photo Of The Day: Guatemalan Ice Cream Truck


I’m traveling in Sicily this week, and was reminded how crummy the aptly named Continental breakfast can be in this part of Europe: a cup of coffee (the only time of day it is socially acceptable to have a cappuccino, incidentally) and a roll or small pastry. While I’m not a person who starts every day with steak, eggs and a short stack, the Italian “breakfast” makes me yearn for an English fry-up, or the protein-heavy array of cheeses in Turkey and Russia. The good news (for me, at least) is that in Sicily in the summer, it is customary to have gelato for breakfast. An ideal scoop of a nutty flavor like pistachio, tucked inside a slightly sweet brioche, makes for a quite satisfying breakfast sandwich. Ice cream is a thing we tend to eat more of on vacation, and it’s always fun to try local flavors and variations. You know, in the name of cultural research.

Today’s Photo of the Day by Flickr user AlphaTangoBravo shows an ice cream cart in Guatemala. Guatemalans love to add strawberry syrup to their ice cream, and carts are found year-round in Antigua, but sensitive stomachs should be warned: the street cart stuff is likely to cause worse than an ice cream headache.

Share your travel food photos in the Gadling Flickr pool (Creative Commons, please) and you might see it as a future Photo of the Day.