Instagram Puts the World in Your Pocket

by Melanie Renzulli on

If you’ve got an iPhone – or are planning to get one when Verizon starts selling the iPhone – chances are you know about Instagram, the free photography app that lets you share your photos with your friends near and far. Like Twitter for photos, Instagram is one of the most popular apps of all time in Apple’s App Store, having captured over 1 million users in less than three months.

Why is Instagram so popular? What Instagram allows you to do is upload photos from your phone, apply one of 14 (and counting) filters, then share them with your followers. You can choose to share your photos strictly within Instagram, or blast them to your accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Posterous, Tumblr, and Foursquare. Within seconds of posting your photos, followers can “like” and/or leave comments. Notch up a dozen or so “likes” within a short amount of time, and your photo may end up on the popular page.

Instagram is simple. And it’s very addictive.

Although the app’s popular page regularly features photos of cozy kitties and posed bathroom mirror shots, some of the best photos that its users share provide a window onto the world. In other words, Instagram feeds the travel porn addiction in real time. A quick look at my Instagram feed as of this writing returned images of the sun setting over Eminönü in Istanbul; a train station in Moscow; a cottage in Bath, England; San Francisco’s Union Square decorated for Chinese New Year; and a snow-capped Mount Fuji. Instagram makes you want to travel and it’s a fantastic way to show off your own travel photos, a fact not lost on National Geographic, Instagram’s first major media brand partner.

If you don’t have an iPhone – but still have wanderlust – several websites, such as instagre.at, allow you to view the most popular photos of any given moment on Instagram. You can also follow the Instatips Tumblr, a collection of photography tips and Instagram photos curated by Josh Johnson, the self-appointed Instagram guru. But while these websites are handy, there’s nothing like having Instagram – and the world – in your pocket.

Top 5 Alternatives to the Dirtiest Hotel in America

by Gadling Staff on

When TripAdvisor recently announced Pigeon Forge, Tennessee’s Grand Hotel and Convention Center as “the dirtiest hotel in America,” the biggest surprise may not have been the reviewers’ reports of “makeup on the pillowcases,” “dogs urinating in the stairwells,” or “food underneath the bed.”

No, the biggest shocker to those familiar with the area in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains was that so many people opted to stay in an Orwellian concrete-facade building in the middle of a congested city strip while so close to one of the country’s loveliest national parks.

If you’re traveling in the Appalachians and plan to stay in or near Pigeon Forge, flee the fleas and choose one of these options instead:

Tent Camping

Pigeon Forge doesn’t really have anything to do with pigeons, but it does have a fair share of the Tennessee Valley’s nature and wildlife once you get away from the neon mini-golf and moccasin stand areas. Pitch your own tent at one of several parks, such as Twin Mountain, which charges a fee of about $25 for renting a pastoral spot by the river.

Cabin Rentals

Pigeon Forge‘s cabin rentals put you right on the mountaintop. Expect a drive up a steep incline past roads with names like “Boogertown,” then stay in roomy, pine cottages that rival Twin Peaks’ fictitious Great Northern Hotel for rustic appeal.

Bed and Breakfasts

Tennessee is in the heart of the Bible Belt, so a B&B isn’t the best option if blasting grindcore music helps you drop off to sleep, but for those who want to stay in small, quaint historic houses run by friendly country folk with Southern accents, Pigeon Forge has –to use the local venacular– a mess of ’em.

Themed Hotels

If you’re one of the thousands drawn to Pigeon Forge by Dollywood, Archie Campbell’s Hee-Haw Village and the Elvis Museum, you might as well make it a full-on kitschy tourist adventure. Take the fam to the Inn at Christmas Place , where ’tis the season, even in the blazing summer.

Out-of-Bounds

Do you really need to stay in Pigeon Forge? With the actual mountains a mere six miles away, spend the day if you must, then keep driving. It gets prettier.

Travel to Sri Lanka grows, along with obstacles for tourism

by Meg Nesterov on

Since the end of the Tamil Tiger confilct in May 2009, travel to Sri Lanka has been increasing, with the country celebrating their 600,000th foreign tourist last month. This year, 700,000 are expected with tourism growing to 2.5 million a year within 5 years, reports the BBC. “The nature has blessed us with beautiful beaches, waterfalls, exotic wildlife and historic places. We as a nation have a reputation for our hospitality,” says Basil Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka‘s Minister of Economic Development. While the increase in visitors is welcome, Sri Lanka is experiencing some growing pains and challenges as a tourist destination.

