Dec 9th, 2009 at 9:00AM:
The equation is straightforward: Too many people attempting to live permanently in the Galapagos + too few jobs to go around = a percentage are resorting to illegal economies to survive. Shark finning is one of those illegalities, and still growing. Financed by mafias based in mainland Ecuador, fins are taken – hacked off, the useless carcasses tossed overboard – and sent abroad ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
islands posts
Bowermaster's Adventures -- Overfishing the Galapagos Islands
Dec 9th, 2009 at 9:00AM:
The equation is straightforward: Too many people attempting to live permanently in the Galapagos + too few jobs to go around = a percentage are resorting to illegal economies to survive. Shark finning is one of those illegalities, and still growing. Financed by mafias based in mainland Ecuador, fins are taken – hacked off, the useless carcasses tossed overboard – and sent abroad ...In the Heart of Central America: Why now is the time to go to Honduras
Dec 4th, 2009 at 9:30AM:
tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.gadling.com/2009/12/04/what-to-do-honduras/'; tweetmeme_source = 'Gadling';
After a week in Honduras, ziplining through the canopy, drinking $1.50 beers on a deserted white sand beach, slaughtering my Spanish pronunciation as I bought a grilled pork skewer from a street vendor, horseback riding through coffee fields, and eating a few too many corn tortillas, I ...Hawaiian airlines offers free flights to the mainland
Nov 17th, 2009 at 3:30PM: Hawaii seems like a beautiful place to live - great coffee, awesome surf conditions, nearly perfect weather at all times. But, hundreds of miles out in the Pacific, I imagine it starts to feel a bit isolated, especially with the high cost of flights from the islands back to the mainland US. But for those Hawaiian islanders looking to get away to the rest of the US for a while, Hawaiian airlines, ...Gadlinks for Friday 11.13.09
Nov 13th, 2009 at 5:00PM:
It's Friday the 13th! I am hoping that makes it a lucky day for me. It's been yet another tough week on the home front for many non-travelers, so maybe some travel reads will help to lift our spirits. Have a look at these....
The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is under way on the North Shore of Oahu, and Pupukea is right in the thick of things. [via Honolulu Magazine]
Speaking of surfing, ...Bowermaster's Adventures -- The Charles Darwin Research Center
Nov 6th, 2009 at 10:00AM: While in the Galapagos filming we ran into an American writer living in Puerto Ayora, the big town on the island of Santa Cruz, researching a book about exactly the same subject of our film – the current state of affairs across the archipelago.
Carol Ann Bassett's book is just out, published by National Geographic, fittingly titled "Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, ...Hotels in the U.S. Virgin Islands offer 25 cent nightly rate
Oct 10th, 2009 at 11:00AM: The U.S. Virgin Islands are going to be featured on a newly designed quarter and to celebrate, hotels around the islands are offering up rooms at 25 cents - yes, just 25 cents! - per night.
Of course, there is some fine print to the offer. Guests will still be responsible for taxes of 7%, resort fees, and government taxes of 8%, so the total ends up being a litte more than the 75 cents you might ...Gadlinks for Wednesday 10.7.09
Oct 7th, 2009 at 5:30PM:
TGI Wednesday! I am really craving some down time and am ready for the weekend already. Only two more days to go, everyone. Hang in there. To keep your week plugging along, here are the latest and greatest travel reads from around the web.
Need to buckle down and do some work in NYC? Check out these 10 NYC cafes with free WiFi. [via Nerdy Nomad]
I really want to travel to eastern Europe, and ...Maldives President proposes green tax for tourists
Sep 12th, 2009 at 11:00AM: The Maldives, an archipelago of over 1000 islands in the Indian Ocean known for their stunning beauty and expensive, luxurious resorts, aren't exactly cheap to visit. And they aren't about to get any cheaper. The President of the Maldives has proposed a $3 per day "green tax" on tourists.
The tax would help fund the President's plans for fighting climate change and for making the Maldives a ..."Best job in the world" winner looking for assistants
Aug 14th, 2009 at 3:00PM: Ben Southall, the guy getting paid A$150,000 to gallivant around the Great Barrier Reef Region (and write about it) has come under fire for not blogging all that often. Tourism Queensland, who sponsored the "best job in the world" contest, blamed the lack of blog posts on poor Internet access and the fact that well, Ben's just too busy "working". Somehow, I don't think those of us who spend our ...The Brando eco-friendly beach resort to open in 2011
Jul 25th, 2009 at 10:00AM: Did you know that Marlon Brando owned (and now his estate owns) an entire French Polynesian atoll 35 miles from Tahiti? Did you also know that Brando dreamed of creating an eco-friendly resort on the atoll? Well both are true, and by 2011 Brando's dream will be a reality, thanks to Richard Bailey, CEO of Tahiti Beachcomber.
