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Amazon posts
Video: Amazon Ants Transform Into Life Raft
Mar 25th, 2013 at 4:00PM:
If you're still haunted by the sight of spiders raining down on a Brazilian city, as we brought to your attention last month, this heartwarming nature video might be a palette-cleanser. Captured by the BBC, fire ants in the Amazon adapted to a flood by ganging together and turning themselves into a raft for their queen. Braving all manner of threats (speedboat on your left!), the colony clung ...
Accusations Fly Over New Honduras Guidebook
Mar 23rd, 2013 at 10:00AM:
The new edition of Moon Handbooks' guide to Honduras and the Bay Islands, published in December, already has 49 reviews on Amazon. That's 15 times more than the previous version of the book. But 39 reviewers gave it a one-star rating, the lowest possible. What happened to warrant such an unusual trashing? Did the author confuse Honduras for an entirely different country?
No – in fact, ...Gadling Gear Review: Kindle Fire HD
Mar 18th, 2013 at 8:00AM: There is no doubt that tablet computers have had a dramatic impact on travel over the past few years. These lightweight and versatile devices provide us with all kinds of entertainment options while keeping us in contact with friends and family back home. Of course, the iPad is the 900-pound gorilla in the tablet space, but over the past year or so some real competition has arrived on the scene ...The Worst-Smelling Towns In America
Aug 1st, 2012 at 9:00AM: Last week, I was in Eureka, California, for a couple of days with my parents and brother's family. Despite the cute, historic downtown and an epic feast at the renown Samoa Cookhouse, our overwhelming impression of this coastal city is that it should be renamed "Eureeka," because it stinks – literally.
The stench of ... bait fish? Fish meal or perhaps cat food processing enveloped our ...Photo of the Day: giant otter
Mar 25th, 2012 at 6:00PM:
Flickr user Max Waugh Photography was on a nature excursion in the Peruvian Amazon when he came upon this unique species of giant otter, popping its head above the glassy water surface. I love the photo's close up details - the animal's elongated neck, wiry whiskers and curious stare. With great nature shots like this one, it's particularly important to get as close (as is safe) or zoomed in ...Explore the Amazon with Google Street View
Mar 23rd, 2012 at 8:00AM: Yesterday, in honor of World Forest Day, Google rolled out a new addition to their popular Street View application. The Internet search giant updated the service with imagery and data from the Amazon River, giving would-be explorers the opportunity to travel along that famous waterway without ever leaving the comfort of their own home.
According to the official Google Blog members of the Street ...Book review: inyourpocket guide to Athens
Feb 15th, 2012 at 9:00AM: This was originally supposed to be a review of the Rough Guide to Greece. I really like the Rough Guides and two weeks before I set off to write my travel series about Greece I ordered a copy from Amazon. The morning of my flight it still hadn't arrived.
Luckily I knew about the inyourpocket guides. I had never tried these free, downloadable guides to dozens of cities, and now looked like the ...Adventure vacation Guide 2012: Ecuador
Jan 3rd, 2012 at 9:30AM:
Most Norteamericanos are hard-pressed to locate Ecuador on the map. Those familiar with this South American country the size of Colorado usually associate it with the (admittedly) spectacular Galapagos Islands. Yet Ecuador has so much more offer besides the Galapagos, and 2012 is the year to get your hardcore on. Why? Because the country's adventure travel industry is blowing up--but it's ...Gadling Gift Guide: Tech for Travel
Dec 8th, 2011 at 9:00AM: Travel has certainly changed in the last decade and most of us would probably agree that those changes haven't always been for the best. Fortunately, technology has been one of the bright spots over the past few years however, and we now have a plethora of options for entertainment, staying connected, and getting work done while on the go. Here are a few great gift ideas for the techie traveler on ...New Seven Wonders of Natural World revealed amidst controversy
Nov 15th, 2011 at 8:00AM: After four years of hype and fanfare, the new seven wonders of the natural world were unveiled last Friday, honoring some of the most amazing landscapes on the planet. But as the competition drew to a close, dark clouds of controversy formed, casting a shadow over the entire affair.
