Somali murals: funky advertising in the Horn of Africa

by Sean McLachlan on

One of the fun parts of travel is discovering the street art of a new place. Whether it’s the elaborate graffiti of New York or Madrid, the political murals of Mexico, or the current craze of Yarn Bombing, there’s always something cool happening on the street.

In the Horn of Africa, street art takes the form of murals. I believe this is a Somali development, because I’ve seen it much more in Somaliland and the Somali region of Ethiopia than I have anywhere else. There’s a fair number of murals in Harar, Ethiopia, but that has always had close trade connections with the Somali region.

Some are simple, like this ad for a dentist in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. I don’t know why this guy jumped into the frame and bared his teeth but hey, it made for a better picture so I’m not complaining.

Then there’s this mural inside a bakery in Harar. It shows the founder, an Greek expat who opened the most modern bakery in town. One day I met his aged widow, who still presides over the family business. She treated me to tea and regaled me with tales of the old days. She was very proud of the mural and in fact that’s what drew me inside in the first place. Another example of art bringing people together.

Check out the gallery below for more images from Ethiopia and Somaliland.

What kind of street art did you discover in your last trip? Tell us about it in the comments section!

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Video of the day – One year, one minute

by Meg Nesterov on

oneyearoneminute.com from Wanderfly on Vimeo.

How can you fit a year of travel into one minute? Our friends at Wanderfly have just marked one year online and to celebrate, they put together this very cool video of 500 travelers and 500 destinations. If you contributed a photo to Wanderfly, you might find yourself in this stop-motion video organized by season. Perhaps watching it will inspire you to plan your next trip, like 4 million users have by using the website.

Check it out at www.oneyearoneminute.com. Happy Birthday Wanderfly!

Steamline Luggage makes junk in the trunk look good

by Libby Zay on

After hours and hours of watching travelers roll by with boring baggage at the airport, I finally spotted a line of suitcases that gives me luggage envy. SteamLine Luggage makes well-tailored, vintage-style cases that are reminiscent of old steamer trunks-except with a modern twist.

These leather-bound bags are at the same time fashionable and funcitonal. Color combos range from pink and crème to teal and tan (and some more modest options, too). As expected, SteamLine designed a range of sizes, including a stylish carry-on bag with discreet trolley wheels that ensures travelers will get to their departing gates with ease.

Purchasing luggage can be quite the commitment. In this case, with a price tag upwards of $280, many would consider it an investment. But not only do these trunks seem like fun pieces to wheel around the airport; they could be displayed at home when you’re not on the road. Any excuse to put off unpacking a little longer!

Protect your melon; pack the right hat.

by Pam Mandel on

This is kind of gross, and I’m a little bit sorry for that, but I still have scaly bits on the tops of my ears. This because I burned the daylights out of them by wearing the wrong hat while on a recent adventure. I made it worse by neglecting to apply sunscreen to my poor ears — I’ll skip the part about what happened when I started to peel.

I pack a baseball style cap for my travels. I’d picked up a Sun Tripper cap from Sunday Afternoons while at the Outdoor Retailer show. It’s really cute, it’s that military shape, it’s got a split bill so it packs down nice and flat, and it’s got a stretchy drawstring on the back so it stays on your head in the wind. This matters; I watched the wind take a travel-mate’s cap and hurl it into the desert, there was no retrieving it. My cap stayed securely on my head the whole time. I also found that the funny little pocket in the top of the hat was actually useful. I tucked my ID and a little bit of cash in there, it was nice to have a secret stash and I didn’t worry about my head being pick-pocketed.

But as I’ve mentioned, I needed coverage for my ears. This was a tactical error on my part — I should have gone with a safari hat instead of just a cap. Sure, the extra coverage looks a little silly, but my ears hurt like hell and did I mention, they were kind of gross about a week later. Sunburn isn’t a joke, even when it’s limited to the tops of your ears, and I could hear my doctor’s voice in my head giving me the melanoma lecture. What I’m saying, is go with the extra coverage. Sunday Afternoons has some other options that I’d have done better to choose for this trip. I won’t soon forget that painful sunburn and I don’t expect to make that same mistake again. Get the coverage, people. The Sun Tripper cap is 24.00, the safari range starts there and goes up to 48.00. There’s a convertible cap too — just snap on the ear and neck coverage — that goes for 28.00. That would have kept the sunburn at bay.

In addition to sun coverage, I was delighted to find that I still had my SmartWool beanie in my photo bag. I’d used it to wrap up some camera gear I wasn’t using, but I ended up wearing it on cold mornings and evenings in camp. This stretchy little reversible beanie takes up negotiable space in my kit (really, I’d no idea it was in there!) and I was delighted to find that it had hitched along with me on my camping trip. SmartWool brands this little cap as a “training beanie” — whatever with that. I’m calling it a travel beanie and leaving it right where it is, stowed in my photo backpack, holding my lens polarizer. I’ll be happy the next time I find the wind is biting my ears or the night is a little cold. 25.00 from SmartWool.

Animate up your travels with .gifs

by Jen Pollack Bianco on

Not much into shooting video to capture your trip abroad? Do Ken Burns slideshows bore you to tears? Lucky for you, animated .gifs (short for “graphic interchange format”) are all the rage among on the social media circuit, and can be a fun way to document (and share) some of your travel action. Instead of sending a plane Jane video of that insane Hula Dancer you saw in Waikiki, why not remind your friends and family that you are ahead of the curve by sharing it as a fun animation?

The app for the job is .Gif Shop. It lets you create and share looping animation goodness directly from your iPhone and it couldn’t be simpler. To start, you shoot a series of still images from within the app and then, after making a few critical decisions (like selecting the opacity as well as the resolution), your frames are ready to be stitched together into a fun animated package and shared on Tumblr, Twitter or via good old-fashioned email.

For a few animated examples, read on.

Perhaps you already have a series of photos that are just begging to be turned into .gifs? The Giffer! App is an after-the-fact animation factory that uses an easy interface to combine a series of still photos and animate them. This app allows you to adjust the frame delay and animation yo-yo, tweaks that could elevate your animated clips to superstar Viral status. Be aware that quicker animations mean larger files – something to consider when creating in your iDevice or sharing with friends.

.Gifs are a fun new way to share the magical times of your vacation, Which is appropriate since they are kind of like the moving photographs in the Harry Potter series. Only this time, you don’t need a degree from Hogwarts, just a few apps to turn your smartphone into a magic wand.