In honor of the world NOT ending today, your weekly travel inspiration is a video about people making the most of everyday. One Day on Earth encouraged people all over the world to film on December 12, 2012 (12.12.12) and submit the footage to be compiled into a feature length movie. This was the third year in a row that they set out this challenge–the previous two occurring on 10.10.10 and 11.11.11 respectively. Check out their website to watch some footage from the previous years, and to learn more about how the project hopes to showcase the diverse stories that are taking place simultaneously all over the world.
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Instagramming Paris
I spent last week in Paris with my mother. And I discovered a new obsession. Sacre Coeur Paris is an amazingly photogenic city. I felt like a wonderful photographer while I was there because I took so many beautiful photos, but I think it was less my photography skills and more the city’s innate charms that looked so good. Nothing can beat seeing Paris for yourself, but I hope you’ll enjoy this sample of the photos I took there. I found that as awesome as these shots looked on their own, they also lended themselves well to instagram. Winged Victory, at the Louvre What I’m really enjoying about instagram is…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: The World’s Best High Teas
This morning Lonely Planet tweeted the article: The World’s Best High Teas and it seemed like an appropriate weekly travel inspiration given how tea- and Britain-focused An Opportune Moment has been these last couple of weeks. Only one of the high teas mentioned in their post is in London–Claridge’s–but many of the others are in countries that were once British colonies. Half of them are in Southeast Asia, which I’m tempted to take as a sign that that region of the world should be my next destination after Europe… But I’ll probably settle for taking a daytrip to New York City once I’m back in the states, to visit Tea…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Exhausted Edition
This week’s travel inspiration is the fact that I’ve been on the road for the last 48 hours. Traveling from the Greek island paradise of Kea to the city of Sarajevo has involved 1 ferry 2 buses and 3 trains, 2 of which were overnight. On the first overnight train, my friend Katie and I just booked normal seats and enjoyed no sleep–the train’s fluorescent lighting never so much as dimmed, and passengers came and went all evening. So, on the second overnighter, we learned our lesson and spent a little extra money on a berth. We also enjoyed an unexpected stopover in Sofia, Bulgaria because there were no direct…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Scottish Independence
This week your travel inspiration is a BBC news article about a Scottish independence rally that happened in Edinburgh last weekend. Thousands at Scottish independence rally in Edinburgh A friend of mine who is a Gaelic speaker and a staunch supporter of Scottish independence posted this article on my facebook wall after we got dinner in Edinburgh. Over our meal, he informed me that a majority of Scottish people support independence, but I was still skeptical of the country’s ability to break away from the UK. There is a referendum vote on the matter planned for 2014, so I guess we’ll all find out then. Now, you may be wondering,…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: I’m in Iceland!
At the risk of appearing self-centered, this week’s travel inspiration is a photo I took today in Iceland. It’s of the geyser Strokkur (which means “chum” in Icelandic) erupting. This geyser erupts every 4 to 8 minutes and is located next to Geysir, also known as The Great Geysir, which is the geyser from which all other geysers get their name. Geysir hasn’t erupted in a long time, and as we stood beside it, our guide cheerfully informed us that if it happened to go off while we were standing there, we would all die. I’m not sure if this is actually true considering many people have witnessed its eruption…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Skinny Dipping
I’m just going to come right out and say it; growing up in a seaside town with a goofy group of friends, I’ve done my fair share of skinny dipping. So I was amused while searching for things to do in Iceland when I came across Lonely Planet’s list of top 10 places around the world to go skinny dipping. Apparently, Viti Lake, which is located in a volcanic caldera in Iceland, made the cut. Check out where else Lonely Planet thinks it’s okay for you to forget your bathing suit: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/asia/travel-tips-and-articles/43817#
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Road Trips
(Weekly Travel Inspiration is a feature on this blog where I share a link, book, or film that incites my wanderlust, and might incite yours too!) It’s time for some nostalgia, friends. Thus far on this blog, I’ve mostly written about international travel, but this time last year I was enjoying the most quintessential of US travel experiences: a road trip. My boyfriend and I drove from New Hampshire to Asheville, North Carolina (which is a city I adored, just fyi). During this road trip, I went farther south in the US than I had ever been before (discounting the times I’ve flown over the Southeast states to get to…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Nocturnal Festivals
(Weekly Travel Inspiration is a feature on this blog where I share a link, book, or film that incites my wanderlust, and might incite yours too!) A few weeks ago National Geographic Traveler tweeted their Top 10 Nocturnal Festivals. Their list included celebrations in Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, and Latvia among others. The Noche de Brujas (Night of Witches) festival in Catemaco, Mexico, which plays host to witches, wizards, and mystics sounds like a grownup Halloween. Another festival featured on this list sees “the residents of the Latvian town of Kuldiga mark the start of midsummer, or Jani, by running naked through the streets.” According to National Geographic, after they all…