Unusual Tours You’ve Got To Take

by Willy Volk on

I don’t usually go in for tours, but sometimes I break down. After all, occasionally you run across a tour guide that offers so much knowledge, experience, and insider information that you can’t possibly do better. But how do you know which tours are right for you?

From vodka tours, to pot tours, to punk rock tours, to voodoo tours, here are some of the greatest (and weirdest!) tours to take.

Vodka Tours in Poland
Outside bustling Krakow, Poland’s countryside is filled with strawberries, apple blossom, freshly cut grass — and vodka. Krakow Tours will take you through the country’s wide open spaces in a wagon cart — through fields, forests, farms, and villages — as you sample vodka in various establishments.

From top-notch vodka-ries to illegal hooch-brewers, the tour will leave you buzzing…with excitement. Expect strawberry, pear, apple and plum vodkas; you’ll even learn how they distill the stuff the old way.

Cannabis Tours in Amsterdam
Did somebody say “freshly cut grass”? In Amsterdam, cannabis is openly sold and smoked in the city’s 300+ “coffeeshops.” Amsterdam City Tours will take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Amsterdam Coffee shop industry.

In addition to visiting some of the shops where you’ll learn about client attitudes, social reaction patterns and current trends in the drug trade, the tour will also swing by the Cannabis Museum.

Punk Music Tours in Washington D.C
Washington D.C. is known for monuments, politicians, and five-sided buildings. But did you know that it was also the epicenter of the harDCore punk scene that emerged in the late 70s?

Before you head to the nation’s capital, swing by Yellow Arrow, a site that’s produced several excellent, short video documentaries about DC’s punk scene. Watch them or download them to your MP3 player. Thereafter, explore the city via Yellow Arrow’s text message tours, guided by a downloadable PDF map.

Voodoo Tours in West Africa
After living in Africa for three years, I know juju (black magic) pervades much of the countryside. Much of Western Africa still believes in gods and ghosts; sorcerers and witches; magic spells and sacred snakes; it’s not incorrect to call it the land of voodoo.

Beginning in Lome, Togo, Explore takes you on a journey through Akodessewa fetish market (with its bizarre display of religious and medicinal ingredients) before heading to rural villages where voodoo shrines and fetish ceremonies dominate the lives of local people. In Benin, you’ll visit the python temple before taking pirogues across Lake Nokoue to the stilt village of Ganvie. Also, don’t miss out on a chance to visit the Royal Palaces of Dahomey, built with human skulls.

Cave Snorkeling in Bonaire
The Caribbean island of Bonaire consists of limestone (fossilized coral reefs). Over the years, the caves have eroded, leaving numerous caves on the island.

While cave snorkeling with Hans, you’ll visit two different caves. First, you’ll hit a “dry” cave with stalactites, stalagmites, and even the special helectites. Second, you’ll slog through a “wet” cave, where you’ll snorkel in crystal clear water looking for cave shrimp and the rare cave-fish. If Hans asks you to help him with his rare cave-swimsuit-fish, swim away quickly.

Visit Dracula’s Castle on Halloween
In addition to touring the countryside and some dramatic frescoed monasteries around Transylvania, you could spend this Halloween inside the castle of Count Dracula. Dunno if a dude wearing a cape will jump out of a casket at midnight, but it sure looks like dressing up is encouraged.

The following day, you can take a boat ride across Snagov Lake, to the island that’s the eternal resting place of the Count. (Or is it?)

San Francisco Vampire Tours
Held every Friday and Saturday night at 8, these 2-hour tours explain the history of the city and how Vampires played a role in that history.

For an idea of what the tours are like, check out this short video. While it was filmed during the day, note that the tours are much spookier at night.

Ghost Tours of the London Underground
Ghosts are everywhere, apparently — including the London Underground. Ghosts of the Underground is dedicated to tracking the reported ghost sitings in the Tube, and features many bizarre, unexplained photographs.

Download the 47-minute documentary on the subject and give yourself a self-guided tour — and a fright!

Private Eye Tours in Seattle
On Private Eye Tours, join a Seattle native with a medical and science background as you explore the dark side of Seattle’s streets and alleys.

