Starling Travel

The camera took a picture every few minutes on a drive from Los Angeles to New York. It’s the perfect road trip and you get to come along for the drive.

A couple of years I saw this video. I vividly remember recognizing the trek through the red mountains after the night in Vegas on this video. The rest of the route is on roads that I haven’t driven yet.

I don’t believe that the person on YouTube (vw86gti) is the one who did the filming. I remember this video being posted years ago on a website by the actual people who did the filming, but I can’t find the website again. Will the true director of this video please stand up?

Via: World Hum | Travel | Video: A Cross-Country Road Trip Captured in Time Lapse

and

STANDING ROOM ONLY

I’ll never forget my first trip to San Francisco. As Cory and Kathleen escorted us through the Haight, a multi-pierced teen asked us for money. I shook my head at him, feeling guilty, but also resentful. I knew the cost of one of those piercings was at least 70 bucks. “If he was so hungry, he should sell his nose ring,” I thought.

Kathleen was more pragmatic. “You look like a tourist. They always bug the tourists for money. I gave them money once when we first moved here and they bugged me every day. Just don’t give them money.”

I’m not alone in the dual feeling of guilt and resentment. Being asked for money when you’re vacationing is not only an invasion of your privacy, but a stark reminder that you are “pleasure-seeking” while others are starving. Rolf Pots has more advice for dealing with begging:

• Begging the question – Yahoo! News

Rolf leaves us with this advice:

• Spend some time in the community before you give to beggars

• Practice skepticism

• Don’t be afraid to say no

• You’re not saving the day

• Be courteous

He’s right about the proper methods of giving aid. Now, if I could only figure out a way of not feeling guilty about having a fun vacation while others are suffering, it would all be wonderful for me.

Via: World Hum | Travel | Potts Deals With Beggars

Since the latest terrorist plot to take down planes in England, flying with carry-on luggage is much more difficult. Here is the latest advice for traveling on airplanes:

• Guardian Unlimited Travel | News | Latest travel advice

The restrictions are limiting even baby food:

“Baby milk and liquid baby food are allowed but the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the parent.”

Plan on checking everything and then you won’t be surprised when they allow you to take your wallet and cellphone.

Here are the current limitations:

• No liquids: This includes drinks and toiletries. Even prescription drugs that are in liquid form need to be checked by the airport pharmacist.

• No sharp objects: This is a restriction from the post-9-11 era. No box cutters, fingernail files or pocket knives.

• Wheelchairs, pushchairs and walkers can be brought aboard, but require thorough inspection.

• Baby milk and liquid baby food are allowed but the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the parent.

• Even liquid items bought in the airport shopping after the security checkpoint are not allowed in the airport cabin.

Make sure you thoroughly check all your carry-on luggage for any questionable items. It took security over twenty minutes to find my tiny pocket knife stuffed in the back corner of my laptop bag. I didn’t even know it was there, but the bag kept getting rejected by the system. All I could do was stand by anxiously worried about missing my flight because my stupid laptop bag was setting things off. If I had searched all my pockets before we went to the airport, I wouldn’t have been stressed about missing my flight.

Once again, flying has become even MORE unpleasant. Plan for it and you’ll enjoy your travel much more.

When you travel, would you please send me a postcard from wherever you are with a brief description? If you do and it’s interesting, I will publish your postcard here.

Send your vacation postcards to:

Starling Travel
Attention: Laura Moncur
P.O. Box 522032
Salt Lake City, Utah 84152

It’s like sending a postcard to the whole world when you go on vacation.

The Los Angeles Public Library has an exhibit showcasing old travel posters. You can see it online here:

• LAPL Virtual Photo: Far and Wide – The Golden Age of Travel Posters

This wasn’t quite as interesting as I imagined because of the limited quantity they were showing. Back in 1995, Micrografx released ABC Graphics Suite, which was a software suite to compete with Adobe Photoshop. The software is long gone, but I still have the book and the accompanying CDs because they included a lot of royalty free photos and clipart.

My favorite of the collection is the Wood River Gallery. These low resolution photos are a collection of greeting cards, advertisements, drawings and more importantly, travel posters. Unfortunately, they aren’t easily searchable like Flickr, so sometimes I end up turning page after page looking for a perfect photo. It’s not very efficient. I don’t know what to do to make it more easy for me to use, but here is a quick slideshow of some of my favorites:

Jeff Voris has a Flickr Slideshow of the pictures he took while he was at the county fair in Orange County, California. You can see it here:

• Orange County Fair 2006 Slideshow – by Jeff Voris

These are my two favorite photos:

Summer is the time for county and state fairs. If you need a break for the weekend, plan a trip to your county or state fair and enjoy all the weirdness that your local area has to offer.

