Reminds me that ski season is coming up – something I never forget even though I’m stuck in the city these days! Boy, I hope to get out and do some deep powder this winter. But, don’t worry, Ma, I won’t get into this sort of mess. I hope.

(via NewTeeVee)

Lemme esplain: say you’re planning a big life-changing travel trip – like a year in India or something – you sit there with your airline tickets all reserved and ready and you know you’re about to spend thousands of dollars and have untold wild adventures in unknown lands, yet you sit, hesitating over the mouse with your finger slightly raised and beads of sweat building around your temples.

Nervously, you finger the button, but don’t push it. You’re flirting with it. You get up, have another cup of coffee. You sit back down and the ‘complete transaction’ icon stares you in the face, but so does the ‘close browser’ button. The action to commit is so clear – just *push the button* – make friends with the unknown future, extend your hand, embrace it. And then, finally, once you do, you’ve crossed to the other side. Take a deep breath. You’ve committed and there’s no turning back. But it feels damn good. You’re all in.

Rare are the opportunities in life as clear as this. Go with it.

A friend of mine (I can’t remember who now) told me about getting camping permits for the islands and spending a whole week there, lounging in hammocks and snorkeling in the crystal blue water. And camping passes are $5 a night. Apparently almost all of the visitors that go only stay for a day trip and return to Key West by evening, leaving the island empty and quiet. Sign. Me. Up. Who’s with me?

(thanks, Peg, for reminding me to blog about this!)

Audrey and I have a soft spot in our hearts for the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. It’s one of the most wild areas on the East Coast, and lord knows we love wilderness. As it happens, our friend Allan (aka Lord Whimsy) knows a heck of a lot about the nature and history of the area and loves trecking out to the cranberry bogs in search of interesting stuff. In case you missed it, I took some of my favorite photos of the year on our orchid hunting adventure last spring. It was bitterly cold out – only 5′F and windy – today, but we had a great time exploring.

As always, there are many more photos on my Flickr page here.

I have never done the swim yet, but I have heard about it’s legend for years. My brother Paul, his best friend Chris, Chris’s siblings and several other nutty kids love to jump into the Bushkill Creek at Jacobsburg State Park in my high school hometown every Christmas. This is the 8th 9th year they’ve done it! I love this kind of good old fashioned funtimes. I’m going to try my best to be there for the 10-year anniversary. Check these great photos by Chris’s sister Schuyler:

In 1961, 23-year-old Michael Rockefeller traveled to Papua to pursue a career in anthropology and escape the silver straitjacket that came from being the son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. After his dugout canoe swamped in the Arafura Sea, he went missing. Almost 50 years later, reporter Tim Sohn and a film crew ventured to Papua to investigate whether he drowned, was eaten by cannibals, or survived to live Kurtz-like in a remote village.

The Wend Magazine Blog pointed out a pretty radical new project called the Lost Coast Bike Expedition. It’s a couple of guys, Eric and Dylan, who are off to explore the fringes of rugged coastline from Alaska by… bike? And boat. And foot. But as most of your know, whatever the method of transportation, this type of adventure is right up my alley. I love this coastline. It’s incredible. One of the great Wild places on earth. Plus, they’re blogging about it. Yes! Here’s a photo from one of their first days:

Speaking of cool adventures, BoingBoing today wrote about a cool interactive map feature on Good Magazine’s website showing some of the great adventures of history. Click the image to see more:

I (Audrey) recently took a trip down to Hot Springs, Arkansas to begin researching a documentary film I am making. I met my mother (whom the film is partially about) down there and we spent 5 days digging up the past, eating fried catfish and barbecue, bathing in hot springs and soaking up the vibe of this little town, and I have to say- I am in love with the history and old Americana feel of Hot Springs. Here are a couple of photos from the trip, the rest are on Mark’s Flickr page. I will be posting more about this project in the months (and years?) to come, I may even create a separate blog for the film, but I will keep everyone POSTED. Ha ha. Pun intended.

One of my new almost heros (almost, since I have not yet, in fact, read his famous book The 4-Hour Work Week), Tim Ferris just posted an interview to his blog with Slovenian marathon swimmer Martin Strel who became the first man to swim the entire length of the Amazon river. Yeah, that’s 3,274 miles, folks.

Choice scary quote:

Q: What were the biggest challenges you faced on the Amazon swim?

A: …Piranhas, snakes, spiders, candirú, bull shark or other animals which make unpredictable attack; you have to be ready all the time if any piranha attack you. We had some buckets of blood ready in case of emergency, to distract the piranha and get them away from me if necessary…

…Peeing; I didn’t pee into the water straight as this attracts a very dangerous fish called the candirú, which lodges up human orifices with a razor-like spike and then sucks your blood. I was peeing all the time through the wetsuit…

Choice awesome quoted quote (from a book about the adventure):

An expedition is 95 percent misery and 5 percent ecstasy. After three weeks of constant motion in a land far way from home, something strange occurs in the sould of a man. He gets broken. The first symptom is a tired or sick feeling, maybe even some fear and a little helplessness. Loneliness. Then something slowly changes within. The old attachments start to fade and he becomes completely present. He forgets about all the crap that keeps him up at night back home. None of it matters anymore.

Longtime readers will know that I day dream a lot about long distance bike adventures, but it’s been a while since I wrote about one.

