Wearing pants in France? You're breaking the law, ladies. originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Good evening, Gadling faithful. Didn't get enough travel-related news and views on Gadling today? Check out what's happening in the rest of the travel blogosphere right now...

• Attention librophiles: Check out these photos of the world's most beautiful libraries.
• The San Francisco Chronicle's Spud Hilton is now blogging at Bad Latitude.
• Sure, Idaho's got the Potato Museum and Japan's got the Ramen Museum, but I bet you didn't know about the SPAM Museum in Minnesota. (If you did, I almost feel sorry for you.)
• To celebrate Geography Awareness Week, National Geographic asks U.S. senators if they can draw their states. Sen. Saxby Chambliss' rendering of his home state of Georgia is impeachment-worthy.
• Finally, despite the fact that I loathe both Star Trek and cruises, I've really been enjoying Rolf Potts' first two articles on World Hum about his recent Star Trek-themed cruise. Check out the accompanying video here.

More Gadlinks here.

Gadlinks for Tuesday, 11.17.09 originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tuesday Travel Trivia (Week 55) originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"If you're not thinking about Japan every day," popular blogger Tyler Cowen likes to say, "you've yet to wake up."

Today's bizarrely fascinating cultural nugget from Japan: Chindogu. Literally translated as "weird tool," Chindogu is the Japanese art of creating deliberately complex devices that solve simple everyday problems. It's Rube Goldberg meets Japan.

And Chindogu, like just about everything else, has developed a cult following on the internet. There's the International Chindogu Society, the Ten Tenets of Chindogu (Number Three: "Inherent in every Chindogu is the spirit of anarchy"), and scores of websites devoted to tracking the newest, and most ridiculous, Chindogu inventions.

Here are a few of the most creative examples of Chindogu...

The Solar-Powered Lighter (above)

Tired of running out of fluid in your lighter? Fed up with wet matches that won't make a spark? Now there's a better, greener way to light your cigarette-- with the solar-powered Chindogu lighter. (Note: May not work at night, or on cloudy days, or at all.)

More examples below the fold...

Continue reading Rube Goldberg meets Japan: The bizarre Japanese art of Chindogu

Rube Goldberg meets Japan: The bizarre Japanese art of Chindogu originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tony Martin, Kelly Ferris, and Antonio Santiago better order a few extra passport pages. Coca-Cola announced earlier today that the trio were the winners of a year-long trip to every country and territory where Coke is sold-- 206 in all.

Expedition 206, as the trip is called, will begin from Madrid on January 1, 2010, and will include stops at the World Cup in South Africa and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Martin, Ferris, and Santiago will promote Coke's "Open Happiness" campaign by documenting and sharing scenes of happiness from their travels.

"It's an ambitious task," says Kelly Ferris, a 23-year-old student from Brussels, "but I can't think of a better way to spend a year than exploring what makes people happy."

I spoke with the three winners this morning shortly after it was announced that their team had prevailed in the contest's online voting. They discussed how they learned about and eventually won the contest, where they're most (and least) looking forward to going, and whether 206 countries in 365 days is way too much.

You can follow the entire expedition, through the team's photos, videos, and blog posts, at Expedition206.com.

A map of the expedition's planned route is below the fold...

Continue reading Coca-Cola awards three contest winners epic one-year, 206-country trip

Coca-Cola awards three contest winners epic one-year, 206-country trip originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Photo of the Day (11.13.09) originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I'm not sure what it is about small countries that makes me so interested in them. Maybe it's the fact that they seem so manageable, so knowable. I could spend the next five years in, say, China, and still feel like I hadn't seen a fraction of what it has to offer. But in some of my favorite smaller countries-- Ecuador, Guatemala, the Czech Republic-- I've always felt like I have a fighting chance.

As for the countries below, the world's five smallest, you could get to know most of them pretty well in an afternoon. Here's a quick 'n dirty guide that proves that size, as the old adage goes, is not everything...

Vatican City

In a nutshell: The world's smallest sovereign state at just under two-tenths of a square mile, Vatican City is headquarters of the Catholic Church and home to the Pope. The Vatican, an enclave within the city of Rome, features the magnificent Sistine Chapel, famous for its Michelangelo-painted ceiling, as well as St. Peter's Basilica, the world's biggest Christian church.

Turn-ons: Carpenters from Nazareth, piety, extolling the Christian virtues of humility and simplicity in the midst of unparalleled opulence

Turn-offs: Prostitution, drugs, promiscuity, and just about anything else fun

Interesting factoid: The College of Cardinals has never made it to an NCAA Tournament.

Continue reading Little Countries, Big World: Gadling's pint-sized guide to the world's smallest countries

Little Countries, Big World: Gadling's pint-sized guide to the world's smallest countries originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hey there, Gadling readers, and welcome to another edition of Gadlinks, your daily source for the best of the rest from the travel blogosphere. Here's a look at what's going on today...

