It’s Going to Be a Wee Bit Wetter

In Amsterdam, I couldn’t help thinking about how the city – and the rest of the Netherlands – is going to be royally screwed by rising sea levels. To get a sense of just how screwed, check out the nifty visualizer that NASA and Cal Tech put together.

Of course that got me thinking about prioritizing traveling to the places that are going to underwater or otherwise devastated thanks to climate change. I’m pretty bummed that I didn’t get to New Orleans before it was flattened by Katrina, and I would hate to have the same feeling about other great destinations. It seems I’m not the only person fretting about this, as in the midst of my musing I stumbled upon a new Frommer’s book about the top 500 disappearing destinations. Might be worth checking it out if you’re worried that some great cultural legends might be gone by the time you get there.

In the end though, there isn’t too much use to simply worrying about it. I just need to get my butt to Venice.

Read more!

Don’t Fiddle with Gadgets

This doesn’t fit very well with my recent revelation that I should be taking a laptop if I want to blog on the go, but I have to agree with Chris Pirillo on his final tip for keeping your laptop safe while traveling:

Just Leave The Laptop At Home: When it comes to all of the hassles and all of the issues that can arise from traveling with your laptop, you should also consider whether you really need to take it. You can carry your data or files on portable storage such as a CD, DVD or USB drive, or you can just email or FTP the data ahead of you. Then, you can borrow a desktop or laptop system once you are safely on the ground and at the office site you are visiting.

I would even expand this tip to include most gadgets. Outside of the obligatory camera, you can largely do without the standard set of toys you have at home. For example, I sit at my desk at work with earphones on, but while on the road I leave my music behind, opting for the sounds of where I am, and skipping the hassle of carry an expensive mp3 player.

H/t Lifehacker.

Read more!

Safe...ish

...ish.

NY Times had an interesting article this weekend about travelling to Iraq. Sounds like heading to the Kurdish region is actually fairly safe as the article explains:

As recently as last March, a bomb went off in Sulaimaniya, the second-biggest city in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing a security guard. A truck bomb in May 2007 outside a government office in Erbil left over a dozen dead and several more wounded. And earlier this month, the long-simmering tensions between Turkey and Kurdish separatist rebels erupted again when Turkish warplanes entered northern Iraq and bombed remote rebel bases, killing at least 15 Kurds.

Wait. Did I say safe? What I meant was that there are truck bombs and air raids. Still, it’s safe enough that tour operators are taking regular trips there, and it’s hard to imagine they would be able to afford the insurance if there was a high likelihood that people would come to harm. And the article also highlights the joys of traveling to an emerging region:

On a cool Monday night last fall, at a traffic-clogged border crossing into Turkey, a dozen Kurdish men stepped out of their cars and began passing around pita and tulip-shaped cups of tea to a pair of young, bleach-blond Swedes who were road-tripping across the Middle East in a beat-up sedan.

Flights on Austrian airlines come out to about £900 round trip just about any time of the year, so a bit pricey to get there, but an interesting option to consider.

Read more!

Itty-Bitty Airline Committee

I was totally baffled when I saw this Suriname Airways office in Amsterdam. Suriname has a population of less than 500,000, why on earth do they have their own national airline? I just find it hard to imagine feeling super-safe when flying an airline for a country with an annual GDP of $2.4 billion.

I’m not against developing countries having their own airlines. I’ve flown Viet Nam Airlines and Thai Airways, both of which were cheap, convenient, and comfortable. But Thailand and Viet Nam have populations of 63 million and 86 million respectively, so it totally makes sense to me that they have small airline companies that fly around the country and to some regional destinations.

I’m a bit baffled about these little airlines, so I’m going to try and get an expert to explain these little national airlines.

Read more!

More Props for Mark Beaumont

Mark Beaumont was hit by a car on his round the world bike ride, and he didn't fail. Sorry about that wave Richard, guess there is more to winning than money.

Read more!

Clog Blogger

In Amsterdam, I met the Clog Blogger. Normally blogging at Epicurienne, the Clog Blogger won a trip to Amsterdam by promising to blog about...figure it out.

The whole idea of traveling with a specific focus on one aspect of local culture seems like a lighthearted and fun way to go about what might otherwise be a fairly straightforward weekend jaunt. Why not travel Germany focusing on lederhosen, Italy following pasta from the wheat field to the table, or India discovering the regional differences in saris.

Read more!

Bloggging While Travelling

I was in Amsterdam this weekend, and to travel light I left my laptop at home. The obvious problem with this being that I didn’t manage to blog the trip very well/at all. I’ll be putting up some posts now, but I’ve come to the realization of just how different a trip will have to be if I’m going to blog during the trip. It will certainly cut into my museum and wandering time.

Read more!