So, this holiday season, had a chance yet to gather up the family, grab a box of popcorn, and settle into the multiplex to watch James Franco hack off his arm on the big screen? If not, you’re missing out, because director Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours is more Slumdog Millionaire than Saw, and I guarantee that, after you watch this flick, you’ll never forget to tell someone where you’re going before you light out on a morning hike in some deserted part of the world.

In honor of the release of the movie, you can head over to Outside and read an excerpt from the book the movie was based on, Aaron Ralston’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place. I agree, definitely beats A Christmas Carol for holiday reading.

Having little to do by way of physical activity post-turkey this Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to step away from the computer for a bit and flip on the TV. Like any good travel fan, I immediately found my way to the Travel Channel with the hopes of catching up on all the travel-related television programming that I normally miss out on due to my sole exposure to basic cable (read: TV antenna) back home.

However, I quickly found, there’s a limit to the amount of exposure one man can take of shows dating back to 1996 on the top ten fast food restaurants in America, the top ten train rides in the Canadian Rockies, or how to survive in Orlando on $40 a day. Where was the edgy, interesting, though-provoking programming I’d come to expect from queuing up Bourdain on Netflix? When did travel shows all of a sudden become solely about food (or the amount one can eat of it)? Why do I suddenly get a sense I’m watching a never-ending string of corporate training videos?

(Disclaimer: Travel Channel, if you’re reading this, please disregard this last paragraph. Actually, please disregard this entire post. Anyway, “Hi”, and, yes, thanks for asking, I am a huge fan and, yes, I would like to accept your offer for a 12-episode series featuring yours truly trekking around the world, offering up my insight, humor, and congeniality for the American public viewing audience. Yes, I did hear you are owned by the same company that owns the Food Network. Yes, I would be amendable to making guest appearances with Rachael Ray — I love her buoyancy — and, yes, I would stop bad-mouthing your network and sister stations in the public sphere.) (more…)

By Robin Graham

In the year 711, Tariq Ibn Ziyad — a Berber general — landed near the southern tip of Spain with 7,000 men, at the burning edge of the wildfire that was the Arab Empire — the House of Islam. In just a few years they were to conquer almost all of Spain, bringing much of the Iberian peninsula under Arab and Islamic rule for the next seven centuries and leading to the establishment of a Caliphate that would nurture a cultural milieu more diverse and sophisticated than the rest of Europe could hope to compete with until the blossoming of the Enlightenment, hundreds of years later.

None of which seems very important right now as I totter down Calle Nuestra Senora de la Luz and lurch into tiny San Hiscio square; I have had a few beers and I am very, very hungry. I take a table and ask the camarero to bring me some chocos, or cuttlefish, and another beer.

It is night and the sky is black, the buildings white, the air balmy. The old town is a maze of narrow cobbled streets and lanes, most of them on a slope. Wandering along one can peek though the Arab-style double doorways and catch a glimpse of the verdant, lovingly tended courtyards within. It brings to mind the famous pueblos blancos of the southern mountains, or the Albayzin in Granada, and exudes the ramshackle elegance that only an old Spanish town can deliver. This little square is an object lesson in the antique aesthetic of Andalusia, except for a beautiful modernist cinema I can’t help staring at. (more…)

What if you decided to start a travel blog about that epic trip you’re taking around the world, documenting the people you meet, the crazy border crossings you do, and the wild food you eat. But what happens if you keep putting it off, intending to get going with it, but just getting a little too busy with the whole enjoying-the-trip part of your journey to actually sit down and record your days?

Well, you can do what Justin Harper did, errr, is doing: start the blog when you get back home, writing about it one day at a time, exactly one year later (or close to it), with the luxury of foresight, electricity, and high-speed internet to up the quality of the blog.

His blog, 101 days into his 365-day overland (read: no planes) trip, finds him in Tibet this week, experiencing the oddness of having Chinese border guards rip out pages from his Lonely Planet (got to get rid of those pesky references to Taiwan), and finding out that lunch (yak soup) is made up of an animal whose field-mates are out back enjoying the product of the restaurant’s outhouse. Ahh, the joys of travel.

What do you think, post-trip blogs a good idea? A smart way to allow you to enjoy the trip without wasting precious travel time at an internet cafe? A recipe for hyperbolic exaggeration, a sure by-product of foresight and well-meaning when one looks back at the past through rose-tinted glasses? A good read? I’d say, all of the above.