• Like Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel? Bootsnall suggests six places to do your best Andrew Zimmern impression.
• Via The Onion, United Airlines Exploring Viability of Stacking Them Like Cordwood.
• CNN Travel looks at websites that hook up solo travelers with one another.
• Sure, the airlines are struggling, says Bob Ecker over at World Hum. So why don't they "go Nascar" and throw some gaudy ads on their planes?
• Amazon's Kindle gets the Chris Blattman Seal of Approval, barely. His nostalgia for books is still there, but it's "outweighed only by the half-a-suitcase saved."

More Gadlinks here.

Gadlinks for Thursday, 11.12.09 originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In addition to being a traveler and a blogger, I am also, in my spare time, a full-time law student. (Should it be the other way around? Oh well.) As a future lawyer interested in criminal law, I've had a couple of opportunities to see the inside of American prisons, and they were just as you probably imagine them-- sterile without being clean, well-lit without being remotely pleasant, and overall just depressing as hell.

Because of my twin interests in criminal law and travel, I was especially interested to stumble across a post full of photographs from inside a Colombian prison, a place that most of us (let's hope) will only ever see in photographs. The shots themselves were mostly taken by the inmates at the prison, and they are the culmination of a one-week documentary photography class taught by Vance Jacobs, a photojournalist invited by an English language school in Medellin to teach eight inmates photography.

The Colombian prison system bears a lot of resemblance to the American one, with a couple notable exceptions:

• Not all inmates receive a cell. Because of overcrowding, prisoners who want a cell are expected to rent or purchase them. Those without cells are called "pirates."
• Despite popular misconceptions, many American prisons do not allow conjugal visits. In Colombia, however, about 3,500 women arrive at the prison every Sunday to "visit" with their husbands and boyfriends.
• Inmates with money may hire other inmates to cook for them, clean their cells, and do their laundry.

For the entire fascinating (to me, anyway) post, head right here.

The view from inside a Colombian prison originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

But there's more to Belize than scuba diving, snorkeling, and catching rays on the beach. Belize, Central America's only English-speaking country, also has plenty to offer in its often-overlooked western half, including waterfalls and caves that pepper the highlands, ancient Mayan ruins just begging to be explored, and even a pretty, backpacker-friendly town or two.

Here are five reasons you shouldn't miss the Cayo District, which makes up most of Belize's other side:

5. Big Rock Falls Located in the heart of the wonderful Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, Big Rock Falls (pictured above) is a 150-foot waterfall surrounded by, you guessed it, some pretty big rocks. As nice as the waterfall is to look at, it's exponentially more fun to climb up to the 35-foot-high perch next to the falls, work up your courage, and take the epic plunge. For the less adventurous, like, um, myself, swim hard against the current to reach the spot where the water comes crashing down on you. It feels like getting punched in the head over and over, but, you know, in a good way.

Continue reading The part of Belize nobody sees: Five reasons not to miss the country's other side

The part of Belize nobody sees: Five reasons not to miss the country's other side originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hey there, friends o' Gadling. Here's a quick look at what's going on in the travel world today...

• Arrested abroad? The inimitable Leif Pettersen can help.
• Is Detroit making a comeback?
• Tyler Cowen shares some memories of East Berlin, writing, "I saw soldiers goose-stepping down one of the main streets. In the stores old ladies yelled and swung their brooms at me. Many buildings still had bullet marks or bomb damage from World War II. In a restaurant we ate a rubber Wiener Schnitzel and shared a table with an East German family; they did not have enough trust in their government to speak a word to us... This was in the capital city in the showcase of the communist world."
• Travel guru Rick Steves takes a look at electronic versions of guidebooks and says, "Not so fast."
• The New York Post offers ten of the best travel tweeters today. (Ahem, recognize anyone?)

More Gadlinks here.

Gadlinks for Tuesday, 11.10.09 originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tuesday Travel Trivia (Week 54) originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the town of San Juan Chamula in southern Mexico, I entered a church completely unprepared for the what I saw. Pine needles and hundreds of small lit candles covered the entire wooden floor, where worshippers were kneeling and chanting incantations. In front of each group of worshippers was a 3-liter bottle of Coca Cola, which the faithful drank periodically and used to, well, burp, in an attempt to keep away evil spirits.

This custom mixing Christian and (mostly) Mayan beliefs, I thought to myself, must be one of the most unusual rituals in the world. Well, turns out I wasn't even close.

Over at Vagabondish, Turner Wright takes a look at the 8 Most Bizarre Rituals in the World, including Indian baby-tossing, Kenyan blood-drinking, and Japanese fire-walking. Also from Japan: A fertility festival in which participants carry a huge wooden penis around town. (It takes place every March 15 in the town of Komaki; book your flight today!)

Whole thing here.

The weirdest rituals in the world originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When the last speaker of the Sechelt language, a tongue spoken by fewer than 40 people in southwestern British Columbia, eventually dies, an entire language will perish too. But, linguist John McWhorter wonders, so what?