On your tour, you’ll visit the scenes of crimes, burglaries, arson, speakeasies, and the red light district. You’ll also see where a number of famous people — including Ted Bundy, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain — lived…and died.

Wild Seaweed Tours in Canada
Meet Diane Bernard — who actually allows herself to be called the “Seaweed Lady” — at Whiffen Spit on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island near Sooke, B.C., Canada (about 40-minute drive from the city of Victoria) for her seaweed tour.

This 2-hour hands-on inter-tidal workshop teaches visitors about the different varieties of seaweeds, their nutritional benefits, and different methods of preparing them. If you’re interested, you can sample some fresh seaweeds; you can even try wearing some, if you’re so inclined — and not overdressed.

Hip-Hour Tours in Harlem
Harlem Hip-Hop Tours is a tour in style. Each tour includes a ride in a stretch limousine, and the best in the food, sightseeing, and shopping that Harlem has to offer. Tour participants will see the Apollo Theater and Striver’s Row; have the opportunity to shop along 125th street; and come to understand the true meaning of “putting your foot in it” when you savor the flavor of a home-cooked soul food meal.

Moreover, Harlem Hip-Hop Tours provides personal instruction in hip-hop dance and slang (um, like what “putting your foot in it” means). Tour participants will also travel to some of New York’s hottest television and recording studios where they can see firsthand how hip-hop music is created, and meet IN PERSON established and up-and-coming hip-hop artists.

A Canadian In Beijing: Turn Up The Volume

by Ember Swift on

Ember Swift is the newest member of Gadling. Over the next three months, this Canadian woman will be living in and exploring China. During her time there, she’ll be posting regularly about her adventures. Check in every Wednesday and Sunday to see what China is like from a Western perspective…

Beijing is less than one week away and my musician self can barely keep the volume down. My excitement is cranking and I haven’t even started packing yet. That’s tomorrow’s task and it brings me that much closer to eventually hearing the lilt of Mandarin spoken nearly everywhere I go for a solid three months.

I am a full-time musician who has logged a lot of travel miles. I’m onto my fifth touring van since 1997, for instance, and only two died of unnatural causes (one fire, one theft) while all the others were just driven to their graves after years of loyal service. But, to give you more résumé-like context, throughout the past eleven years there have been ten different independent releases (nine albums and one DVD), thousands of performances averaging approximately one hundred and fifty per year, eight tours to Australia (our most frequent overseas destination) and lots of changes to my band line-up which I must confess includes six different drummers – yikes! All in all, it makes my résumé sound heavily steeped in experience but lacking in flavour. Of course, résumé bullet points don’t include the stories. These stories weave in and out of the awards and accolades, times of struggle and periods of prosperity, debt and recovery. They are told in songs or between songs; they’re stage material that keeps this crazy journey full of life.


At the University of Toronto, I completed a degree in East Asian Studies and have four years of university Mandarin training lodged in loyal cavities in my brain. In between university and this nearly-in-China moment, I have pursued my music career full blast (as described above). What has been missing is the subtle connection between my education and my career. Now, nine years since graduation, it’s time to bring it all together.

My life seems to be playing out like a long-laboured-over song arrangement; this is the moment when all of the players are gathered in the same space and it’s time to hear if their parts fit together. There’s excitement and tension simultaneously, but all of the amplifiers are humming and ready.

China has always been my dream destination. . . . “when the music thing was over,” as if it really would be “over” one day. It only recently occurred to me that I am the agent in making any and all dreams come true, and that I didn’t have to wait for one part of my life to die in order to birth another. Besides, who says they aren’t related? It also occurred to me that going to Beijing for three months is very much a career decision. And, it will be. Now – well, now that I’ve listened to those occurrences — the potential seems obvious. It’s spinning before me.

Not only will three months in Beijing be a luxurious block of time and space to write more songs away from the rigorous tour schedule and constant business and band dynamics, but being surrounded by the tonal beauty of the Mandarin language will push my ear into new musical territories. For me, speaking or hearing Mandarin spoken is like singing or being sung to. Top that off with the opportunity to explore what is happening in the music scene of Beijing and we alight on the research portion of my trip: I can finally dust off some undergraduate research work that was an investigation of women and music in China and the growing audibility of women’s voices in the outpouring of Chinese music. My undergrad research was limited by my geography and I always envisioned the research continuing there.

