The Poverty Jet Set

(photo: e-liz)

I’m not sure what it is about The Poverty Jet Set blog and boats, but for some reason we’re fascinated by them. Have a look at the photos we took this summer at an abandon shipwreck on the Delaware River!

The particular hobo boat I speak of now (pictured above), however, isn’t in Philly. It’s in Brooklyn. I have, on occasion, walked on or over the Gowanus Canal where it is docked, so maybe I have seen it and didn’t know that it is one of the coolest art projects / youth hostels / community / collective around! Dang!

For those of you too poor to stay in posher digs in NYC, you might want to hit these kids up. Looks like they’re good people.

[thanks, Gridskipper]

Technorati Tags: boat, brooklyn, povertyjetset, concept, community, couchsurfing, travel

Well, everyone, thanks for watching Audrey and my road trip video blog this holiday season! We’ve had fun making it and we’ll probably be making more zaney lil’ videos in the coming weeks in Philadelphia. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, we wish you all a lovely and prosperous New Year Celebration and 2007!

Here’s our last road trip video, for your viewing pleasure.

After 6000+ miles over the last two and a half weeks, we finally made it to (nearly) the end. We’re in Jim Thorpe, PA (named after the great Native American Olympian who won like every single event in something like 1912) with my family. More funny holiday videos to come, folks. Things are gettin’ hectic! Yes!

Watch the Video

I think that title should say it all. Heh.

Well, I fell behind a day there, but heck, it was Christmas! So today I give you two videos in one post for your viewing enjoyment.

First, Christmas day hiking in the mountains near Salt Lake. Next, the first day of our long drive back to the East Coast… from Salt Lake City at 7am to Omaha, Nebraska where I sit in my motel room typing this and gearing up to drive to an IHOP because the “free” breakfast here is super crappy… But we’ll post on that tomorrow!

Christmas Day:

Long Drive in the Big Wide Open West:

For Christmas Eve, the Smiths took us to the Nutcracker Ballet at the Capitol Theater in downtown Salt Lake City. It was really great (reminded me of all those years my sisters danced the Nutcracker in our living room as kids).

Things took an interesting turn after the show, though… according to Audrey, it’s the traditional holiday mishap. As promised yesterday, it’s ACTION!

Audrey and I continue our road trip tomorrow, bright and early. We’re going to be attempting to drive from Salt Lake City to the Pocono Mountains in North East Pennsylvania (over 2,000 miles) in two and a half days for Christmas and New Years with my family. Yeeee hah!

Another chill day in Salt Lake City, as you’ll see. Not much going down here, chez Smith, so not much to report. Just wait until you see tomorrow’s, though! Craaaaazy action coming your way!

Don’tcha just love the mistleltoe shot? Yes, I know, we’re nerds…

Also, we’ve also uploaded a new batch of still photos to my Flickr account. Have a look.

Sorry that it’s been so annoying to comment. I’m trying to figure out why my site isn’t letting you guys leave your comments easily. I thought I’d fixed it. Trying again now. Give it a whirl.

Finally, a quick word about the video site we’re using. It’s called Blip.tv and it’s awesome. Way better than YouTube. They’ve got all sorts of tools and fancy gadgets to use. Check out our show’s homepage. You can leave comments and feedback there, too…

We’re at Day Ten of our holiday road trip, and we’re out of the desert into the wintery mountains. It finally feels like Christmas around here! But heck with Christmas, this video is all about ACTION!

After our perilous trip through the icy nights over the Rocky Mountains, Audrey and I spent the day reeeeeelaxing at her parent’s in Salt Lake City.

Ah, Salt Lake City, a little slice of strip mall smoggy heaven.

In this episode, Audrey and I anger the vortex gods in Sedona who inflict their revenge on us by killing the heater in our car, Ron Burgandy and forcing us to drive for over 6 hours with no heat while it was zero degrees outside.

For all those dedicated die-hard fans out there, following along our amazing adventures on this crazy holiday road trip, and the accompanying video blog to go with it… here are some bonus features straight from the DVD extras! Remember, these are professional stunt people and animals. Do not try this at home.

Audrey and I went back to the horse stables and actually rode the horses this time. Well, we rode one, Sweetheart. Jubilee was still a bit too skitish. Next time.