I remember my friends getting back from their weekend trip in Las Vegas. I remember wondering what kind of time they had, never having been to the city that actually never sleeps. I remember the husband saying, “it was more like time on, than time off.” The phrase made me laugh out loud.

A recent article in the New Zealand Herald highlights a movement towards traveling tough — now referred to as “Deprivation” vacations. What this means is that more people, businessmen particularly, are choosing a little rough and rumble instead of rest and relaxation. As the article states, “customers enroll in boot camp-style spa resorts or extreme trekking, instead of spending their free time relaxing.” What is going on?

The reason could be existentialism or perhaps a different way we do business. The other day I read a friend’s blog about Generation Y. Those that fall into this demographic are driven to find careers that suit a balanced lifestyle as opposed to one with ladder-like tendencies, like the work ethic the baby boomers embraced. With achieving balance in life with the under-40-hour work week and a full 8 hours of sleep, perhaps people are craving little spurts of zest. (more…)

If you had to choose one of your children to send out into dark, predator filled streets, which would you choose? If you had to choose a little brother and sister to tell her or she must permanently leave home, which would you choose?

You’re right to think that this is not a fair question. It is not a decision anyone should ever need to make. Right now, it’s a decision looming in front of the leadership staff at The GOD’S CHILD Project.

For 20 years, the non-denominational, ecumenical GOD’S CHILD Project has been the last hope for thousands of orphaned and abandoned children. We are currently taking care of 16,000 impoverished children in India, Africa, and Latin America, rescuing each one from unimaginable circumstances. Lost little boys and girls, children who were once abused, abandoned, or forced into slavery — children who once had no future — have been given homes and futures. (more…)

By Ted Hesson

From the car in the outlet mall parking lot in southern San Diego we could see a winding stretch of the border fence; beyond the fence, tawny hills and tough shrubs, terrain that was wilder and more natural than Southern California’s artificially landscaped residential neighborhoods. A giant tri-color flag — green, white, and red — flapped in the breeze. Mexico.

My friend Will and I sat in the bed of his Toyota pickup truck on a Wednesday morning in late July, searching on our phones for information about crossing the border without a passport, since Will had forgotten his documentation at his apartment in San Francisco.

Passport issues aside, we also had some concerns about safety. Will and I were in the midst of a weeklong trip to Southern California in late July, and before reaching San Diego, we had spent some time in Los Angeles and the San Diego suburb of San Marcos. At each stop, I sounded out my friends about a possible day trip down to Rosarito Beach, the 130,000-person Mexican city 30 miles south of the U.S. border. Each friend gave me the same response: Don’t go.

I wasn’t surprised. Back in New York I report on immigration issues, and I had read article after article about the brutality of the drug war in Mexican border cities and towns, and how the violence has escalated in recent years. When I Googled “Rosarito” and “crime,” I found articles about beheadings, executions, and kidnappings. (more…)

Ever wanted your travel booking experience to resemble something more like that of online dating than, well, online booking? Well, maybe Kayak’s come closest. Stay with me here. Perusing around the site the other day I cam across their new “Explore” feature which, as you can see above, is a graphic representation of the cheapest flights around from a particular destination (based on other users’ purchases in the last 48 hours).

Now comes the online dating aspect. Say you want to narrow it down to a specific price range — say your Christmas bonus amount — just slide the price range downward. Have flexible dates? Pick a season rather than a specific month to really find the best deals. Looking for a flight that enjoys fine dining, French film and walks on the beach, just . . . oh wait, that’s the other one. Happy hunting!

New York City recently announced the three final taxi designs duking it out for a winner-take-all cage match to receive an exclusive contract for the next decade’s worth of sales and service in the city. Currently served by Ford, the ironically named TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) opened up proposals in 2009 for exclusive rights to the “taxi of tomorrow.” Is there such a thing?

When you think about it, taxis transcend pleather seats and those mystery serums left from the previous night’s backseat shenanigans. Phil Patton of the Design Trust for Public Space notes, they’re as iconic as it gets:

The taxicab is a symbol of New York to millions of tourists. It marks arrival and departure—the modern equivalent of a city gate. It is the space of entrance to the city. It frames the visitor’s first glances. As much as by Big Ben, London is symbolized by its red double-decker busses, its red phone booths —and its black taxis. Just as much as it is represented by its piers or subways, by the same token, New York is symbolized by its taxis.

