Photo Of The Day: Hidden Rock Wall

by Chris Owen on

This Photo of the Day comes from Gadling Flickr pool member James Wheeler who captured the image using a Nikon D5000. The image is titled “Hidden Rock Wall.”

James add this caption to the image: “These days, the mountains to the North of Vancouver are mainly used for hiking and recreation but these mountains have a long history of logging. There are many remnants of the old days of logging, not just stumps of the massive trees that used to line British Columbia’s coast but also rubble from the buildings used during the logging.

I noticed this rubble of an old building overgrown while doing the brothers creek hike just north of West Vancouver.”

Upload your best shots to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. Several times a week we choose our favorite images from the pool as Photos of the Day.

Tips for getting featured: In your Flickr account, check “Privacy and Permissions,” and check “yes” on “Allow others to share your stuff.” Adding information about your image does not hurt your chances either.

Popular Guidebooks Go Digital

by Chris Owen on

Frommer’s has a new series of guidebooks out. Nothing new there; that’s what they do. Unique to Frommer’s new “Day by Day” series though is that they are digital guides, which allow users to search, bookmark and navigate through the content easily.

Enabled by Inkling (the interactive textbook people), the Frommer’s “Day by Day” digital books retail between $10 and $15, and are available as individual apps or within Inkling’s app. Travelers can purchase them once to use them on both their iPhone and iPad. They contain hundreds of maps and thousands of Retina Display-ready photos, which makes it easy to plan upcoming trips on the new iPad.

Said to be far more useful than paper guidebooks, the new Frommer’s digital books contain both indoor maps for locations like museums, as well as outdoor maps that point to interesting destinations in their respective locations.

Also unique is a crowd-sourcing function that brings some of the social elements from sites like TripAdvisor on top of Frommer’s professional travel guide data.

Frommer’s “Day by Day” paper pocket guides have been popular with travelers for years. Odds are “Day by Day” digital will be too.


[Flickr photo by Let Ideas Compete]

Top Travel Destinations, How Do We Count Thee?

by Chris Owen on

Reports and polls determining the top travel destinations in the world come to us in variety of ways throughout every year. Travel related companies tally internal data to make their lists. Government agencies publish the most frequented destinations based on incoming flights, hotel reservations and other criteria. Non-profit organizations have an unbiased tone to ranking top destinations too. Often, it is as important to consider the source as it is the ratings themselves.

Today, TripAdvisor announced the winners of its fourth-annual 2012 Travelers’ Choice Destinations awards. TripAdvisor ranks 440 outstanding destinations across the globe, including lists for Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Europe, India, Mexico, the Middle East, South America, the South Pacific and the United States.

“The TripAdvisor community has once again helped pinpoint hundreds of the most amazing and beloved travel destinations of the year,” said Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer for TripAdvisor in a Hospitality-Industry report.

“For travelers planning their big annual vacation or just a weekend getaway, these awards highlight awe-inspiring travel locations of all varieties around the globe.”

Lets look at their top ten.

  1. London, England
  2. New York City, New York
  3. Rome, Italy
  4. Paris, France
  5. San Francisco, California
  6. Marrakech, Morocco
  7. Istanbul, Turkey
  8. Barcelona, Spain
  9. Siem Reap, Cambodia
  10. Berlin, Germany

TripAdvisor Traveler’s Choice Destination award winners were determined based on the popularity of destinations, taking into account travelers’ favorites and most highly rated places.

But wait. Last month, in “Suspicious About Hotel Reviews? You Are Not Alone,” Gadling reported that the United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority had ruled that TripAdvisor’s advertised claim of “trusted advice from real travelers” was misleading because fake comments could be posted without verification.

If that is true and TripAdvisor based the 2012 Traveler’s Choice Destination award winners on the same faulty data, where should we look for information that can be trusted?

Maybe no where. Maybe we should consider rankings as entertainment because those who rank destinations stand behind their numbers.

“People may think if a place only got one diamond, it can’t be any good,” said Todd Cronson, regional manager for AAA Tourism Information Development in the Seattle Times. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. Maybe the lighting styles are out of date, maybe the furniture is older, but if it got a diamond from us, it’s perfectly clean, safe and well-maintained.”

