Upright & Stowed

Where The Hell Is Matt

Matt Harding has traveled all over the world.   His shtick is that he does a little dance  jig wherever he goes, shoots it, and then edits it into a video called "Where The Hell is Matt?"   This little gem has been viewed on YouTube 8,334,737 times.  I posted the original video last year.   I am reposting it today because it is so damn inspiring.  And  because Matt does his dance among the Mayan ruins of Tikal, Guatemala,where I'll be – for the first time – next month.  No dancing planned, but I know that my heart and mind will be soaring throughout the experience.

71 Miles from Home

When it comes to travel, a two-week-plus vacation is the dream.  In life, however, a short getaway someplace close to home is the more common reality.

71 Miles is a new website providing rich vacation ideas within "71 miles" of major metropolitan areas. Currently, San Francisco is the site's only anchor city, but the site promises a national netwwork soon.  I'm heading to SF in a week, and I'm going to need a little getaway at the end of what will be a very busy week.  On the recommendation of 71 Miles (and my friend Rob), I'm heading to Occidental, CA and the Osmosis Spa, which features Cedar Chip Enzyme Baths.  Forget Calgon.  Osmosis Spa, Take Me Away!  Photos to come. 

Holiday Shopping for Miles

It's holiday shopping time.  Whether you're frantically looking for 8 fabulous gifts for Hanukkah, 12 for Christmas, or ??? many  for Kwanzaa, here's a tip:  If you belong to a Frequent Flyer program, you can earn oodles of miles simply by using your airline's online shopping mall.  I often use AAdvantage Shopping, where I earn 4 times (!!!!) the dollars I spend in miles, at drugstore.com.  It's a great deal, PLUS I get my razor blades, Listerine and American Crew delivered for free.

Inside Flyer recently published this article about online airline shopping malls.  The text is a bore ...  just scroll down the article to get to the links.  And start shopping.

Circular Life

Circular Life is a very interesting website created in Italy.

Choose from five different fixed-camera scenes, and then control how quickly time passes. 

Mesmerizing.

My World Footprint

What's this, you ask?  Why it's a map of the world, of course.

More specifically, it's a map of the world where everything red is a country visited by Yours Truly.  How did I make this map?  I went to a website called World66.  It's a newish, user-generated travel guide with many extras, including a tool that allows you to create a map of the world based on the countries you have visited.  There are lots of other nifty things you can do on World66.com, so check it out.

Seeing the map is kind of humbling for a cocky traveler like me.  It indicates that I need to spend considerably more time in Africa.   And also in the Middle East.  Sadly the latter is unlikely to happen anytime soon.   

Thanks to both Billy and Trey for tipping me off to this site ... and thanks to Russia, China, and Brazil for being so big that it looks like I've really been on the move.

10 X 10

Imagine a news aggregator that lets you see what is happening in the world every hour of the day ... by showing a small block of 100 pictures.  Now stop imagining, and  check out 10x10. 

This great little site scours various web news sources to determine what is happening in the world, and then creates a block of 100 images an hour to represent that hour in time.  It's awesome.  And it's just one of many innovative websites developed by Jonathan Harris, " ... an artist working primarily on the Internet. His work involves the exploration and understanding of humans, on a global scale, through the artifacts they leave behind on the Web."

Bottom line: The guy's a genius.  Now go ahead ... explore an hour of the world.

Tall Buildings

If you live in New York City, chances are you love tall buildings.  I do.  And I do.

I recently stumbled upon a website created by MoMA, profiling 25 amazing tall buildings around the world.  Some have been built.  Some will never be built.  And some are being built.  It's a very cool website, so check it out.

Of particular interest (and some sadness) are two  renderings of non-chosen finalists in the competition for the new World Trade Center.  They're a reminder of what might have been had imagination and creativity won the day in this highly complicated rebuilding process.  Of course many a great building design never gets built, which is part of why this site is so enjoyable.

TripAdvisor: Opinions Sought On Opinion Site

I'm LOVING the comments on my A Chorus Line posting.  If you haven't read them, do so.  Many great reminiscences.   Also, be sure to check out Harold's poem – on Summer Travel – in response to my whiney-ish post about upcoming summer travel crowds and the schlep ahead. 

Onward, weary traveers.  I am curious to know your opinion on TripAdvisor, the travel-focused user-review website.  Since discovering TripAdvisor,  I've found it an invaluable tool for helping select hotels.  There are literally thousands of hotels listed, and more than 4 million user reviews written about them.  The obvious challenge/limitation is that you don't know squat about the person writing the review. 

If you've used TripAdvisor, post a comment and let me know about your experience  ... good, bad or indifferent.  I'll tell you why I'm asking in the near future.   Thanks!

Cool Travel Website: Turnhere.com

The last several months feel like the beginning of the long-anticipated shift from television to internet-based media as the preferred way to view moving images.   Nothing more than YouTube.com  has led this charge.  The amazing YouTube makes it effortless to post and view videos without jumping to a new web page or opening another application.

Video has long been used to promote travel, but I've never warmed up to video as a tool for travel planning ... and definitely not as a form of entertainment. 

My feelings may be about to change.  Evidence:  I recently discovered Turnhere.com, a fledgling site that delivers really well-made, fun and informative short videos about cities and destinations. They're clearly just getting things going at turnHere, but it's easy to imagine how useful and fun this site will become as more content is added.   Check it out. I think you'll like it.