India and the United Kingdom are currently the largest sources of tourists, though now it is claimed that the Eastern European tourists who came during the confict are being ignored in favore of Western travelers. Russian-speaking tourists are being turned away in the tourist boom, hotel prices have soared, and Russian guides complain of lost income. A proposed change in the visa process could discourage more visitors, though the government claims the new system is designed to help travelers.The visa can currently be obtained for free on arrival for citizens of 78 countries including the United States. Similar to the Australia electronic visa, the new visa process would be done from your home country online. Approval would take 24-72 hours and “special facilities” would be provided on arrival for tourists with the online visa. An added fee could potentially dissuade visitors who could instead spend their vacation dollars at a free visa destination.

The government hopes to allow tourism to develop naturally without direct intervention, though some small businesses feel they are struggling while larger-scale projects are planned. In northwest Sri Lanka, an adventure tourism zone is being developed with whale watching, scuba daving, and an underwater vistor center. A similar Tourism Promotion Zone is in the works near the country’s international airport to capture a similar transit market as Dubai, and increasing Sri Lanka’s flights as a major Asian hub.

Have you been to Sri Lanka? Planning to travel there now that warnings have ceased? Leave us your experiences in the comments.

[Photo of Sri Lanka’s Pinewala Elephant Orphanage by Flickr user Adametrnal.]

Anthony Bourdain enjoys Sri Lankan street food in the below video.

Geotagging your travels: why you should, and how to do it

by Dana Murph on

Even casual travelers know the wonders of GPS. It’s hard to imagine how we functioned on the road just a few years back without a satnav at our disposal, and now that our smartphones are also well equipped to guide us from point A to point Z (and everywhere in between), having a true sense of direction isn’t quite as necessary as it once was. But GPS satellites are useful for quite a bit more than just routing us. In the photography world, geotagging is becoming an increasingly attractive way to effectively track ones travels in a unique, refreshing visual fashion.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, geotagging refers to embedded GPS data on each image, which can then be read by various photo applications and mapping software. When you take a photo using any existing DSLR, a great deal of “metadata” is embedded onto each image; this data enables individuals to see what aperture, shutter speed, white balance setting and focal length (among other things) were used when a particular shot was composed. These pieces of information are remarkably useful when comparing shots after the fact, and geotagging adds one more vital bit of data to the mix: coordinates. Read on to find out how you can start adding GPS data to your images, and why you should make the effort to do so.

%Gallery-115291%The easiest way to make this happen is to buy a camera with a GPS or Hybrid GPS module built-in. A number of newly introduced compact models include this. Fujifilm’s FinePix XP30 has inbuilt geotagging support (not to mention a rugged, waterproof casing), and Casio’s Exilim EX-H20G is a non-rugged alternative with integrated geotagging. It’s an easy feature to find — either a camera has it built-in or it doesn’t, and manufacturers will generally go out of their way to ensure you know if a particular model does.

If you aren’t in the market for a new point-and-shoot, existing DSLR owners can upgrade their camera to support geotagging. Nikon makes a module of their own that fits certain models (GP-1), and if your camera doesn’t have a first-party add-on, Gisteq offers a (mostly) universal solution that connects via Bluetooth (PhotoTrackr Plus and PhotoTrackr Mini).

Once your camera is equipped to embed geotagging data, all you need is a program that’ll read that data. Apple’s iPhoto (displayed throughout this post) is a great example; any image that you load into iPhoto can be sorted by ‘Places.’ If you have an Internet connection, you’ll see pins populate the map (as shown here) in order to represent all of the locales where photos were taken. Google’s Picasa is another solid option, as is the popular Flickr.

What you’re left with is an incredibly visual way to look at a trip you recently took, all by way of photographs. In a way, these specific location points tell a story in an of themselves. Rather than simply telling friends and family that a certain group of photos were taken in Montana (for example), geotagging allows them to see exactly what routes you took on a road trip and precisely which trails you skied at Whitefish Mountain Resort. If you took multiple images at a certain place, you can easily sort those by selecting a single pin. The images throughout this article show (most) of the photos I took on my Casio Exilim EX-H20G while in northwestern Montana, including a number of shots while on Big Mountain itself.

On a grander scale, geotagging all of your images for the foreseeable future would enable you to create a lifetime travel map that visually shows where you’ve been in the world. It’s certainly a lot easier than trying to remember every off-the-wall stop you made, and it’s most definitely more satisfying than some Bucket List you’ve generated in Microsoft Word. On a smaller scale, sending your child off to camp with a geotagging camera would allow you to see where all the counselors shuttled your young one around — after all, kids have a thing for not keeping a very detailed journal, and this would make their job of explaining what all they did a lot easier.