Maybe the whole notion of a destination rating system, while coveted by those who rank high for bragging rights, should be viewed with caution.

Paul James, global brand leader of Starwood‘s luxury brands told the Seattle Times, “I thought a universal star rating system was essential. But the more time you spend in the industry, and you understand the complexity of it, the more you see a hierarchical star system as completely outmoded.”

Subjective criteria is always going to be difficult to measure. What one traveler finds essential, another may not care about at all. Instead, focusing on an easy-to-compare laundry list of features at the destination might be more valuable information to have.

Applying research theory used by professional travel agents for decades, make a list of must-have features and don’t give in on any of them. These are required elements you must have to be happy like, say, Internet access, safe and well-marked hiking trails or bike-friendly roads. Next, take that list and search for travel blogs that resonate for specific destination information.

Short of having a trusted friend who has been there, is eager to share what they did and how they did it, today’s travel blogs offer some of the best, most current and relevant information available…as opposed to basing travel decisions on a popularity contest.



Flickr photo by nattu

Trashcam Project Shows A Different Side Of Hamburg

by Chris Owen on

Called the Trashcam Project, Hamburg’s sanitation workers have equipped standard 1,000-liter garbage containers with pinhole cameras. Using these cameras, the “binmen” (and one “binwoman”) take pictures of their favorite places showcasing the beauty and the changes of the city they keep clean every day.

“Pictures for the Trashcam Project are created by hanging large sheets of Ilford photo paper (not film) inside a closed dumpster with a few holes drilled into the front,” says CNET. “To create the eerie photographs you see here, the pinhole photographers line the ‘camera’ up with their subjects and secure it in place – by locking the wheels of the trash bins, we’re guessing. Then they wait, for up to an hour, until an image is formed.”

That process produces images like this one called “Berlin Cathedral Seen by a Dumpster.” Trashcam Project explains:

“This is one from the archives. The first trashcam picture we made just to find out if it was possible. So this is not Hamburg but Berlin. We were so afraid the bin would bend and light would leak in that we didn´t dare to move it more than a few meters away from our office (Yes, it is nice to work here). As you can see our processing skills have developed since then. But still a gripping shot. It was taken on four sheets of Rollei Vintage paper we glued together to get the giant format. Exposure is about four minutes.”

For more images, check out the ongoing Trashcam Project’s Flickr photostream.

Antarctica Heats Up As Popular Travel Destination

by Chris Owen on

Antarctica was once considered the horribly barren, frozen place that only brave scientists would travel to. In the past, if Antarctica was on a travel bucket list it was probably in the same category as “Walk on the Moon” or “Travel back in time.” In other words, it probably was not going to happen. Recently, Antarctica has gained new popularity as a viable travel bucket list addition as more travelers visit and live to tell about it – some on television.

The debut of the Discovery Channel’s “Frozen Planet” brought to light the beauty of Earth’s polar regions and the animals that inhabit them, encouraging travelers to fulfill that bucket list dream a bit sooner.

Since the program aired on March 18, tour company Abercrombie and Kent has received over 200 hundred phone calls from travelers interested in Antarctica, specifically referencing the show with 49 bookings to Antarctica directly linked to “Frozen Planet.”

Increased interest in Antarctica comes with a price tag too. Travelers will need the time and the financial ability to make the trip. Abercrombie and Kent have an Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands tour that is priced at $16,995 per person. On sale now for $12,750, it’s still not a cheap swing around the Caribbean but a cheap swing around the Caribbean is probably not a top spot bucket list item either.

So what’s the best part of Antarctica?

“The penguins are adorable, the seals are spectacular and the whales have that ‘Wow Factor’ that take your breath away when they pop up beside your zodiac,” says travel blog ThePlanetd who has a photo gallery of their recent trip.Want to know more about Antarctica?

Gadling’s John Bowermaster has a series of posts made during multiple visits in “Bowermaster’s Adventures.”

“Frozen Planet” airs Sundays 8 p.m. E/P on the Discovery Channel.



Photo courtesy Abercrombie and Kent