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Photo of the day: Pyrenees camping

Elizabeth Seward — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Climbing, Hiking, Photos, Europe, Andorra, France, Spain, Camping, Ecotourism

Camping in the Pyrenees Mountains. Backpacking in the Pyrenees Mountains. This image transports you there. It shows you what it's like to tuck yourself and your tent into a valley and to wake up there in the mist in the morning. It's beautiful.

The Pyrenees Mountain Range is in southwest Europe. The mountains form a natural border between France and Spain. The small country of Andorra is also witness to these beautiful mountains. The Pyrenees are popular for winter sports, but plenty of people flock to them during warmer months, as well. Photographer Christoph Sahle spent part of his summer a couple of years ago exploring the mountain range on foot, with his tent and camera in tow. His photos from this trip can be found on his Flickr and they're breathtaking. I'd love to visit these mountains.

Have you visited the Pyrenees? What was your experience like?

And, as always, if you'd like to submit a photo to us for our Photo of The Day, just upload it to the Gadling Flickr Pool.

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Photo of the day: Pyrenees camping originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Top 20 countries for life expectancy

Justin Delaney — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, Angola, China, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Andorra, France, Iceland, Italy, Monaco, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, United States, Australia, News, Caribbean, Hong Kong

"Old people" - we all hope to live long enough to earn this distinction. In some countries, the probability of living well into your eighties is much better than in others. The worldwide average for life expectancy is just a smidge over 67, with the highest and lowest countries fluctuating by over 20 years in each direction. 39 of the bottom 40 countries are located on the African continent, and 3 of the top 5 are European micro-states. The United States ranks in at number 50, boasting a life expectancy of 78 years old.

At the bottom of the list is Angola, a country in southwestern Africa with a machete on its flag. The average life expectancy in Angola is almost 39 years old. At the other end of the spectrum is Monaco (pictured above). Monaco is a micro-state in Europe with an extremely high standard of living. The average person there lives to be 89 years old. The 50 year gap between these two countries represents the difference between yacht ownership and subsistence farming, and every other country falls somewhere in between. For the full list, check out the world fact book at cia.gov.

20. Bermuda - 80.71
19. Anguilla - 80.87 (at right)
18. Iceland - 80.90
17. Israel - 80.96
16. Switzerland - 81.07
15. Sweden - 81.07
14. Spain - 81.17
13. France - 81.19
12. Jersey - 81.38
11. Canada - 81.38
10. Italy - 81.77

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Top 20 countries for life expectancy originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Schengen and the disappearance of European passport stamps

Alex Robertson Textor — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Europe, Cyprus, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City

Creative new use for border crossing posts at German/Austrian border.

In the late 1980s, an American spending a summer traveling across Europe with a Eurailpass would see his or her passport stamped possibly dozens of times. With a few exceptions, every time a border was crossed, an immigration agent would pop his or her head into a train compartment, look at everyone's passports, in most cases stamp them, and move on. Every Eastern Bloc country required visas, some of which could be obtained at the border and others of which had to be applied for in advance.

Today, an American can enter the Schengen zone in Helsinki, fly to Oslo and then on to Amsterdam, proceed by train through Belgium, France, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, then by bus to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and then by ferry back to Helsinki before catching a flight to Athens and landing in Greece without once needing to submit a passport to a border guard's scrutiny.

The development of the Schengen agreement across Europe has altered the geopolitical map of the continent in many ways. For tourists, the development of the Schengen zone has simplified travel by drastically reducing the number of times a passport can be checked and stamped as national borders are crossed.

The Schengen Agreement is named after the town of Schengen in Luxembourg. It was here in 1985 that five countries-Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, West Germany, and France-signed an agreement to essentially create borderless travel between them. A model for this agreement had been created years before by the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), which eliminated border controls back in 1948. The Nordic countries also did away with internal border posts, in 1958.

In 1995, the five original Schengen countries plus Portugal and Spain inaugurated the zone. In 1997, Austria and Italy joined. Greece followed in 2000 and the five Nordic countries joined in 2001. In late 2007, nine more countries joined the Schengen zone; most recently, Switzerland signed up in 2008.

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Schengen and the disappearance of European passport stamps originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why Luxembourg matters

Andrew Evans — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: Hiking, Europe, Andorra, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Vatican City

Europe has lots of tiny countries. The rest of the world reminds itself of this fact periodically, almost as a running joke. How Vatican City is the smallest "independent" state, but (come on people), is it really a country? Andorra sounds charming, too, until you go there and discover it's only the European Union's largest outlet mall. Likewise, Monaco's just a casino with a racecar track, and Liechtenstein's a drive-thru bank for dodgy Russians with Austrian passports.

