The Best Comments Of September 2011 And [NEW!] Open Thread: What’s The Most Amazing Tourist Site You’ve Ever Visited?
This month I’m trying something new – along with sharing the best comments of the month from you and your fellow travelers, I’d like to invite you to the monthly open thread. Basically, in the comments below you can chat with me or each other about travel – anything you want really (I always love a good alien conspiracy theory.)
It’s Friday and you’re probably thinking of far off places – what sight made you say “wow” when you first saw it? The Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Grand Canyon…help us all get inspired as we roll into the weekend in the comments below. That’s also where you’ll find September’s best comments.
Simply scroll down or click here to share your travel-wow moment and check out the best comments from September. (And don’t forget to subscribe – next to the submit comment button – to receive updates when others reply to you.)
[photo by: Daves Portfolio]
A Deceptive Silence Of Updated Features And Iberian Travels
I’ve been unusually quiet – at least visibly – for the last week or so. Part of that was due to Internet difficulties but mostly because I’ve been very busy behind the scenes of this site. For the last month or so I’ve been adding a number of features to help you travel smarter in slick new ways and give you more information about the places I’ve visited. Here’s a tour of some new features, an update on my upcoming travels, and some opportunities to spice up your New Year’s.
New Detailed Country Maps
Many of my readers have told me they’d love to see the places I’ve eaten or had a beer many beers as I travel around the world. I’ve always thought it a good idea but one I didn’t know how to implement well – until it occurred to me to integrate the information with Google Maps.
- Heading to Iraq? Here are my suggestions on where to eat and sleep.
You’ll now find all of the restaurants, cafes, and sites I’ve been to since writing foXnoMad with the worldwide map on my Countries page. Individually you can see a detailed map of each country by clicking from there as well. To create those maps, I had to combine my memory with sense of direction; so you’ll notice the further back in time you go the less detail there is on a given map. I’ve also stuck to major cities for now. (And please do let me know if I’ve placed something on the wrong street. Even with Google I get lost.) From now on, I’ll take a photo and mental note of everything – with a focus on food and drink – adding specifics to the country map within a day or so of my visit.
Accommodation Information And Recommendation – One of the most common requests I get is to include more information about where I’ve stayed. Whether it’s a hostel or a spa treat from a press trip, I’ve included the places I would recommend on each individual country page.
Heading to Cairo and looking for advice on where to stay? I’ve got you covered there – and many other cities as well. I’ll also do my best to detail the little things that are often vague on booking sites – like what’s in the breakfast and whether the wireless signal goes beyond the lobby. If there’s anything else you’d like me to look out for let me know and I’ll do my best for you.
To add to the map salad I’ve included an Upcoming Stops page to give you an idea of where I might be going and when. (The ‘confirmed’ list should still give you an idea of how well I plan – or don’t – by the way.) The ultimate goal I’m working toward is of course traveling to every country on Earth – so here’s a map to show you how far I’ve come and still have to go. Lastly, in addition to real-time updates via foursquare and Gowalla, you’re one click away from seeing where I am right now.
- All of the maps are integrated with Google and by clicking ‘View…in a larger map” in the lower left of each one you can leave suggestions, city recommendations, and help others – including myself – travel smarter to the places you’ve been.
Refreshing Pages And Working With Partners In New Ways
Occasionally a blog needs a spring, er, fall cleaning and you’ll find many of my pages like the About and Best Of have been digitally dusted up. I’m also going to be working with a few travel companies who I think are awesome – and advertising them in creative ways. A few ways you’ve seen and others you probably haven’t will begin popping up over the next few weeks to bring you more travel awesomeness.
Travel Inspiration, Photos, And Random Cute Animals – Find Me On tumblr
Really, I haven’t had this much fun with a social network in a long time. Those of you who are already there or thinking of signing up can now find me on tumblr under foxnomad. They say Facebook (hey I’m there too!) is like a party and if that’s true, tumblr is like the drug-induced after-party you don’t remember the next morning.
Some More Tweaks And Updates
- Higher Resolution Photos – New photo albums, now with higher resolution!
- Faster! – Pages and pictures should load about 2-4 times faster now.
- Interlinked Recommendations – Below each of my posts are recommendations of other related articles you might find interesting. Now those suggestions include my other sites (Tech Guide For Travel, How To Travel With Pets, and Travel Blog Advice) as well.
- Turkish Version In Development – I’ve tinkered with the idea of starting a blog in Turkish and foXnoMad in Turkish will be that first step.
- A Guest Post On My Itchy Travel Feet – A Historic Tour of Rhodes I wrote about this Greek island that has been pivotal to Eurasian history.
- New Series And Features Beginning Tomorrow
Those of you interested in the technical details behind some of the changes I’ve made can read about them in the coming days on Travel Blog Advice and Tech Guide For Travel.
Portugal, I’ve Got My Eyes On You
Let’s not forget that thousands of you voted Porto, Portugal as the best city to visit in 2011. You can’t beat a recommendation like that and as promised I’ll be there. Soon. Spain, as you’ve already seen is also not far behind; from there I go to possibly one of the most dangerous places I’ve ever been – and it’s a lot closer to home than you might imagine.
I know it has been a long update for as a treat for reading this far I’ll tell you about two contests I have coming up. One will send you anywhere in the world you want to go and the other will give you a shiny new gadget to blog about it with. Or post funny pictures of cats to the Internet – because you can never have enough of those. Both of those contests will be announced toward the end of the year.
Happy travels and talk soon,
-Anil
[broom photo by spengy]
The Palace Of Westminster Past And Present
September 22, 2011 by Anil P.