Via: Boing Boing: Unusual photos taken at OC fair

When we send home a postcard, what are our motives? Is it to make sure that the people at home know we made it there in one piece? Is it to tell them what the exotic location is like?

• World Hum | Travel | “Paris Is Fabulous!” (Or What Not to Write on a Postcard Home.)

Patti Miller has a different idea of why we send postcards:

“We claim it’s simply to stay in touch, but brief introspection will lead us to the real motive—to demonstrate that our life is much better than our friends’ or family’s at this moment,” writes Patti Miller in the Sydney Morning Herald. “We have the opportunity, at least for a couple of weeks, to create an enviable life.”

She suggests telling the truth about your experience. Sure that’s a good idea, but I think it’s always a better idea to describe a specific moment on your trip. For example:

“I’m sitting in a cafe on the main strip of the town and I’m thinking of you. The food here tastes just like the food at home, but somehow it’s better just because I’m on vacation. When I look out the window, I can see the rain. We didn’t think we’d get any rain on this trip, but here it is. We’re planning on riding our bikes on Slick Rock tomorrow. If I never see you again, just know I was having fun while I was here.”

I mostly write postcards for kids. It seems like kids like to get mail of their own, whereas adults don’t really care. Maybe I’m wrong, but I only send postcards to people who want to get mail. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I am always interested to see what magazines recommend as the top gadgets. What does Fortune Magazine think is important when you’re traveling? See here:

• Fortune Magazine – 12 great travel gadgets – Jul. 28, 2006

For their top 12 travel gadgets, they have chosen an interesting list of items:

• The Garmin GPSmap 60CSx handheld mapping system: A GPS system is better than a map when you’re in an unfamiliar area. It uses information from sattelites to find where you are in the world and then place you on the map. You can type in where you want to go and it will take you there. This is a great choice, actually. It’s not the most expensive unit available, but it isn’t bottom of the line either. Good choice.

• Uniden GMR 1588-2CK two-way radios: Cellular phones have replaced walkie-talkies like these for me. I have so many minutes that I NEVER go over now, so I have no issue with just picking up my cell phone and calling my sister in the car ahead of us telling her that we need to stop in Fillmore, Utah for a potty break. The only problem is cell coverage isn’t universal. When we go camping, we bring the walkie-talkies out of storage because we know that our phones won’t work in Devil’s Kitchen. We got ours for less than half the price of these, though. Shop around for a better deal than $60 for a pair. Try these instead: Motorola T5500AA GMRS / FRS 8-Mile Two-Way Radio

• Bose QuietComfort 3 noise-canceling acoustic headphones: Flying can be noisy. If you’re trying to listen to a movie on your laptop or listen to music on your iPod, the sound of the engine can drown out your music. Noise-canceling headphones counteract the noise of the engine and make your flight quieter, even if you’re NOT listening to music. They won’t cancel out the jerk talking loudly to his assistant or the crying kid in the back, but they will make your flight a little quieter. You don’t need these 350 dollar monstrocities, though. You can get a good set of noise-canceling headphones for about 60 bucks. Try these instead: JVC HANC100 Noise Cancelling Headphones

• <img align=”right” src=”http://www.starling-travel.com/wp-content/PhillipsDVD.jpg” alt=”Philips PET320 3.5\” Portable DVD Player” />Philips PET320 portable DVD player: There are so many choices for tiny little DVD players, that I don’t know how they chose this one. Phillips is a really good brand and at only $139, it’s a pretty good price (although I’ve seen this Coby DVD Player for less than $90). If you can’t watch movies on your laptop, a portable DVD player like this makes sense. If you’re taking a long road trip with children, a portable DVD player and a stack of children’s movies could be a sanity-saving device.

• Otterbox iPod case and H20 Audio waterproof headphones: I consider this one to be completely worthless. If you’re out and about in the water on your vacation, enjoy the water. You don’t need your iPod with you at all times. Enjoy the sound of the water against the earth and save yourself 150 bucks.

• Fujitsu LifeBook Q2010 ultraportable computer: Sure, this computer is tiny, but if you want to use a DVD, you have to buy the dock or buy a USB DVD drive. A computer for travel really needs a DVD player so you can watch movies on the plane or in the car. Otherwise, this is great little computer. Sometimes it’s worth buying the slightly bigger version to get all the features you want, though.