Bailey was a longtime friend of Brando's and had been working with him on ...Best job in the world promoting Great Barrier Reef includes a bonus
Jul 9th, 2009 at 5:00PM: Ben Southall, the British guy who won the "Best Job in the World" contest is now busy at work care-taking and exploring the islands of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia to promote them as destination hot spots. In case living on one island for six months sounds claustrophobic , there's no need to worry about Ben.
His girlfriend, a former Canadian gymnast, went with him for this gig that comes ...10 things to do on Jost Van Dyke, the "New York of the Virgin Islands"
Jun 24th, 2009 at 3:32PM:
Only five miles from Tortola, the main commercial center of the British Virgin Islands, minuscule Jost (rhymes with "toast") Van Dyke is a little island with a big reputation. The scant 8-square-mile island -- dubbed the "New York of the Virgin Islands" because it offers so much nightlife -- probably packs more fun per square inch than any other island in the BVIs. Most of the action occurs on ...Bowermaster's Adventures -- Pirates in Seychelles
Jun 4th, 2009 at 10:00AM: Five a.m. on the Indian Ocean, a quarter mile off the small granite island of La Digue. Daylight is still an hour away, the sea flat and quiet, still too early for the call of morning birds and too dark for pirates. And pirates are on everyone's minds and lips here. Just days before Somali pirates had grabbed a tuna boat with a crew of 29 just to the north of where we motor, near Denis Island. A ...Undiscovered New York: Bike tour of Governor's Island
Jun 3rd, 2009 at 2:00PM: New York is a city dominated by islands. Most of these islands, like Manhattan and Staten Island, are easily accessible and fairly well traversed. Yet in a city this densely populated, so well-known and discussed, there still remain pockets of isolation; islands of mysterious calm and forgotten charm that make a visitor feel as though they've stumbled upon the ruins of some grandiose ...Bowermaster's Adventures -- Welcome to the Sea of Zanj!
Jun 1st, 2009 at 10:00AM: Six to seven hundred years ago the very first to explore what we know as the Indian Ocean were Arabs, from Persia and the northern deserts. Searching what every sea-faring explorer of the time was seeking – trading routes and new lands to colonize – they explored what came to be known at the time as the Sea of Zanj, the Sea of Blacks. From the Maldives to the east coast of Africa ...How global warming could change travel
May 13th, 2009 at 4:30PM: We heard it from Al Gore in "An Inconvenient Truth," and we're hearing it again -- this time from the World Ocean Conference 2009 that is in its third of a five-day conference, taking place in Manado, Indonesia: rising sea levels will likely displace millions of island dwellers in the next twenty years. According to two recent articles in the Conde Nast Portfolio and AFP, the the polar ice caps ...Winning an island: Even a 4-year-old can do it
Mar 9th, 2009 at 6:30PM: Imagine this. Instead of the grand prize being a trip to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, the winner of a national lottery gets an entire island. That's what happened to one four-year-old boy. This small boy landed a small island in small country--Taiwan.
The island in Pengu County isn't his forever, but for the next five months he can go there as much as he wants. The great thing is, he gets to ...More on Caribbean travel
Nov 9th, 2008 at 2:30PM: This Sunday's Columbus Dispatch travel section is devoted to Caribbean travel. With this morning's post on Caribbean vacations, written before the Sunday paper arrived on my front porch, I'm wondering if I'm getting a message.
One article, "Caribbean offers comfort for less cash" by David Swanson points out an option not mentioned in today's earlier post--Tobago. After reading about all of ...Interested in the Caribbean? Comprehensive list with of where to head
Nov 9th, 2008 at 10:30AM: I don't know about you, but this time of year when the sky is slate gray more often then it's sunny, and the leaves have dropped from the trees like rain, I start thinking about warmer pastures. "Let's get out of Dodge," I say. Not really, but that's what I fantasize.
The Caribbean has been an appealing option since a couple of years ago a friend asked me if I wanted to go to Costa Rica. Although, ...Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern: Phuket, Thailand
Sep 10th, 2008 at 12:30PM: When I found out that Phuket, Thailand was the setting for the kick off episode of the new season of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel, I flashed to images of tourist filled beaches where jet skiing and para-sailing are high on the list of things to do.
Not if you're Andrew Zimmern who'll eat anything with great gusto, and who has a penchant for heading off to places not ...