Filed under Pictures and Video, Security
The Palace of Westminster is where the House of Commons and House of Lords get together to argue, pass legislation, and argue some more. This meeting place of the United Kingdom’s Parliament and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been around in some form or another for over 900 years. Though Westminster’s latest Gothic look was introduced in the mid-1800s, after it was destroyed by a fire in 1834. (Deleting spreadsheets was a lot more hazardous back then.)
One of the stranger sites right outside of this quite dignified building are along Westminster Bridge that goes across the River Thames; of which you can see a sliver of on the far left above. Across most of the bridge span, doing their best to hustle the bustle of tourists are men, offering some version of the three-shell game. Mostly eastern Europeans with quick hands, you feel like they should dressed more in Charles Dickens-era attire to achieve the complete time travel effect.
You’ll want to keep your eye on your purses and pockets though; if you spend enough time sitting at the corner of the bridge, you can almost see organized pickpocket gangs at work. Stragglers hanging around crowds as the bulge, alternating in a suspiciously inconspicuous pattern over the course of several hours. The type of sightseeing perhaps only a former hacker and security expert can find so persistently interesting.
You can see more of my photos from London here.
How To Accurately Calculate How Many Calories You Just Burned Sightseeing
September 20, 2011 by Anil P.
Filed under Health and Fitness, Tech
As we found out last week, human beings like all of us, are really terrible at estimating things (check out #5 on this list); with it get worse when we’re talking about ourselves. In short, our Paleolithic brains tend to convince us we’re right all the time and doing stuff – like burning calories – much more than we really are.
Fortunately our biology has some silicon allies that can accurately let us know how many calories we’ve actually burned wandering around Berlin so we don’t overindulge in schnitzel afterward.
A Crash Course In How Calories Work
The (extremely) basic premise of calories is they are a measure of energy our bodies use to do things like walk, travel, and do silly dances when we get drunk. We get calories from food and drink, burning them away when we do anything. (And I mean anything – reading this post alone you’ll burn an average of 5 extra calories.) Assuming we’re good so far, there are some basic rules in how you burn:
- The more energy you exert, the more calories you burn.
- The more you weigh, the more calories you burn.
- The more athletic you are, the more you burn overall.
- Men burn about 10% more calories per activity and at rest that women.
- The older you are, the fewer calories you burn.
Keep in mind these are general rules to give you an idea of how it all works, in case you needed a brush up. I’ve probably given some nutritionists and doctors chest pains by oversimplifying this much so let’s move on to the calories you’ll burn sightseeing.
Map It Out
Have you ever sat down in a cafe after a few hours of sightseeing and exclaimed, “I must have walked 10 kilometers today!” (Afterword wolfing down 10 danishes?) Most of us have probably uttered something along those lines without realizing the walk wasn’t as nearly as far as we thought.
To get an idea of how much you’ve walked after-the-fact you can use Map My Run. You’ll need to create a free account for this tool, which lets you draw a trail on a Google Map mash-up, calculating the distance you’ve covered. Map My Run also has a mobile version (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) you can fire up while you’re actually walking. Another good option for calculating walking distances is Gmap-Pedometer. You can’t begin to accurately calculate how many calories you’ve burned if you don’t know how far you’ve really walked.
To make your sightseeing efforts more accurate, count the number of steps you climb and go down throughout the day, and jot them down somewhere.
Use GPS For Sightseeing Precision
Using online maps can give you good estimates for distance covered, but a more accurate tool is probably something you already carry in your pocket. The free SportyPal available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry turns your mobile phone into a pedometer, keeping track of distance covered, meters climbed, and the rate at which you do so. (Thanks TurkeysForLife for the recommendation.) [The aforementioned Map My Run mobile app does something similar, but doesn't take full advantage of the built-in GPS in mobile devices with cell service deactivated.] Another in the free price range, Run Keeper (Android, iPhone) is another app to consider.
Of course, walking around with mobile phone isn’t always practical and in some places not the best idea to whip out. Serious traveling runners and walkers can take a look at the various nondescript GPS watches like the Garmin Forerunner 405 for accurate distance measurements.
Adding To All Up, With Bonuses
We now have three of the four key variables (pace, distance, and time) to calculate how many calories you’ve burned. The last thing you’ll need is your weight. Most online calorie counters will let you input only 2 of the 4 variables, and this calorie calculator from About.com is the most straightforward. (Unfortunately it’s English units only.)
The most accurate figure per kilometer or mile, assuming an average walking pace, is using either of these formulas:
- For calories burned per kilometer: Multiply 0.67 x [your body weight in kg]
- For calories burned per mile: Multiply 0.3 x [your body weight in lbs]
The key ingredient to this mix of course being the accurate measurement of how much you actually walked. Calculators based on time miss things like reading maps, toilet breaks, and other stops that can have us seriously overestimating the amount of time on our feet.
- I hope you kept track of the stairs I mentioned above, add .11 calories to your total for every stair up and .5 for every stair you walked down.
Finally, for a bit of travel workout boost, you can add approximately 34 calories for every 5 minutes you spend shivering in cold climates and potentially 50 calories spent walking in temperatures about 40c (~104F). And don’t forget that day pack if you’re carrying, add 10 calories per hour if it weighs 2.25kg (~5lbs).
Good For Your Waistline And Future Travel Planning
A good assessment of your steps can not only help you keep that cute belly of yours in check by not overcompensating with too many delicious calories but give you an idea of what you can realistically sight-see in a day. Most of us unconsciously do this, mapping out an entire city, only to end stopping halfway our route to eat, people watch, and relax. Chances are, by accurately tracking how much ground you cover in one day traveling, you’ll have a better sense of what you can see (and eat!) in future trips.
[photos by: lululemonathletica (top photo of woman in blue shirt)]