• Altec Lansing inMotion iM9 portable iPod speakers: Turn your iPod into a ghetto blaster. That’s what this $200 gadget does. That $200 doesn’t include the iPod, by the way. I don’t really think this is the best choice. I saw a really cool version of this that was only $35 at my local store. Sure, the speakers aren’t Altec Lansing, but when you’re sitting out in the boat listening to music, the audio quality isn’t as important as the ability to share the noise.

• APC UPB10 Mobile Power Pack: I’m trying to think how this gadget could be useful. It provides 50 hours of battery time for an iPod (or other USB charged device). Whenever I am unable to charge my gadgets with electrical power from the hotel, I usually have the car with me. Instead of this $70 box, I recommend a Xantrex Technologies 851-0400 X-Power 400 Power Inverter. I got mine for about $40 and I can plug in my laptop, iPod or any other device into the plug that gets juice from my car. It’s great for camping.

• Voltaic solar-power backpack: Yet again, this sounds like a really cool thing, but I can’t see a use for it. I like the idea of being able to charge my portable devices using the power of the sun already beating down on me, but I don’t really spend that much time outdoors without power, even when I’m traveling. Maybe when I was a teenager and I listened to music on my Sony Walkman all day long, I could have used a backpack like this. Maybe if you are backpacking in the woods without your car, it might be useful, but for $250, I think I’ll pass and use the car power inverter.

• Sony DCR-DVD505 Handycam video camcorder: I haven’t been impressed with the Sony Handycam series, so I wouldn’t recommend them right now. Plus, those little DVDs only hold about 20 minutes of video. If you’re willing to deal with that limitation, you could use the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1 5.1MP MPEG-4 High Definition Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom. It stores the video on SD cards and is also an excellent still camera. Plus, it’s far more portable than a big camcorder. Who wants to lug that thing around all day? With the Sanyo, you can keep it in your pocket when you’re not using it.

• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H2 digital camera: Another questionable choice. If you’re trying to take a picture to win awards, then this camera might be good, but the a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1 5.1MP MPEG-4 High Definition Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom is much more portable, is a video camera, a still camera, and it fits in your pocket. If you’re traveling in order to take award winning pictures, then the Sony is great, but save yourself $600 and go with a two-in-one camera like the Sanyo.

• RaySat StealthRay two-way satellite antenna: Fortune says this item is for the family with everything, but at $36,000, it’s completely out of the range of logical. Sure, it provides Internet access to your car or RV no matter where you are, but at that price, you could buy a Toyota Prius just for road trips and save on gasoline. With $36K to spend, I could think of a lot more interesting things to purchase for traveling than the RaySat.

In short, the Fortune recommendations hit two out of twelve times. I guess that’s what we get for getting travel-gadget ideas from a magazine that has nothing to do with gadgets or travel.

Whenever I write an entry about an obscure place in Salt Lake City, I get email from people who are homesick for Utah. I can understand how they feel. Sometimes it feels like even the sunshine here is different than the places I’ve visited.

Whether you’re homesick for Utah or curious about what makes it so interesting, this new walking video is for you. You will enjoy a relaxing walk through the Sugarhouse shopping district, in Salt Lake City.

I created this video for Starling Fitness so you could watch it while walking on a treadmill or riding an exercise bike, but it is also a relaxing vacation in a DVD that you can pop into your player whenever you’re feeling trapped at home.

This video is a little less than three minutes, but it gives you an idea of what you will see.

You can see the route I walked here:

Total Mileage: 2.18 miles
Average Speed: 2.8 mph
Time: 47:00 Minutes

The DVD is shipped via U.S. mail.

To buy the Sugarhouse Walk video for $5.00 (including shipping and handling) click here:

Order Starling Fitness Walking Videos Here

Molly, from molly.com, travels to Oahu, Hawaii regularly, but this trip was a little different:

• molly.com » Aloha, Hawaii

An environmental disaster and a navigation mix-up took her to a side of Hawaii that she had never seen before.

“As beautiful as Hawaii is, as often as I will come here again to enjoy the beauty and hospitality of the islands and the many warm people who live here, I will never, ever forget the experiences I had this time around. They opened my eyes to many things, things I probably would rather have never experienced or seen, but that I’m grateful for nonetheless.”

Next time you plan a trip, make sure you allow time to get lost or learn more about the intimate details of the area. You might just have a vacation that you’ll never forget.

Via: Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog » links for 2006-07-22