Every so often we here at The Poverty Jet Set get pinged by a cool new blog, and I wanted to send a shout out and a word of thanks from Lara Dunston at Cool Travel Guide. She was kind enough to add us to her short and highly reputable blogroll, so of course I checked it out and was pleasantly surprised, so I subscribed! Check out, for example, one of her posts on traffic hazards in Thailand. Having traveled extensively through South East Asia myself a few times, I can relate! In fact, that reminds me of an amazing post I’m going to write about an insane bus ride in Vietnam…
And for you foodies out there, she’s got lots of great posts on the joys of eating and travel like this one.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a good ol’ long-distance adventure blog, so I thought it high time. While certainly not quite as hard core as walking or biking around the world, the Half Throttle guys did a pretty bang-up job on documenting their adventures motorcycling from Utah to Panama. They’ve got some great videos and photos to prove it. Have a look at Episode 29: Pan-American Highway:
Instead of having a party to celebrate the end of our second season of the Illadates show, we thought it might be fun to have a contest for our season finale show happening in a couple weeks. Isn’t that exciting!? Here’s the announcement we made yesterday:
Head over to uwishunu for details. You can email your date idea to iknow [at] uwishunu.com or leave a comment to enter the contest! We’ll be keeping track of the best pitches, and probably posting them in a blog post. You can vote for your faves, soon, too!
We can’t wait to hear what your favorite date in Philly is. Make ‘em good, people. We want to have some fun with you! Even if you don’t live in Philly, wouldn’t this be a great excuse for a visit?
And do us a favor… spread the word for us! Kthxbai.
These kids are amazing. I love this photo essay. Check out the gorgeous, heart breaking shots of kids riding rails, living the free(?) life. I’ve met so many of these kinds of people during my travels and always had such a conflicted feeling of envy and heartbreak.
Thanks, Vagabondish. And btw, if you haven’t read Vagabondish, you should. Especially if you love the more adventure travel stuff that I write about here on the PJS. Much love and props, Mike. You’re doing a great job.
Port Richmond isn’t the first place to pop into most young urbanite’s mind when pondering a date, but it should! It’s a great neighborhood, the heart of the Polish American community in Philadelphia. Audrey and Mark head up there in Episode 16 to have dinner at Syrenka, one of the most famous Polish restaurants in town. They ride the historic trolley Route 15 up there and have a beer at Byrne’s Tavern. Join us!
Last week was, understandably, a bit crazy. I didn’t get much of a chance to promote our last episode of Illadates. In fact, I completely forgot to cross-post it here. It’s one of my favorite episodes to date. Do have a watch!
[Note: Audrey's gonna write her own posts on The Poverty Jet Set now, too! Hurray!]
Today my trusty steed, Ron Burgundy, was towed away to rest his rusty bones in some kind of junkyard. Yes, my burgundy 1994, four-door Oldsmobile had a name, and he served me well. We shared many moments together. Mark and I were with Ron when he hit 100,000 on the odometer back on our road trip last winter. Here, you can watch for yourself…
All I have left to remember him by are these videos and this I BRAKE FOR GOLF COURSES plate cover. Heh. Adios, Ron.
Audrey and I brought our video camera along with us on some errands around town and decided to shoot a quick couple of vids for Lonely Planet TV, the new video site made by the fantastic travel book publishing company. They’ve got a contest up on the site asking for videos about places you feel at home. Obviously, that’s what Audrey and I love to do, so we had to enter. Here are our goofy creations. Goofy being an understatement. We’re nerds. Please forgive us in advance. But if you get a chance, click over to the site and rate them high for us! FTW!
We used to call ourselves Cheap Dates, but due to a lil’ trademark trouble, we’re now calling our show of dating awesomeness in Philly Illadates. Made with love, to you and yours.
In Episode 13 of Illadates, we decided to try something new. Let us know what you think! A double date with a couple of guest stars! Writer, blogger, dandy extraordinaire, soon-to-be-portrayed-by-Johnny-Depp-on-film (truth!) Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy and his lovely wife Lady Pinkwater brought us to some of their favorite spots in town.