Despite the less-romantic realities of present-day Europe, we travelers still get a kick out of these nifty, little hold-out principalities and monarchies. Somehow, they've prevailed in the tempest of European history, avoiding absorption into their larger neighbors all the way into the 21st century when we can ironically celebrate quirky existential nationhoods in the face of supranationalist sentiments.

I first visited Luxembourg on a whim--hopped a train in Brussels and three hours later, stepped off somewhere deep in the Ardennes. I was young, brave, and poor and it was late at night. I walked away from the one-room station in Arlon and disappeared into the forest, bumbling in the woods until the sounds of passing cars disappeared. When I found a comfortable spot, I pushed away the pine needles and lay down on the cold ground, using my lumpy canvas backpack as a pillow.

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Why Luxembourg matters originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Trade Mocked

Andrew Evans — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America, Algeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Morocco, South Africa, Zambia, Bangladesh, Iran, Israel, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Turkey, United Arab, Emirates, Vietnam, Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Monaco, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominica, El Salvador, Jamaica, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Internet Tools, Middle East, Central America, Caribbean, French Polynesia

You were a cheerleader, you dated a cheerleader, or you hated the cheerleaders. As I recall, that's how high school worked.

Thanks to travel PR, that same primeval paradigm lives on long after graduation. That miniskirts-shouting-slogans thing still works, whether you're a used car salesman, Miley Cyrus on VH1 or the tourist board of a small Balkan nation. When it comes to selling your destination in today's busy world of busy people, a country's name just isn't enough--just like school spirit, you need colors, a pep band, a mascot, a brand and most important--a cheer.

It's tragic but true: tourist boards don't trust their country's name to inspire appropriate thoughts in your brain. Toponyms are too open-ended and too untrustworthy--also, way too obvious. For example, what's the first thing that pops into your head when I say . . . Monte Carlo? How about Australia? The Bahamas? Kuwait? The Gambia?

Whatever you're thinking, it's not enough. Tourist boards want you to choose their destination over all others, then allocate all of your vacation days to them and then come spend your money on very specific things--like miniature golf by the sea or hot air balloon rides across the prairie. In short, they want your school spirit so much they're churning out cheers to fill up all the Swiss cheese holes in your mental map of the world.

Like a good cheer, a good destination slogan is simple and so memorable it sticks in your head like two-sided tape. Sex sells, but then so does love: "Virginia is for Lovers", Hungary offers visitors "A Love for Life", Albania promises "A New Mediterranean Love", while the highlighted "I feel Slovenia" spells out sweetly "I Feel Love". Meanwhile, Bosnia & Herzegovina call themselves "the Heart Shaped Land" and Denmark's logo is a red heart with a white cross. Colombia and Dubai have red hearts in their logo. Everybody else uses sunshine.

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Trade Mocked originally appeared on Gadling on Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Photo of the Day (9.4.09)

Aaron Hotfelder — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: Andorra, Photo of the Day

Flickr user localsurfer took this spectacular shot from the Incles Valley in Andorra, the tiny 181-square-mile country located in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. Because I don't know a damn thing about Andorra, and this photo has convinced me that I should, I've conducted a very small amount of research about the principality (read: looked it up on Wikipedia). Here's what I've come up with:

Andorra is well-known as a tax haven, which would be useful information if I had any money.
Andorra's inhabitants have the highest life expectancy in the world at birth-- 85 years.
There are no airports or universities in Andorra.
Andorra's name is thought to be derived from a word which means "shrub-covered land." Sexy!
Travel writer Rolf Potts once walked across the entire country-- and lived to tell about it!

Want your photo considered for Gadling's Photo of the Day? Upload your best shots here.

Photo of the Day (9.4.09) originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Europe's Wee Nations

Erik Olsen — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:44:00 EST

Filed under: Arts and Culture, History, Europe, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco

You know all the big ones by heart, the ones who loom in your remembrances of Western Civilization class and, well, perhaps many a vacation or period living abroad. The names are so familiar: France, Britain, Italy and so on. But what about the little ones? The wee nations of Europe who have their own flags and governments, perhaps their own currencies, and who certainly deserve a look should you be planning a trip to the continent any time soon...or later, for that matter.

Well, this tidy little guide from Fodors takes you on a brief tour of Europe's wee states. Places like Andorra, given its independence by Charlemagne when they helped fight the Moops, er, Moors centuries ago. There is Monaco, which many backpack travelers know for its casinos and as the parking place for vast and unfathomably pricey yachts of the rich and discreet. There is Lichtenstein, the sleepy, but wealthy little haven along the Rhine between Switzerland and Austria where if you blink while on the road, you miss it. And so on...