At MountainFilm in Telluride this year, we had the pleasure of catching this amazing film made by two young French Canadians called Asiemut. The courageous and adventuresome couple, Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier (heros!), bike their way across a significant portion of the Asian continent completely on their own. It’s an amazing film, truly one that inspired me in my own dreams of documenting such an adventure. It’s one of those films that makes you think, ‘damn, you can do anything if you stick your mind to it!’

If you’re planning on doing a trip like this (who isn’t?) they’ve got some great tips on how and where and when to travel on their website. I’m bummed they don’t have a full trailer up on YouTube, though they do have this short clip to give you a sense of the tone of the film:

Asiemut certainly reminded me of my blog buddies, Project Pedal. I’m sure they’ll dig this. Maybe you guys would like to do a bike trip with Audrey and me next? Haha. I can’t wait to see their film!

Since I’m a video nerd, statements like this make me drool (over the possibilities):

We filmed the whole documentary film with a semi-professional camera, mini-dv Sony pdx10, 16:9 format. We traveled with seventy mini-dv tapes and two 360 minutes lithium batteries. We also had one charger, a stool, and a laptop. We took ourselves every single images of our film!

As you can see on the picture below, we had a camera mount that permitted us to film and to speak to the camera as we biked. We created it ourselves in the north of China with the help of two amazing chinese welders. It was attached at the front of our luggage support and was also attached to our handlebar. It was a homemade camera mount, quite heavy, but worked very well!

We had a fantastic day adventuring in the pine barrens with orchid and rare plant fanatic Lord Whimsy on Sunday. It was a rainy, cool spring day, but that didn’t dampen our rare plant finding enthusiasm one bit. Whimsy, his wife Lady Pink and friend Bill were joined by Audrey, Norm, Heather, Brandy and me. Here is a video and some photos of the day. See the whole set of pretty photos here.

Long time readers of my blog know that I love train hopping stories!

From the site:

Filmmaker Alison Murray drops out of the rat race, grabs a camera, and hits the rails with some other punk kids on a trans-continental freight train hopping epic. On their odyssey they encounter a cast of hobos and runaways, scallywags and castaways, finding adventure at every turn. Amidst run-ins with the law, and surviving the perils of the elements, Alison weaves an epic narration over beautifully shot film and video with an old-time soundtrack by Beck (think Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly). Train On The Brain was originally produced for Channel 4 UK by MJW Productions, and was Alison Murray’s first documentary film before directing Mouth to Mouth starring Ellen Page. Train On The Brain is hollywoodcansuckit.com’s first film release.

Sadly, I haven’t made that statement in quite some time, though it remains extremely high on my list of lifestyle priorities. Over the past year, I’ve worked too far from home to effectively bike. Recently, my company moved to a suburb a *little* closer to my house, so after some prodding by my friend Stellargirl, a gorgeous sunny spring morning and an overwhelming need to get my blood pumping, I gave it a whirl today. Just shy of 12 miles according to Google Maps. And boy did it feel good. Now, as I sit and type this on my lunch break, I realize – oh shit. I have to bike all the way home again! My legs are still sore.

If I did this every day, though, I can tell you I would be fit as a fiddle. And I like the sound of that!

Coincidentally, once I got to work, I discovered that this is Bike to Work Week thanks to my pal Sara. Cool!

A family band piles in a van and spends their life surfing and traveling, documents it all on sexy 8- and 16mm film. Can’t get much better than that, folks. The film comes out in a limited release over the course of the summer. It’ll be here in Philly starting June 20th at the Ritz at the Bourse. I’m so there.

Also, here’s the website, but beware: nasty browser resizing, ugh! Surfwise

Wow, it’s hard to believe, but 25-year old Scottsman Mark Beaumont just did. Crazy, huh? And what would a good trip around the world be without a little video blog action?

[thanks, Vagabondish!]

A good buddy from my Telluride days and awesome adventure filmmaker, Ben Knight, has his first of what I hope are many videos up on the New York Times. Nice job, Ben! You gotta dig skiercross. It’s a pretty killer sport, I’m glad to see it’s going olympic.

One of my favorite travel blogs Intelligent Travel just did a fantastic interview with author Robert Neuwirth. He writes SquatterCity, a blog that covers the plight of impoverished people in urban areas. He’s also coming out with a book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World which “is an attempt to humanize these maligned settlements.” In the interview, they talk about how to go about visiting these parts of the city, why you should and why it’s good.

I have a special place in my heart for downtrodden urban areas of the world. Not only do I live on the fringes of some of the worst neighborhoods in my own country, but I’ve been to others in my travels around the world. They are certainly sad places to be, but important for us not to ignore. And certainly not places or people to fear. Seeing the way people live in urban poverty compared to rural poverty is always striking, and I think we can learn so much from the contrast. About the cost of globalization. About human dignity. About the true price of material wealth.

This article also brings to mind a daring documentary I saw at a couple film festivals last year, “Ghosts of Cite Soleil“. It tells the story of some of the gangs in Haiti who struggle with control and survival in the big shantytown of Port-au-Prince. Not sure if it’s been released theatrically, but when it comes out on DVD, I highly recommend it.

Thanks again to all you lovely folks who contributed to our honeymoon wedding present. We love you!

Audrey and I are in much need of a long vacation after many months of hard work. So it’s off to Tulum, Mexico for our honeymoon! We promise to return with good stories, funny videos and lots of amazing photos to make ya jealous. In the meantime, we are unplugging completely. No inkernet. No phone. Nothing. Just hammocks, margaritas, ocean and sunshine. Happy Holidays! See you soon!