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ReidOnTravel

This is the Travel Ticker of Robert Reid. Also on Twitter & YouTube.
May 16 '13

paulbrady:

As rap videos with a sense of place go, this is not exactly your standard-issue slow-speed cruise around South Central. Nah. This is Minneapolis, y’all. We keep it real with parks and schools and cameos by huggable Twins mascot TC Bear. Y.N.RichKids’ “My Bike” covers an impressive portion of the city, from the crew’s home turf on the North Side, down to Minnehaha Falls, in the far southeast corner of town, and to the Mall of America, way out in the ’burbs. By my back-of-the-envelope math, if they actually pedaled the route we see in the video, they’d cover 50 miles.

I asked Doug Mack to explain for CNTraveler.com the many Minnie locations in this new rap video.

I agree with this decision. I like the result.

3 notes (via paulbrady)

May 13 '13
I just created a panel. I asked an etiquette expert, an MIT legend and an anarchist about the phenomenon of table-butting, where people claim a table in a cafe before ordering, thus cheating the people in line who arrived before them. Here is what they said.

I just created a panel. I asked an etiquette expert, an MIT legend and an anarchist about the phenomenon of table-butting, where people claim a table in a cafe before ordering, thus cheating the people in line who arrived before them.

Here is what they said.

May 8 '13

North Pond Hermit

I got to speak at a Maine tourism conference focusing on the “Maine Woods,” the non-coastal parts. I started my speech with 20 things I learned from a crazy four-day roadtrip, one of which was this:

image

The “North Pond Hermit” has been all over Maine news lately. The guy, who lived alone in the woods for 27 years, apparently committed 1000 burglaries — stealing food out of homes.

I just learned (from this Mainer blog) it inspired this surprisingly good new song by Stan & Dan, Mainer musicians.

I would like to invite you to listen.

Apr 27 '13
zacheverson: A not inconsequential part of myself just died. I’d like a life pass for that bus

zacheverson:

A not inconsequential part of myself just died.

I’d like a life pass for that bus

1 note (via zacheverson)

Apr 27 '13
landscapelifescape: Zhivopisny bridge, Moscow, Russia Picturesque Bridge by Sergey Alimov Is St Louis OK with this?

landscapelifescape:

Zhivopisny bridge, Moscow, Russia

Picturesque Bridge by Sergey Alimov

Is St Louis OK with this?

338 notes (via condenasttraveler & landscapelifescape)

Apr 23 '13

No one knows what a guidebook is

Nearly every time when I was writing guidebooks for Lonely Planet, and I’d tell someone in the US what I did, they’d nod, listen about “guidebooks” and “travel information so people could plan their own holidays,” then they”d invariably ask:

image


Most Americans really don’t know what a guidebook is. I think more should. So I thought I’d explain how to use a guidebook.

2 notes

Apr 22 '13

Things I just learned about pants

  1. The first known pants-wearers were Persian soldiers in the sixth century BC.
  2. Romans thought their pants were just ridiculous
  3. Ancient Greeks thought them beyond ridiculous
  4. In fact, Aristophanes mocked barbarians’ pants choices in his hit poem “The Wasps.” Early on, Philocleon boasts of his anger turns mighty and rich pale and “whisper, ‘O, my God!’ and shit in their pants with fear.” (No joke.) In a later encounter, he writes: “we chased them away, digging our sharp stingers into their baggy pants”
  5. Peter the Great, the Imperial Russian leader, was not only anti-beard — he required “his men” to shave them into moustaches — but also pro-pants. In the early 1700s, he felt pants were a way to Europeanize Russia.
  6. By doing so, he may have been “bringing pants back home.” It’s said the first pants wearers were Upper Paleolithic groups near Lake Baikal.

I hope to learn more things about pants soon.

image

Apr 18 '13
thisbelongsinamuseum: Once upon a time Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about “Sweet Home Alabama”, but I bet they didn’t know about the town called Sweet Home. Yep, such a place exists in Oregon and it’s the sweet home of White’s Metal Detectors, one of the earliest manufacturers of metal detectors. Next to the factory and offices is a little museum full of things unearthed by the company’s metal detectors as well as some of their earliest models, which date back to the 1950s. The diverse assortment of treasures discovered with White’s instruments include items from a Spanish fleet that sank off the coast of Florida in the 1700s that were found by Ken White, president of the company as well as various coins, bullets, cannonballs, and bottles. Besides a personal tour of the museum (by appointment only of course), there is also a demonstration room and test garden. Personally, I’m not a fan of the device, just from my experience of flying, and once having to take every single thing out of my suitcase to be inspected because, you know, I really look like a danger to society. I actually take that back…I’m totally a danger to society in that I’m a bitch. Scan away! (Image Source) Sweet Home Oregon. Maybe Kid Rock could make that song for the ‘Gon?