In his recent article in World Affairs, McWhorter explores the phenomenon of dying languages and asks what we really lose when a language goes extinct. "The main loss when a language dies," McWhorter argues, "is not cultural but aesthetic. The click sounds in certain African languages are magnificent to hear. In many Amazonian languages, when you say something you have to specify, with a suffix, where you got the information. The Ket language of Siberia is so awesomely irregular as to seem a work of art."

Continue reading The real problem with dying languages

The real problem with dying languages originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you thought you could live a regret-free life without visiting Guatemala, think again. This diminutive Central American country, smaller than the state of Louisiana, packs in enough diversity to entertain you for months. And its low, low prices mean you don't need to visit your neighborhood payday lender to afford to stay a while.

From active volcanoes to immaculate colonial cities to quite possibly the world's most beautiful lake, Guatemala boasts plenty of reasons for you to bid farewell to your loved ones, return those outstanding library books, and spend a couple months in Central America. Here are the top nine:

9. The people. When a tourism slogan proclaims that "The best part are our people!" I roll my eyes and figure it must be a colorless place with nothing to offer. Not so with Guatemala. Within a period of three days, I had two different people sit down next to me in Xela's Parque Centroamerica and strike up a lengthy conversation. One of them invited me to hang out with him and his friends that night at a local watering hole. The other only started talking to me because he thought I was gay. But still, that counts!

Continue reading The top 9 reasons to drop everything and visit Guatemala right now

The top 9 reasons to drop everything and visit Guatemala right now originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hope everyone's enjoying what's on Gadling today, from stinky Asian food to A Critical Mass Halloween in San Francisco to an informative post and gorgeous photo gallery about Auckland, New Zealand. Now here's a look at what else is going on in the travel world today...

• This video about frequent flyer mile hoarders has been making the rounds-- it's a peek into a small subculture I knew nothing about, and still don't entirely understand.
• Geography of Bliss author Eric Weiner explores the backpacker ghetto of Thamel, a district of Kathmandu in Nepal.
• Over at Bootsnall, Eileen Smith details the ins-and-outs of wine tasting in South America. I'm not much of an oenophile myself, but when I tried the Carménère in Chile it made me want to be a better person.
• Tyler Cowen points out that Yemen is running out of water, partly because half its water is used to cultivate qat, an addictive drug.
• Speaking of water, Chris Blattman suggests that the days of seeing an African woman carry a bucket of water on her head might be over.

More Gadlinks here.

Gadlinks for Tuesday, 11.3.09 originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• "Unless you enjoy breathing in ammonia, avoid [fermented] skate at all costs."
• "Koreans gnaw on dried squid while drinking beer and soju. Too bad the rubbery strands smell like dead mice."
• "Due to its fetid odor, the oval, tropical fruit [durian] also has one thing in common with terrorists and smokers: It's banned from the Singapore airport."

The best stinkin' food in Asia originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

People love to complain about the dismal state of air travel these days. Whether it's the stomach-churning airline food (and there's so little of it!), the complete lack of leg room, or the fact that your luggage was for some reason routed through Honolulu, we've come to expect some pretty poor service from quite a few airlines these days.

In any other industry, customers register their indignation by refusing to spend money at the offending establishment. Found a finger in your Caesar's Salad? You're probably never visiting that restaurant again. Tired of your cable cutting out in the middle of House? You just might cancel that company's service and call up their competitor (who'll probably even throw in a year of Starz at no extra charge!)

But with airlines, we're like the pathetic girlfriend who's been cheated on five times but still believes her boyfriend when he says, "Seriously, this time will be different! I've changed!" The worst airlines stay in business because by and large people are willing to put up with crummy service if it means they get a cheap flight.

Continue reading Poll: Have you ever passed up the cheapest airfare to avoid a bad airline?

Poll: Have you ever passed up the cheapest airfare to avoid a bad airline? originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

To be entered in a random drawing for one of five professionally-mounted photographs (shot by Peter Guttman) of the Brazilian Amazon*, simply answer the five questions above and leave a comment telling us about a place you've always wanted to visit.

Terms and Conditions of the Giveaway:

• To enter, simply leave a comment telling us about a place you've always wanted to visit.
• The comment must be left before Monday, November 9th at 5:00 PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Five Prize Winners will be selected randomly to each receive one of the prizes listed above.
• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• The total value of each prize is approximately $800.
• Click here for the complete official rules of this giveaway.

Tuesday Travel Trivia (Week 53): Now with awesome prizes! originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I love how this shot from flickr user cmvoelkel is split into thirds by the tower of the Manhattan Bridge and the apparently happy couple. It also appears to be in black and white until you look outside the puddle and see the color on the couple's shoes. Taken in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, this is an interesting, really well-composed shot.

Want your pics considered for Gadling's Photo of the Day? Upload your photos right here.

Photo of the Day (10.30.09) originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.