It's a cool, useful little list and made me think that someone should do a book about the world's smallest countries. Hmmmm...

Europe's Wee Nations originally appeared on Gadling on Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Minicountry Skiing. Hello, Andorra!

Iva Skoch — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 07:50:00 EST

Filed under: Skiing, Europe, Andorra

Some people say that Spain is the California of Europe: you can beach it in the morning and ski in the afternoon. Not that Spaniards would ever try to attempt such a packed schedule...

While you can ski in the Spanish Pyrenees, some people say that skiing is better in Andorra, one of those tiny countries in Europe, stuck between France and Spain. It only has 60,000 people (and the world's highest life expectancy). You could probably meet all of them on the slopes. Everyone else will be in the stores...Andorra is a tax haven and tourists like to come here to buy booze and cigs.

This site offers good information on skiing. Sounds pretty affordable, too. Plus, it adds another easy country to your list. Not that you care about lists, of course.

Minicountry Skiing. Hello, Andorra! originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 26 Dec 2006 07:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chad's Quest for More Manly Name

Neil Woodburn — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 13:27:00 EST

Filed under: Activism, Andorra, April Fools Posts

Tired of the ridicule and mockery member nations say they face on a daily basis, the Committee for the Advancement of Poorly Named Countries is petitioning the United Nations for approval to change the official names of their respective homelands. "I mean, come on, my country sounds like it is a gay waiter, for God's sake," said Naboo Mutomaba, a representative from the African nation of Chad.

Chad is part of a sizeable subcommittee fighting for more manly national monikers. "We're tired of diplomats making fun of us at U.N. happy hours and state functions," added Pierre Fornaut who lost diplomatic immunity in January when he attacked a Spanish diplomat for mocking his effeminate sounding homeland of Guadeloupe. Others from Gabon, Andorra, Yemen, and Martinique have expressed similar harassment at the hands of U.N. hecklers.

Changing country names is hardly a new practice for skittish, insecure nations and principalities. The Isle of Man, for example, used to be called Daffodil Island until angry male citizens finally rebelled. "They are my heroes," Mutomaba told the U.N. who just last month rejected his petition to rename Chad, Lord Berkeley's Knob. It was discovered that a small town in Scotland was already using this moniker and Mutomaba was visibly crestfallen upon hearing the news. "Well I guess things could be worse," he admitted. "At least we're not named Brest." At which point a French diplomat from Brittany hauled off and slugged him.

Chad's Quest for More Manly Name originally appeared on Gadling on Sat, 01 Apr 2006 13:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Perspectives on Travel Writing

Dave (Blogsmith, old) — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 08:49:00 EST

Filed under: Blogs, Stories, Andorra

I wanted to point out two satirical pieces I read this week centered in some way around the wonderful world of travel writing. The first is a short blog post over at Words without Borders: A good travel guide beats reality. The musings of Arnon Grunberg made me chuckle, especially as I look around my bedroom at the six or so guidebooks I currently have scattered about. It looks like I'm trying to cram in lots of juicy guidebook details before I head off on my trip. Maybe I am?! I plan to leave all but one book behind -- which will make the cut? And what happens if none of what I read is true once I'm on the road?!?! Will all our greatest travel fantasies really come true if the guide book says they will? The second piece is a smart travel essay by Rolf Potts: The Art of Writing a Story About Walking Across Andorra is based on a true travel story but told with a strong satirical twist. Potts unleashes his perspective on the "...conventions and clichés of mainstream travel writing" in a creative and captivating essay. Two very unique pieces of writing that focus on different genres -- I think both are worth a read if you enjoy any kind of travel writing.

Perspectives on Travel Writing originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 05 Jan 2006 08:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One for the Road: Ski Snowboard Europe

Dave (Blogsmith, old) — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 13:35:00 EST

Filed under: Skiing, Andorra

I was reading Tripso's 11 Perfect Gifts For Travelers and agreed with author Charles Leocha's suggestion that niche guidebooks which focus on particular interests of travelers are indeed super gift ideas. Of course, Leocha used this gift idea list as an opportunity to recommend his own niche travel guides: Ski Snowboard Europe is a step-by-step guide to planning a winter adventure in the Alps in Austria, Italy, Switzerland or France as well as some resorts in Norway, Spain and Andorra. Leocha points out which resorts are best for families or singles and which are recommended for different skill-level skiers and snowboarders. The book also includes helpful details about the atmosphere of particular lodges and updated contact information to make booking your trip easy as a ski down the bunny slope. Leocha is a black-diamond skier who has also written Ski Snowboard America and Canada. The latest editions of both books were released in October 2005.

One for the Road: Ski Snowboard Europe originally appeared on Gadling on Sat, 24 Dec 2005 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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