thisbelongsinamuseum:

Once upon a time Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about “Sweet Home Alabama”, but I bet they didn’t know about the town called Sweet Home. Yep, such a place exists in Oregon and it’s the sweet home of White’s Metal Detectors, one of the earliest manufacturers of metal detectors. Next to the factory and offices is a little museum full of things unearthed by the company’s metal detectors as well as some of their earliest models, which date back to the 1950s. The diverse assortment of treasures discovered with White’s instruments include items from a Spanish fleet that sank off the coast of Florida in the 1700s that were found by Ken White, president of the company as well as various coins, bullets, cannonballs, and bottles. Besides a personal tour of the museum (by appointment only of course), there is also a demonstration room and test garden. Personally, I’m not a fan of the device, just from my experience of flying, and once having to take every single thing out of my suitcase to be inspected because, you know, I really look like a danger to society. I actually take that back…I’m totally a danger to society in that I’m a bitch. Scan away!

(Image Source)

Sweet Home Oregon. Maybe Kid Rock could make that song for the ‘Gon?

27 notes (via thisbelongsinamuseum)

Apr 15 '13
Warning: squirrel nudity follows thisbelongsinamuseum: January 21st is officially Squirrel Appreciation Day. In the basement of the Cress Funeral Home in Madison, Wisconsin, owner Sam Sanfillippo has a collection of taxidermy, specifically squirrel dioramas. We’ve seen this before on the blog. Dead animals arranged in ridiculous situations, like drinking at a bar or visiting a topless girlie show. I say do what makes you happy. I mean a funeral home is already full of dead things, so why not include a bit more? There are also hundreds of other taxidermy including fish, raccoons, and at least a couple of badgers at Sam’s place. If you’d like to visit, just contact Cress Funeral home at 608-238-8406 to make an appointment (as long as there isn’t a funeral going on, Sam loves visitors). (Image Sources)

Warning: squirrel nudity follows

thisbelongsinamuseum:

January 21st is officially Squirrel Appreciation Day. In the basement of the Cress Funeral Home in Madison, Wisconsin, owner Sam Sanfillippo has a collection of taxidermy, specifically squirrel dioramas. We’ve seen this before on the blog. Dead animals arranged in ridiculous situations, like drinking at a bar or visiting a topless girlie show. I say do what makes you happy. I mean a funeral home is already full of dead things, so why not include a bit more?

There are also hundreds of other taxidermy including fish, raccoons, and at least a couple of badgers at Sam’s place. If you’d like to visit, just contact Cress Funeral home at 608-238-8406 to make an appointment (as long as there isn’t a funeral going on, Sam loves visitors).

image

(Image Sources)

6 notes (via thisbelongsinamuseum)

Apr 15 '13

“Deal” experiment: NYC to Cancun

I get worn out of deals coverage in travel. I think people often compromise their holidays by letting “deals” dictate where they go — often tired resorts with cynical staff and lesser beach spots.

So I just did a 10-minute experiment.

First Cancun deal advertised on TravelZoo: ends up being $619 per person from New York, for three days/four nights on a north-facing (less desirable) spot on the (less desirable) hotel zone beaches. Prices include flight, meals, drinks, room. I picked sample days of Sun May 12 to Thur May 16. That’s $1238 total, not including airport transfers, or much fun.

Can you beat it?

Well, JetBlue offers direct service to Cancun from JFK on those dates for $332 each, and gets you into Cancun at 10:17am. Direct bus from airport to Playa del Carmen in one hour for $10 (Playa’s busy, not Mexico’s greatest spot, but a more tasteful and ped-oriented beach scene).

I looked up a couple highly rated TripAdvisor B&Bs, and found one a few blocks from water, run by a young Italian couple, with three rooms for $40 to $50 per night. There’s a kitchen you can make breakfasts in, or pack lunches for the beach. By day, ferry to Cozumel for North America’s best snorkeling, or bus to Chichen Itza ruins (the resort charges $109 per person for that tour — it’s about a quarter that by bus).

You spend about the same, get a better experience, and an extra day away.

With another 10 minutes research, you can beat it be even more.

1 note