Interested in getting started with geotagging? Listed below are a few recommended GPS-enabled cameras, geotagging add-on dongles and photo applications that work well with geotagged images.

GPS-enabled point-and-shoot cameras:

Geotagging add-on dongles:

Geotagging applications:

NHL All-Star Game travel advice: what to do in Raleigh, NC

by Dana Murph on

It’s shaping up to be a busy, busy weekend for sports. The NFL’s Pro Bowl is set to take place Sunday night, and a few hours prior, the NHL’s All-Star Game will kick off in North Carolina’s capital city. This weekend will be the first that Raleigh has hosted the All-Star Game, with the Carolina Hurricanes being the host team and their RBC Center being the host facility. Those living here (like me!) will be quick to point out that Raleigh brought home a major national championship before the more populated Charlotte, with the Stanley Cup coming to NC during the 2005 – 2006 season.

The city has been doing an awful lot of planning since it found out it would be this year’s host in April of 2010, including the finalization of RDU’s sophisticated Terminal 2 this past week. We’re still no closer to having a legitimate public transportation system (outside of a few sporadic bus routes), but there’s plenty of southern hospitality to go around for those coming to town. If you’re planning a trip down below the Mason–Dixon Line in order to attend this year’s NHL All-Star Game, read on to discover five can’t-miss places to visit (and eat at) while in Raleigh.

The Pit. Yes, this is the same Pit featured on Travel Channel’s “Man v. Food,” and if you’re looking for a real taste of the south, you’ll need to grab a reservation here. The vibe is authentic, the “y’alls” are easy to come by, and the food is simply delicious. Don’t be scared to try a few local favorites: fried catfish, cheesy bacon grits, sweet potato fries and fried okra.

Cook-Out. Don’t bother searching for an official website — there isn’t one. Cook-Out is a mysterious fast food eatery that only has stores in the state of North Carolina, and while the grub itself is delightful, it’s the expansive milkshake menu that’ll have you returning nightly. You’ll find well over 30 options, with each shake costing just $2.19. Feel free to mix and match flavors (Oreo Cheesecake is a popular custom flavor), and grab a “Huge” sweet tea if you want to really know what a southern beverage tastes like. Here’s a secret: order a Cook-Out tray at the Cook-Out on Western Blvd. near NC State’s campus, and you can take home a Cook-Out visor or t-shirt for just $1.99!

Wolfpack vs. Tar Heels basketball. UNC alums will swear up and down that Duke is their only rival in The Triangle, but if NC State pulls the upset at the Dean Dome this weekend, you’ll never find a more sour group of fans. NC State vs. UNC games are always rowdy, and if you can score a ticket for this Saturday’s matchup (1/29) in Chapel Hill, it’s most certainly worth going to. Just getting inside of the Smith Center is a magical experience for devout college basketball fans.

Velocity VeloCAB ride. Downtown Raleigh may not be the biggest downtown you’ve ever seen, but it’s still full of life, parks and history. It’ll be chilly in late January, but if you’ve got a beefy coat and a significant other to cuddle up with, a ride in a rickshaw (dubbed a VeloCAB) is a great way to learn about Raleigh from an expert that lives here. And hey, you may just pass by somewhere you’ll want to return to afterwards.

Second Empire Restaurant and Tavern. If you leave Raleigh without dining here, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. This restaurant is a Four Diamond award winner, and their menu changes on a regular basis. They go out of their way to procure ingredients from right here in North Carolina, and every single dish is a winner. Head to the tavern if you aren’t looking to dress up, or reserve a table in the main dining room if you bring your formal wear to town.

Raleigh — along with all of North Carolina — is a fine place to visit, and while there are quite a few hotels to choose from, the out-of-the-box travelers would do themselves a favor by heading up to Durham. There, you’ll find The Arrowhead B&B, a gorgeous inn (circa 1775) ran by two of the nicest, sweetest individuals (Phil and Gloria Teber) you’ll ever meet. The breakfasts you’ll find here are to die for, and if you’re into splurging, the Carolina Log Cabin or Garden Cottage are the ones to book.

If you’re a local, feel free to add your own must-do suggestions in comments below. For the full schedule of events during the 2011 NHL All-Star weekend, click here. Enjoy NC, y’all!