GADLING’S TAKE FIVE: Week of July 8

by Adrienne Wilson on

Time for another week of random picks from the bloggers here at Gadling. Saddle up, simmer down and go solo on the slow train if you must.

5. Albertan Cowboy Culture: Where’s the Real Old West These Days?:
When my mind conjures images of cowboys on the open range or prairie searching for the type of things cowboys go looking for I don’t imagine them in Canada. This could just be me, but thanks to Martha the cowboys in my daydream have a new home in Alberta. Some are a little commercialized and others a bit more authentic, but you’ll have to read further for the details.

4. Why Trains Suck in America:
I’ve never taken a train in America. Have you? Ever wonder why so many Americans don’t? See why Neil thinks train transportation is basically dead in the U.S.

3. The Best U.S. Cities for Singles:
It’s summer time in the city and you’re single. Find out which city has the most singles and mosey on over to find your better half. That’s if you don’t like being single for the summer and all.

2. A Canadian in Beijing: Reverse Culture Shock:
Goodbyes and readjustment can be a tough job to tackle after a long excursion abroad. Ember hasn’t been home long and already she is back on the road touring with her band. Check out this last post in her series and find out where you can keep tabs on her future jaunts.

1. The “Wonders of the World” Votes are in!:
The world has made its final decision and the new seven wonders of the world are…

The Most Romantic Places on Earth

by Willy Volk on

Of course, Valentine’s Day is largely about romance. In my opinion, the most romantic place I’ve ever been was on top of Table Mountain. After riding the aerial cableway car to the top, my wife and I found a secluded spot, whipped out a bottle of South African wine, and watched the sun set. It was beautiful. However, many people might not think of a mountaintop as particularly romantic. To that end, here are some other places that might be more “classically” romantic:

  1. The Samode Palace in amber-soaked Rajasthan, India.
  2. Chaa Creek’s Treetop Suites high above Belize.
  3. Mfuwe Lodge’s chalets, overlooking animal-packed South Luangwa Park.
  4. Bavaria’s Schloss Neuschwanstein, nestled among so many mountains.
  5. Chile’s Hacienda Los Lingues is for the horse lovers.
  6. California’s Muir Woods, which conservationist John Muir claimed was “best tree-lovers monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world.”
  7. The Daintree Cape Tribulation coast is where the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree rainforest meet, and the only place on earth where two World Heritage areas exist side by side.
  8. Zanzibar’s gently-sloping Paradise Beaches.
  9. The Sheraton Moorea is guaranteed to make you melt.

What should we list as #10?

Venice Is Overrated

by Iva Skoch on

While everyone should see Venice at least once, I don’t understand why people find it romantic. I mean, the place is packed with tourists! You can’t be left alone for two seconds before you are either a) in someone’s picture, or b) being asked to take a picture of someone.

The population of Venice has been cut in half in the last 40 years and if the trend continues, there will be no residents of Venice left by 2030. The local color is dissapearing to make space for more tourist buses. I came to the conclusion that Venice must be romantic for the same people who like to proclaim their love for each other in public (i.e., marriage proposals at baseball games.)

I started thinking about Venice when reading the MSN’s 10 Romantic Escapes tips with number 10 featuring, you guessed it, Venice. Bora-Bora, Paris and Dubrovnik, other contenders, I can live with. The sub headline “Our favorite romantic escapes are guaranteed to rekindle a long-standing love, or kick a new one up a notch, all year long”, however, sounds too good to be true. If the relationship lacks romance, even Bora-Bora can be Boring-Boring.

The Darker Side of Travel Romance

by Karen Walrond on

From Yahoo!News:  Writer Rolf
Potts explores the enigma of travel romance — you know the one:  the one where you’re off in an exotic location,
meet a mysterious, sexy stranger, pledge your love… and then back home, all of a sudden that,mysterious, sexy
stranger isn’t all that fabulous anymore?

I can so relate to this article — several years ago, I met a
tall, dark and handsome man while traveling with girlfriends in Barcelona.  We spent a wonderful day and evening
together, exchanged numbers, and promised to stay in touch when we had both returned to the States.

We kept
our promise.

And when we reunited, I found him childish, moody, and decidedly unsexy.  The fact was:
while he was so not my type, Barcelona made him sexy.

This article is definitely worth the
read.  How about you:  any travel romances that turned out to be, well… not-so-romantic?

Travel and Leisure's 50 Romantic Places

by Erik Olsen on

For the most part, I don’t do a lot
of linking to Travel and Leisure Magazine. I think it’s a fine glossy,
and I’ll often pick it up and thumb through it, but the clientele it serves, I think, tends to be a bit more, shall we
say, sybaritic, that the average gadling reader. The magazine tens to be about luxury travel, and the ideal gadling
experience, I think more often involves tents than gilded bathroom fixtures. Now that said, we are very much into
romance and love. It’s a wonderful thing to take an adventure with your spouse or significant other, and sometimes
along the road, you really want to find a place that caters to your every whim,  where you might drop a bit more
cashola than usual because you feel like you deserve it.

And so I offer this great little list of places to
go on your next romantic trip. From exotic places like the Capella Lodge at Lord
Howe island in Australia,  to the Losari Coffee Plantation Resort & Spa in Indonesia, and the Snaefell Peninsula in Iceland, there are some seriously cool recommendations here,
enough adventure, love and luxury here to experience in a lifetime.