The blur of public transportation is an atmospheric, if possibly overplayed, representation of travel itself. This particular blur, of a BART train and station, owes much to the yellow floor safety line, which grounds the image.
This blur was snapped by Flickr user kiddie1997. For me, it prompts memories of living in San Francisco, an association I was feeling particularly keenly today to begin with thanks to the slow, insistent rain outside, so reminiscent of a San Francisco winter.
Kicking off Halloween season, haunted houses around the United States are opening their doors to brave travelers who come to experience spooky, scary things that go bump in the night. Between now and October 31, a variety of events around the country make for a great weekend diversion or road trip. Centrally located St. Louis is an easy drive from most mid-west states and offers Scare Fest, a trilogy of terror with three haunted attractions known as some of the best across the nation.
The Darkness is a two-story haunted house in downtown St Louis. Now in its 19th year of screams and scares, The Darkness has flying and flesh-eating zombies, Hollywood-quality sets and animated zombie effects and more. Included is admission to their Monster Museum and TerrorVisions 3-D, one of America’s first 3-D haunted houses featuring freaky crazed clowns in a 3-D environment where the walls appear to be moving, floors are floating and everything is right in the face of visitors.
The Haunting of Lemp Brewery takes visitors several stories below ground into real caves and caverns, just a block away from the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. In an interactive pre-show, sprits and ghosts of brewery founder William Lemp come back from the underworld to warn visitors of demons that haunt the caves under the brewery.
The Screampark in Fenton has the longest maze of scare inducing “hauntings” in the country that last more than one hour and feature more live actors than any other haunted house. New this year are Twisted Torture 3D, Demons Dominion, Grisly’s Gore Zone, the Zombie Town theme for the haunted hayride and the world’s largest Famous Faces Pumpkin Display.
Find zombies, ghosts, haunted houses or more at HauntWorld, a site that has listings for the United States and Canada as well as international attractions in the UK and other parts of the world.
World Tourism Day is coming up on September 27 and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) hopes to raise awareness about the role of tourism within the international community. Showing how tourism affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide, this year’s theme puts a spotlight on the role of tourism in a brighter energy future.
If the United Nations has its way that will be a future in which the world’s entire population has access to modern, efficient and affordable energy services. To raise awareness, the UN hosted a photo contest looking for pictures that captured new ideas to increase energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy and photos showing how tourism is bringing modern and clean energy to local communities.
%Gallery-166318%With a record 467 million tourists traveling in the first half of 2012, international tourism is on track to reach one billion tourists by the end of the year. That means there are one billion reasons to focus on a tourism industry committed to using energy responsibly. On cruise vacations alone, a record 20 million people took a cruise last year, an increase of almost 2 million, according to the latest industry figures.
As much of an impact as the global tourism industry has on the environment, those visiting destinations around the world can have a huge impact by focusing on being eco-friendly travelers, as we see in this video:
The world’s mostrecommended country to visit is Canada, says a study measuring public perceptions of countries around the world. The ranking is a component of the best overall country reputation that also considers employment, living conditions, investment potential and more.
Beating out Australia, Sweden and Switzerland for the second year in a row for the number one spot, Canada is one of 50 nations that will directly contribute to the $2 trillion tourism industry in 2012.
The annual RepTrak study was conducted by the Reputation Institute, a consultancy that measures the trust, esteem, admiration and good feelings the public holds towards 50 countries, by polling an online panel of 36,000 people representing the G8 countries.
“Beyond maintaining its top position, Canada has also improved its score by more than three points. Normally we don’t see such a large increase in a score from a top 10 country but Canada now stands head and shoulders above the other leading countries,” said Nicolas Georges Trad, Executive Partner, Reputation Institute in a statement.
Rounding out the top ten countries with the best reputations were Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands, all known for their stability, solid democracies, high GDP and strong social infrastructures.
The United States came in at number 23 but the study concluded that with a strong 5-10 point increase in the last four years, the reputation of the USA is trending towards more positive perceptions.
The Golden Gate Bridge, which links San Francisco and Marin County, is one of the most iconic man-made sights in the United States. It’s bold and dramatic, the source of rich symbolism and the background to countless tourist snaps. In this image, taken by Flickr user jrodmanjr, the bridge is dwarfed by a cliff and the humans atop it.
Do you have an image of a major tourist site? Upload it to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. We choose our favorites from the pool as Photos of the Day.