Well put, Phil. However, pictures of the three finalists chosen scream more Three Stooges to me than iconic figures gracefully navigating the New York streets. To sum it all up for you, there is the Jetson’s grocery getter, the euro, and the suburban nanny. None of which have any NYC iconic-ness about them.

Here’s my suggestion: Throwbacks — and not any of this weak-effort, modern-looking versions of the classic autos. I’m talking about getting the “taxi of tomorrow’s” efficient engine, conveniences, headroom, and whatever else is deemed ideal for this project (cup holders, I suppose?), and then wrap that neat little package with a bucket-load of iconic.

My point can be found in Veradero, Cuba, in the picture above. Tell me that 14,000 of these beauties running the streets of NYC wouldn’t make a statement.

[Photo by misw/Flickr]

Any society where people greet one another by asking “Have you eaten yet?” is my kind of place. It’s a simple question that says quite a bit about a culture and its savory way of life. Food is just one of those magical things that bind people in the plainest and most complex of ways—an unspoken connection of sensory overload that speaks volumes in an otherwise non-connected situation.

Travel and food have always been the links to many of the people I have met and befriended—whether it was feasting on casado with strangers at a local soda (small restaurant) in Costa Rica, or snacking on biltong under the dim light of a boma in South Africa, food kindled conversation and sparked the beginnings of transcontinental friendships.

On the other hand, foreign fare can sometimes be quite intimidating to the untrained palate often creating that consuming panic that blasts “I hope I don’t die from eating this” through one’s brainwaves. Pungent smells, spicy sauces, bowls of braised lard, man’s best friend (read: dog) hotpot, and salted insects, could test the true gusto of any food-fiend traveler. There are many places around the world where daring gastronomes can tempt and torture their palates, but none like the great Republic of China to experiment with the odd and unusual, devilish yet delectable, and often synthesized cuisine.

(more…)

Let´s start by hanging my biases against cruise ships out on the line. I´ve always been of the opinion that a cruise ship is to travel as a bowl of whale blubber is to part of this balanced breakfast. It´s traveling only in that you are constantly in motion. But if we are going to call a spade a spade, it seems more like the type of travel designed for people who really don´t want to travel, but really like fancy hotels. Which is fine. This certainly has its place for certain people wanting that sort of thing. But it does not mean that I should not make fun of it. Since yesterday I have been doing that a lot, when I read a headline that CNN ran titled: Crippled cruise ship expected in San Diego on Thursday.

The article´s introduction describes a “three-day ordeal” that passengers went through. As the dictionary correctly describes an ordeal as “any extremely severe or trying test,” it left me wondering what great trials these passengers suffered aboard their overpriced Carnival Cruise. And then I read on. And then I laughed, so as not to cry.

The ordeal the passengers suffered came from an engine fire that left parts of the ship without electricity. It came down to not having air conditioning or hot showers. Also, instead of steak and chocolate mousse, passengers had to eat Spam and Pop Tarts. Their three days of struggle is on par with what freshman in college are currently facing daily all across America. Except, college freshman know better than to stay sober and CNN knows better to run a headline on them and call what they are going through “suffering.” (more…)

While Matt was hobnobbing with famous actors-cum-travel writers (or vice versa), I spent my night sitting in a dark corner of a small theater. The audience’s energy was electric and the whoops erupted throughout the night. Those hollers were unleashed for the sensory assault brought on by the premier of Warren Miller’s most recent epic ski flick, “Wintervention.”

Capitalizing on anticipation brought on by the first few inches of snow resting on the Bozeman streets, the timing couldn’t have been any better to get everyone jazzed up about the possibilities awaiting everyone in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year. Personally, it’s a great time of year to break an arm (long story . . . I’ll spare you), because for the most part, it’s a transitional time between the bike and ski season.

Or what was brought to my attention last night at the movie, this time of year is more of a transition from bike travel season to ski travel season. Lately, I’ve been looking at maps not for areas to travel to with my bike, but those mountain ranges I have not yet visited with my skis. Oh, the possibilities . . . (more…)

In Buenos Aires, it is everywhere. It is overwhelming. I remember walking around at night with a friend and asking about it.

“Do you paint graffiti?” I asked.

“No, no. I don’t. But, I like it. It shows you that there is life in the city.”

Growing up with a Canadian mindset, for a while I believed that things had to be done a certain way. There were rules and regulations put into place in order to control societal chaos. It was organized and dogmatic. It was robotic. If I hadn’t stepped outside my cultural box, I would not have seen the harmony of the human spirit. (more…)