We started by a fanciful walk through the lovely historical Bartram’s Garden, birthplace of American horticulture. Then, true to dandy form, we had a late afternoon aperitif at Caribou Cafe on 12 & Walnut. Beau Monde’s amazing crepes finished off our evening but not before we stopped into Anastacia’s Antiques, a curiosity shop on Bainbridge Street not to be missed!
Behold, glacier wave surfing. Oh yeah, it’s exactly as you imagine. DeepwaterFilms gets heavy into it as world champion big wave surfers, Garrett McNamara and Kealii Mamala ride into a monster tsunami created by Child’s Glacier in South-Central Alaska.
I’ve seen these glaciers up close while I was adventure guiding in Alaska and I can tell you, surfing like this is completely insane. But totally awesome. Speaking of Alaskan surfing adventures, have you ever seen someone surf the tidal bore on the Turnagain Arm? I have. It’s also awesome. Nothing cooler than a ten-mile tidal wave.
Ride ‘em while you can, folks. We’ll be out of glaciers in a few years.
I’m a huge fan of Edward Abbey, of course, but particularly his book Desert Solitaire. In it, Abbey vehemently laments new construction of roads into Arches National Park in Utah while he was a Park Ranger. An outspoken advocate of keeping wilderness wild, Abbey hated watching the wilds over run by exhaust- and filth-spewing machines (see quote below).
This is a really shocking map graphic (click image to enlarge) from the U.S. Geological Survey showing how little of America remains truly wild - and roadless. It makes me very, very sad, and I’m sure Abbey is rolling in his grave. I’d tell you to go to the wilds now before they disappear, but I suppose that’d be advocating the very act that destroys wilderness. If you do go, remember to Leave No Trace! And maybe walk or bike there.
Just don’t be one of the “fat pink slobs who go roaring over the landscape in these over-sized over-priced over-advertised mechanical mastodons are people too lazy to walk, too ignorant to saddle a horse, too cheap and clumsy to paddle a canoe.” (Ed Abbey)
When I was younger, I spent a couple summers in Alaska as an adventure tour guide. The first summer there, on the first day I arrived, a guy at the youth hostel in Anchorage handed me a beat-up copy of ‘Into the Wild‘. He just said, “Welcome to Alaska. Read this. It’ll change your life.” I love when books do that! I devoured Jon Krakauer’s book in a couple days, probably shirking some of my duties as guide to get an extra few pages in before packing gear or setting up tents or making dinner.
I won’t get into the details of the book now. Believe me, you should read it. Period. But a bit of exciting news just belatedly crossed the editorial desk here at The Poverty Jet Set! ‘Into the Wild‘ has been made into a big-budget feature film directed by Sean Penn! Sa-weet! The trailer looks friggin’ amazing!
Here’s something I didn’t expect. As I was trolling YouTube for a copy of the trailer, I found these excellent videos made by a couple of cool, yet nutty Alaskans (aren’t they all?) having their version of fun with a 4-wheel drive truck in the dead of winter, retracing the steps Christopher McCandless took on his fateful journey to the heart of darkness/the wilderness. Make sure to watch both parts of this really well done homemade exploration video! Here’s part one:
NewTeeVee just linked to a new web video project about a dude, Alex Boylan, traveling around the world with nothing but the shirt on his back. No money. No plan. Just a video crew and (presumably) a laptop to blog with. I can dig that. You as his audience can interract and tell dude where to go, what to do, who to hang with. Around the World for Free could be pretty awesome. We’ll see once he starts off on his journey next Tuesday from New York.
Something smells a little fishy about this effort, though. Maybe it’s the uber-Flash FanRocket site with no permalinks, auto browser resizing and crazy strobing ads. Maybe it’s the oddly corporate Press Release. Or the non-embedable videos. I dunno. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. They might have a great production team on board, following guy around to make some super entertaining vids.