Here is the door. This is me walking through it.

I’ll be starting off my trip as a tourist. Just a couple of days in a downtown hotel before moving to the University district and setting myself up in a dorm room. I’ve already scoped some sightseeing tours that will take me to some official tourist destinations and then spit me out into the registration line at the Beijing Language and Culture University. There, I’ll be refreshing my rusty Mandarin in a part-time morning course at twenty hours a week. The rest of my time will be spent opening many live music venue doors to listen, jam, meet people and cultivate the hope that I’ll eventually bring my band to China. We are an internationally touring act, but not yet in Asia, and I do believe that this journey will yield that opportunity.

Isn’t that all potential is? Finding the open doors? Being open to opening them?

Three months in one place is a radical choice for a gypsy. Keep in mind, however, that this is a city of fourteen million people to keep me occupied! I am looking forward to undressing the underbelly of the arts scene — particularly the music world — and I am sure that three months of networking, connecting, befriending and exploring will yield colorful stories.

So, I start as a tourist, morph into a student and then morph nightly into the artist that I am. Already I’m realizing that I’m really all these things all at once; this cacophony, or symphony, is me.

How will it sound?

I don’t know for sure, but I’m turning up the volume knob anyway.

Call it trust.

Mapwing Lets You Create Your Own Virtual Tours

by Willy Volk on

Mapwing lets you build and share virtual tours that include interactive maps, images, and comments. The process is simple. First, go somewhere. Then, stand in place, take a picture, and rotate 90º. Take another picture. Continue rotating and snapping photos until you’ve covered this spot. Next, walk, drive, bike, hop, or crawl to a nearby location. Take more pictures. Repeat locomotion and photography.

Later, when you’re home, upload the images to Mapwing, and publish your virtual tour. If you’re confused, the easiest way to learn the process is to see it in action. I found Sarah’s walk with her dog, Charlie, to very clearly demonstrate the power of Mapwing.

I also found the tour of the Ukraine’s Ostraya Mogila Memorial interesting. Finally, while not probably in line with what the creators intended, the tour of Lenny’s digestive system is priceless.

The Ditty Bops Bike Tour

by Dave Luna on

My love for cross-country traveling, road cycling, and trip blogging all meet in Venn diagram heaven at The Ditty Bops Bike Tour blog. The Ditty Bops, a musical duo from California, biked over 4,500 miles from Los Angeles to New York City last summer. The trip began with the release of their sophomore album Moon Over the Freeway. The two band members, Abby DeWald and Amanda Barrett, played shows as weaved their way across the country.

Of course, as many travelers do these days, these wanderers blogged about their experiences on the road. There’s the standard travel blog fare of tourist trap photos and early morning sunrises, but Abby interjected with a comic strip called Rumble Strips. These cartoons add a humorous look at the travails of seeing the country by bike. (Included in the strip are such villains as selfish drivers, uphill rides, and musician Seal.)

The trip ended last September, but the blog is still worth a look. If you’re interested in hearing their up-beat mix of folk, bluegrass, swing, and jazz, you can listen to free recordings of their live shows at the Internet Archive. I recommend two songs from their first album The Ditty Bops: Wishful Thinking and Walk or Ride.

Touring America’s Northeast with HP

by Adrienne Wilson on

Just wanted to give everyone here a quick update on my whereabouts since I haven’t sat still all year. Over the next couple of months you can find me riding around parts of America’s chilly north east as one half of Hewlett Packard’s Color Works dynamic tour staff. I’ll be hanging around the local Staples, Office Max, & Office Depot in places like Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia demonstrating how laser jets and ink jet printers can benefit small and medium business owners. Why am I telling you about all this? Mostly because I’m hoping to see some of the Gadling readers pop into a store from time to time to say “hi!” With a van like the HP Color Works one I’ll be pretty hard target to miss, so if you see it parked in a parking lot come on inside and I’ll give you the 411 on printers and other HP items.