The selection process for the new seven wonders began back in 2007, when 440 natural wonders, from 220 countries, ...Bolivian president vetoes Amazon road
Oct 29th, 2011 at 9:00AM: Bolivian President Evo Morales signed a law on Tuesday that forbids the construction of a new road through the Amazon Rainforest. The road was seen as a threat to the ecosystem of one of Bolivia's more popular national parks and a tribe of indigenous people that live there.
The new road was to be funded by Brazil and would have been approximately 177 km (109 miles) in length. But the ...Uncontacted tribe discovered in the Amazon
Jun 23rd, 2011 at 8:00AM: Officials from Brazil's National Indian Foundation (Funai) have announced the discovery of another uncontacted tribe living deep inside the Amazon Jungle. The tribe is estimated to have a population of about 200 people who have continued to live in the same natural manner for centuries, untouched by the modern world.
Evidence of the tribe first surfaced when researchers spotted a small clearing ...Five places to see shrunken heads
Jun 17th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
Call me sick, but I've always been fascinated with shrunken heads.
"OK, you're sick!"
Fine, but you're still reading this, aren't you?
Throughout history many cultures took heads as trophies, including the ancestors of many Gadling readers--the Celts. Celtic warriors used to cut the heads off of enemies and attach them to their chariots to look extra intimidating in battle. Japanese ...Top five things to look for in a travel doctor, and why you should have one
May 19th, 2011 at 10:30AM: Despite writing about food and adventure travel for a living, I used to be somewhat blasé about the concept of travel medicine. Multiple incidents of Giardia/dysentery/traveler's diarrhea/full-body outbreaks of mosquito and sand fly bites just taught me to carry a serious stash of antibiotics in my first-aid kit. At least I've always been conscientious about travel immunizations and ...New photos released of remote Brazilian rainforest tribe
Feb 1st, 2011 at 4:30PM:
Survival International, a UK-based rights group dedicated to protecting indigenous communities worldwide, has just released new photographs of an "uncontacted" group of indigenous people living on the Brazilian-Peruvian border. This is only the second time in two years photos of the isolated Indians have ever been released.
FoxNews reports the photos were taken by Brazil's Indian Affairs ...Travelocity video contest awards winners $5,000 voluntourism vacation grants
Jan 31st, 2011 at 5:00PM:
Travelocity knows you work hard. That's why the online travel company would like to give you a $5,000 grant to go on vacation.
Calm down now. You have to work to win your just reward. And by work, I mean you or a team need to submit a winning video. Then you have to use your five thousand smackers to take a Signature Trip volunteer vacation offered by Travelocity's voluntourism partners. ...
New report says Amazon reveals one new species every three days
Oct 28th, 2010 at 12:00PM: 2010 has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity to help raise awareness of the vast numbers of species that exist on our planet and the challenges that now threaten many of them with extinction. There is no place on the planet that exemplifies the concept of biodiversity like the Amazon jungle, which is home to thousands of different animal species and tens of thousands of plants. ...Perfect for Amazon Kindle users - free 25 language phrasebook
Oct 18th, 2010 at 5:30PM: If you are one of the millions of happy users of an Amazon Kindle, then you may want to point your Kindle towards this free 25 language phrasebook.
In the book, you get a massive amount of phases, general language information, pronunciation tips and more. The guide covers the following languages:
German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, ...Nuts about Peru's Tambopata National Reserve
Sep 8th, 2010 at 3:00PM: Nuts--if you think about these things, which evidently I do--evoke blustery fall afternoons, or wintery evenings before a roaring fire. You bust out the nutcracker, and get to work. At least, that's what my family did when I was a kid, even though I grew up in Southern California where, let's face it, the weather is seldom blustery. Anyways, we always had a lot of Brazil nuts in the communal bowl, ...Sole survivor of Amazon tribe is most isolated man on Earth
Aug 24th, 2010 at 11:30AM: He's the last of his kind.
Nobody knows his name, nobody knows his tribe's name, and nobody knows what happened to the rest of his people. The last man of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon is now being protected from the outside world by the Brazilian government.
Officials have created a 31 square-mile exclusion zone in his patch of rain forest to keep out loggers, something local logging ...
