Travel Linkspiration: January 2014

I haven’t done a link round-up in a few months, so, I’m sure you’ve all missed hearing about my excellent taste in internet.

When I wasn’t busy curating this list of links last month, I took two trips around New England. One was an overnight to North Conway, New Hampshire with E for our 5-year anniversary, and the other was to Burlington, Vermont to visit my friend, Katie.

But enough about me…

Early January in the blogosphere includes a lot of reflections on the previous year and hopes for the new one. Although it’s a blog post genre I enjoy (personal stories! pretty photographs!), I’m only including one of these posts in this round-up — 10 Life Lessons Learned From Travels in 2013 from Monkeys and Mountains.

I couldn’t agree more with Hike Bike Travel’s take on The Lost Art of Map Reading. A GPS is fine to get from point A to point B but, if I want to understand a place, I need a map.

In case you were unaware, I’m from Rhode Island, and I have friends and family living in every New England state, so, anytime my region of the U.S. gets recognized on a travel blog, I get stupidly excited. Young Adventuress wrote a post about her love for Western Massachusetts and tucked it in on her blog between adventures in Iceland and New Zealand, and I was just over here like:

Suitcase and Heels wrote a great post about horseback riding in the Canadian Rockies that makes me desperate to see those landscapes for myself.

The NY Times photography blog delves into the power of simplistic images in A Sudanese Refugee Crisis, Photographed From the Ground Up.

When I read Oneika the Traveller’s post on Old Delhi, I felt like I was back in India. It’s not a long piece, but the photos are evocative and the words ring true to my experience.

I love this video about thru-hiking the Appalacian Trail. Although I’m not prepared to thru-hike, I am hoping to spend a few days hiking the Appalacian Trail in Maine this summer (one of my 25 by 25 goals).

And finally, I’m thinking about attempting the #100happydays challenge, which encourages people to photograph one thing that makes them happy every day for 100 days. I hope it will help me to keep my life in perspective and be more deliberate in my happiness. What do you think? Check out the website and let me know if you want to try it together!

What did you read/watch/ogle in January? Share your links in the comments!