Epic cycling tour comes to North America

by Kraig Becker on

Tour d’Afrique Ltd., the adventure travel company that organizes some of the best cycling tours on the planet, has announced the latest addition to their catalog, and this time they’re bringing their magic to North America. This new ride is aptly named The North American Epic, and when it launches next May, it will cover nearly 5000 miles, stretching from the Pacific Coast of California to the Atlantic Coast of Canada’s Newfoundland.

The North American Epic gets underway on May 29th from San Francisco, and immediately proceeds south along the Pacific Coast, before the riders turn east, heading into the desert. From there it’s on to the Grand Canyon, and the Four Corners of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, before tackling the Rocky Mountains themselves. The tour continues into the American Heartland, taking the legendary Route 66 east across Missouri and Illinois, then turning northward toward Michigan and the Great Lakes region, before finally crossing the border into Canada. Cycling through Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec, before proceeding up the scenic St. Lawrence Sea Way, the riders will experience plenty of Canadian hospitality before the ride finally comes to an end in St. Johns, Newfoundland on the 28th of August.

This three month long cycling tour features 76 days in the saddle, along with 16 rest days, and costs $9950 for the complete ride. But as with all their tours, Tour d’Afrique Ltd. offers cyclists various options for riding shorter sub-sections of the entire route. In the case of this tour, there are five shorter segments that can be ridden in any combination as well, allowing those with time constraints to take part in this great new tour too.

And for adventure cyclists looking for something a bit more exotic, check out the company’s 44 day ride along the Silk Road or their 80 day tour of South America. But for something really adventurous, go for the flagship ride, the Tour d’Afrique, which is 120 days in length and runs from Cairo to Cape Town.

[Photo credit: Tour d’Afrique Ltd.]

No more vacation rentals in San Francisco

by Julie Gerstein on

Bad news for those of you planning on renting an apartment for your next trip to San Francisco: it’s illegal. It seems the city’s long forgotten ordinance against residents renting out their apartments to tourists has of late been reinforced. The 1981 ordinance prohibits landlords from renting out to a tenant for a period of less than 30 days.

Why would San Fran care if landlords rent their apartments out as vacation rentals? Well, the city argues, the vacay rental market takes valuable housing off the rental market, making it more difficult for people to find affordable places to live. A recent survey of one of the city’s largest vacation rental services found around 500 properties available.

San Francisco’s enforcement of the vacation rental policy mirrors a decision earlier this year from New York state governor David Paterson to ban short-term vacation rentals in New York, and could signal the beginning of an anti-vacation rental legislative trend. And that could have a big impact on vacation rental industry companies like HomeAway and VRBO.

Tourists have gravitated to the vacation rental market in recent years in part because it’s more economical than staying a hotel: Prices are typically around half as much as hotels — and with added living amenities like kitchens and living spaces.

[photo by Flickr user permanently scatterbrained]

San Francisco airport turns on free WiFi for all

by Scott Carmichael on

Earlier today, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom announced that all public spaces at SFO will offer free WiFi for travelers.

The service had previously been offered as a paid option, but when the paid contract ended, the airport operator decided to switch to a free service instead.

As the airport serving the high-tech capital of the world, I’m amazed it took this long – though I’m sure many of the travelers passing through SFO already took care of their online access, with a mobile broadband adapter or tethered phone.

To get online at SFO, search for the network named “sfo free wifi” and accept the terms and conditions. As with any public WiFi network, be sure to practice safe surfing!

[Image from Flickr/bk2000]

Vegetarian child stranded in airport, fed burgers

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Julien Reid, at only nine years old, is used to air travel. He routinely flies between his parents in Ottawa, and San Francisco, so he’s seen it all … well, he has now. Reid was forgotten in a children’s waiting room in Chicago, where he spent eight hours waiting and hoping to be discovered.

According to the Ottawa Citizen:

He was in a “tiny, little room cramped with kids,” where they played the same video on a loop all day, he said. The only food he’d been given was McDonald’s, a less than satisfactory option for a vegetarian like him. He said he and the other children were yelled at “to stop being kids.”

Meanwhile, the flight left without Reid. How did it happen? Among the many calls made to find out what was happening, Reid’s mother, Genevieve Harte, spoke with the United Airlines attendant tasked with keeping an eye on the kids. According to the Citizen, “It was this frazzled attendant who let it slip, Harte said, that no one had come to fetch Julien to put him on his flight.”

Citing something of an airline “omerta” policy, Harte, who suspects her son was bumped from a crowded flight, told the citizen: “It’s a lot easier to have a kid that’s not going to say anything than an adult who has a business meeting that’s going to scream at you in front of everybody.”

United said it’s going to give Harte “a refund for the childcare fee and an undisclosed goodwill gesture.”

[photo by FHKE via Flickr]

Ship made of plastic bottles completes trans-Pacific voyage

by Kraig Becker on

Way back in March we told you about the Plastiki, a ship made almost entirely out of plastic bottles, that was setting out from San Francisco to complete a crossing of the Pacific Ocean. The plan was for the ship, and her crew, to sail to Sydney, Australia, by way of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in an effort to raise awareness of the impact that we are having on the Earth’s environment, most notably the oceans. Yesterday, after spending 128 days at sea, and covering more than 8300 nautical miles, the Plastiki sailed into Sydney Harbor, completing her voyage at last.

The ship is the brain child of explorer and environmentalist David de Rothschild, who came up with the idea to build a boat out of plastic bottles more than four years ago. At times, de Rothschild, who is the founder of Adventure Ecology, wondered if he would ever see his dream become reality, but eventually construction of the boat commenced, and the project began to take shape. When it was finally finished, the Plastiki had more than 12,500 bottles incorporated into its hull, not to mention a host of other environmentally friendly gadgets like solar panels and wind generators, added to its final design.

One of the main missions of the expedition was to visit the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge collection of garbage that has accumulated in a single place in the Pacific Ocean. The GPGP is estimated to be larger than the state of Texas and continuing to grow all the time, as more and more waste is dumped into the ocean and ends up deposited in this strange gyre. The Patch is a testament to the damage that is being done to the environment and was quite a sobering sight to the crew of the ship.

Joining de Rothschild on the voyage were Skipper Jo Royle, Co-Skipper David Thomson, and the rest of the crew which consisted of Olav Heyerdahl, Graham Hill, Luca Babini, Matthew Grey, Max Jourdan, Singeli Agnew and Vern Moen. Well done crew!

[Photo credit: The Plastiki via Flickr]