I just wish companies like this would have a better understanding of social media. I wish it was more grassrootsy. More authentic. Like the kids over at In a Van By the River. Or all the other adventure travel series I’ve posted about before. Or, for that matter, as humble and wonderful as the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler. Who can compete with Matt Gross? The man’s a master. Lucky for him he’s got a great video editor and a media giant in his corner. That helps.
The vernable travel guidebook company, Lonely Planet, is going to start letting you slice, dice and mashup it’s guidebooks so you can create customized books for exactly the info you want for your particular trip. No more carrying around your 2000-pound copy of SE Asia on a Shoestring! Well, not quite yet. So far, they’ve made South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean available.
It’s a brilliant idea and a long time coming. When I go traveling, often, I would just head to the library and photocopy the sections I wanted so I didn’t have to lug the whole book around. And while I love libraries, it probably costs just as much with the copier charges as to just buy these.
How does it work? Well, all you have to do it head to their Pick and Mix page, find the chapters you want, download the PDF of each, staple them together and voila! Each chapter costs between $2-4 and they’ll throw in the “Planning Your Trip” chapter for free. Cool.
Yes, this is the second Lord Whimsypost in a week, but it just happens that we spent the day on Saturday cruising around the pastoral landscapes of central New Jersey with him, checking out roadside attractions, antiques joints and other rural ephemera. Here’s the video of when we got back to his house and unloaded the loot.
And by the way, if you still don’t know what Whimsy’s all about, you really ought to check out his amazing book. I’m not just plugging it because we’re friends, either. It is truly a work of genius. Please, do yourself a favor and buy a copy.
In the world of long-distance adventures, this guy Andrew Skurka sure ranks up there. The dude is what one might call a professional backpacker. I love that there even is such a thing because it gives me the vague daydream that I might do that some day.
This summer, he is hiking the Great Western Loop, a 6,875 mile loop of the Western United States that has him scheduled to log between 30 and 37.5 miles per day. He is hiking through 12 National Parks, 75 wilderness areas, and passing through many areas that could be deeply affected by global warming. He is hoping to raise awareness of the ecological damage global warming would cause.
That’s pretty awesome. While he’s not a videoblogger, per se, I’m psyched he does have cool videos. They do the trick. Also, check out this vid JourneyFilm made about his journey:
I am absolutely LOVING the Frugal Traveler’s video series. It’s taken a new step toward subverting the dominant paradigm by checking out some of the the coolest, most forward thinking people in America. He’s all about the fringe! Yeah!
In the latest episode, Matt goes and stays with an anarchist collective/intentional community in rural Wisconsin. How freakin’ cool is that!? Not something you’d expect from a major media outlet. Or perhaps this is his own small way of dissenting? I don’t know, but I’m hooked.
Also, be sure to watch the previous episode where he goes CouchSurfing in Indiana!
The Frugal Traveler is off looking for ‘old school’ Nashville. I have to say, I’m pretty glad that he’s sticking to the under-discovered highlights of the town. Thank God he’s slummin’ it with the old timers and shoe shiners. I’d quit watching if he didn’t. Have a look for yourself!
On an aside, want to give a shout out to my new acquaintance, Ted Fisher who edits the show! He’s got a blog on documentary production called Actualities.
So I’m hanging out in Telluride, Colorado this past weekend at MountainFilm Festival. It’s the last day of my time there, and my buddy Luigi and I are just minding our own business, hanging out enjoying a little mountain sunshine and springtime creek sounds when this fella comes up to us and says,
“Hey brothers, I hate to ask, but could you perhaps, if the Gods divine it, spare a small nugget for a travelin’ man?” We don’t have any, but he continues to entertain us with his interesting pressense. Apparently, he’s just in town doin’ a little fly fishing.
Oh, and speaking of fly fishing, if you’re a fan or even vaguely curious about the sport, you should really have a look at the trailer of my friend Ben Knight’s film “Running Down the Man” that debuted this year at MountainFilm. He and his buddies head down to Baja California to fish for the “uncatchable” roosterfish and tool around on a pretty wicked dune buggy. You can pick up a copy of his film on DVD from his website. You won’t regret it.