Spending time in Tucson is fun! Today, we went to see Audrey’s horses that are kept at some stables here, just outside of town. We might ride them tomorrow, but they’re not ridden frequently enough to just jump on the first day.

We spent the day chillin’ out (not driving!). We went on a cool little hike, went to this funky coffee/tea house called Kasba and made a big ol’ dinner. Well, Brian made us a big ol’ dinner, as you’ll see.

Waking up in the desert, swimming in an artesian spring, then driving to Tuscon for a Yule Party at Audrey’s sister and brother-in-laws’…. it was quite a day. My birthday is always cold and dark, so this was a great change!

Howdy friends. Audrey and I decided to do an experiment… we’re going to attempt a near-daily video blog of our trip out West for my 30th birthday and our visit to our families for the holidays. Here’s episode one (in which you might notice, it’s all footage of driving, ‘cuz that’s all we did. Also, I purchased/borrowed a brand new camera from Sprawl Mart so I could use a nicer on during the trip… you’ll notice a significant jump in quality halfway through the video.)

I just found this new blog called Indexed. They post weird little drawings. Stuff like this:

I think this should be the Poverty Jet Set logo or theme or something. It’s brilliant.

Technorati Tags: mystic, idea, povertyjetset, cynic, travel, identity

I’ve met a couple long-distance bicyclists in my day. An interesting lot, to be sure. I’ve always day dreamed about biking across America (Paul, are you reading this?). Just for kicks.

One time, I had a conversation with this guy Dieter, the owner of a youth hostel in Dawson City, Yukon Territory that I was staying at. Dieter had this world map on his office wall with a thin, black line snaking its way up and down the continents of the earth, ending in that far, far corner of Western Canada. I asked him is those were his travels. “Yep,” he said. “My travels on my bike.”

If you ever find yourself in Dawson City, go say hello to him and stay at his hand-made youth hostel. It’s one of the finest hostels I’ve ever been to. Complete with Yukon-style “showers”, log cabins and super excellent international vibe. Not to mention near 24-hour daylight in the summer. You’d have to be pretty hardy to get up there in winter. Tends to be like 30-below most of the time.

Here’s a photo of Dieter, lookin’ fabulous in 1980 in the mountains of Columbia:

But I’m getting side-tracked. What was I was going to post about was another intrepid traveler, Tim Harvey. I was just reading about Tim, who just completed an entirely human-powered expedition to circumnavigate the planet that took him over two years. So awesome. That’s a photo of Tim at the top of the post. I wanted to share Tim’s story with you because this morning I saw a really inspiring interview with him during his last days on his trek. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video, but you should really have a look. Click this link to watch it. Super, super stuff.

Technorati Tags: heros, concept, freedom, bikes, environment, inspiration, povertyjetset, travel, biking, adventure, escape, nomad, dawsoncity, timharvey, canada, video, radical

Scotty and Fiddy, the blokes I blogged about last month, made it! They successfully hitchhiked to all 50 state capitals in 50 days. I’m stoked for them. Good on ya, fellas! Read, watch and more about their adventures over at their web site.

I’m so all about these kinds of adventures. Totally pointless, but totally awesome. It’s like good art. Elegant, yet profound. Simple, yet complex.

Okay, maybe not like good art. But hey, it is pretty cool. Admit it, you’re jealous.

Congratulations, boys.

Technorati Tags: idea, travel, povertyjetset, humor, hitchhiking, adventure

Over Thanksgiving, I got really sucked into playing around with the newest iteration of Google Earth, and boy, oh boy is it awesome. Nothing quite matches its arm-chair-travel fabulousness. It’s like a traveler’s day dream machine. The thing that really blew my mind was that mountains are now in 3-D! I spent hours flying around to cool mountainous spots on the globe — places I’ve been and others that I want to visit. Here’s a picture of Telluride, where I lived for four years:

How awesome is that?
Somewhat coincidentally, a couple days later, I came across this article in BoingBoing about how Bahrainis are using Google Earth to rally for equality and against the excesses of the royal family. Nothing quite as cool as Interweb tools empowering people to fight for their rights. Isn’t that what this whole thing was about in the first place?

Technorati Tags: mapping, googleearth, travel, povertyjetset, map, boingboing, rights