Video of the Day: Vintage Hong Kong revealed

by Meg Nesterov on


Want to take a slow boat to China? Get lost in vintage Hong Kong in this 1938 video of the gateway to China. The harbor city was still under British rule, and you can watch men in linen suits and pith helmets stroll alongside rickshaw drivers. Some of the narration is a bit, uh, politically incorrect by modern standards but the footage is priceless.

Have more time for nostalgic travel? The Travel Film Archive has hundreds of videos from around the world from 1900 to 1970. Find a cool travel video from this decade? Leave us a tip in the comments for a future Video of the Day.

Video of the Day: A tour of 1955 San Francisco

by Jessica Marati on

Today’s featured video offers a rare glimpse at the city of San Francisco as it looked in 1955. Filmed by amateur filmmaker Tullio Pellegrini, the video provides a narrated tour of the city and its surroundings, complete with a gloriously vintage soundtrack. Pellegrini was also an inventor and tinkerer, and the video’s quality is due to his merging of a 16mm Bell & Howell Cinemascope lens with Kodachrome film. This gem was recently discovered in the Prelinger Archives‘ collection of more than 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films. Watch and wait as the nostalgia hits you.

[via StreetsBlog]

Photo of the Day: Paragliding in France

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Today’s positively ethereal image comes to us from Flickr user AdamJamesWilson, who captured this sky-high shot of a paraglider over Lake Serre-Poncon in Southeastern France. I love the image’s “vintage” muted colors, wisps of cloud and silhouetted figure all set against a glistening sun.

Taken any great photos during your travels? Why not add them to the Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Photo of the Day – Route 66 Signage

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Route 66, the legendary roadway of American lore, may be no more, but ghostly vestiges of its existence still remain. Take the lovely stretch of retro hotel signs in Albuquerque New Mexico – part of the old Route 66 route. Just off the University of New Mexico campus, you’ll find a scattered collection of these aging neon beauties, sprouting like weeds among discount furniture stores, flophouses and trendy coffee shops. Today’s gorgeous example is brought to us by Flickr user Christian Carollo Photography. Pop quiz – can any of our Gadling readers name the TV show this exact sign recently appeared in?

Have any great travel photos you’d like to share with the world? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Las Vegas: 1966

by Grant Martin on

Vimeo user Jeff Altman did a great digitizing some old school 16mm Kodachrome for the above video about Las Vegas. The muted colors, wonky film speeds and vintage architecture make a great throwback to the simpler days of unabashed, Vegas fun, before the current era of crowd engineering, headlining shows and unbridled excess. Mix in a cooling, modern soundtrack and the product is three and a half minutes of grade A nostalgia. Nice work Jeff.