Reply to Geolocating your travel blog posts by Mark Grabe

Replied to Geolocating your travel blog posts by Mark GrabeMark Grabe (Learning Aloud)
A travel blog by definition describes experiences at many specific places. The location is part of the context for each post. I use Blogger for this particular blog and after several years of writing posts about traveling, I finally noticed that Google allows the author to associate a location with each post. I am guessing few Blogger bloggers use this feature, but I thought it might be worth exploring.
For those using WordPress, there’s a simple plugin called Simple Location that has some similar functionality. It has settings for a number of map providers that can be used to display maps as well as weather conditions.

Many people use it specifically for creating checkins, but it could also be used by travel bloggers. It’s also got a widget to show one’s last known location in a sidebar or footer.

👓 The hot topic: What are your rights when a hotel has overbooked? | The Guardian

Read The hot topic: What are your rights when a hotel has overbooked? (the Guardian)
Linsey McNeill: Since we highlighted the case of a reader who arrived at a Paris hotel to be told his room was no longer available, we have received several letters from people who have had similar experiences.

👓 The Narrow Passage of Gortahig | Dan Cohen

Read The Narrow Passage of Gortahig by Dan Cohen (Dan Cohen)

You don’t see it until you’re right there, and even then, you remain confused. Did you miss a turn in the road, or misread the map? You are now driving through someone’s yard, or maybe even their house. You slow to a stop.

On rural road R575, also known as the Ring of Beara and more recently rebranded as part of the Wild Atlantic Way, you are making your way along the northern coast of the Beara Peninsula in far southwestern Ireland. You are in the hamlet of Gortahig, between Eyeries, a multicolored strip of connected houses on the bay, and Allihies, where the copper mines once flourished. The road, like the landscape, is raw, and it is disconcertingly narrow, often too narrow for two cars to pass one another.

An interesting example of how small local decisions can have complex and interesting ramifications in the future.

👓 Where is the remotest spot in the United States? | BBC

Read Where is the remotest spot in the United States? (BBC News)
One couple - and their eight-year-old daughter - are visiting the remotest spot in every state.
What a fun and generally uplifting story. Makes me want to travel.

I do wonder what the statistical drop off is from the largest distance to the second largest and so on…

🎧 Backpackers and their food | Eat This Podcast

Listened to Backpackers and their food by Jeremy Cherfas from Eat This Podcast
When you’re on holiday, or just away from home, do you seek out the “authentic” local food, or look for a reassuringly familar logo? Backpackers, keen to distinguish themselves from the vulgar hordes who are merely on holiday, seek out the authentic, at least to begin with. Dr Emily Falconer has been studying women backpackers. That’s her in the photo, doing a little field research over a bowl of something exotic in Thailand. And she says that while they start out seeking the grottiest places to eat, after they’ve been on the road for a while, their thoughts stray guiltily to familiar, comforting foods. I know the feeling Emily Falconer didn’t set out to study backpackers and food, but soon discovered that no matter what the subject, the people she was talking to sooner or later brought up food. I’m no exception, and although I’ve never been a great backpacker myself, I do prefer to seek out reasonably local eating places where I can, and I’ve had some memorable meals as a result. The most memorable of those was in Kunming, China, where I detached myself from the group I was with and went in search of something to eat. I didn’t find it at the food fair that was on at the same time, but in the end I fetched up in a place so authentic it didn’t even have photographs of the food. I indicated to the waiter that I was hungry and he brought me food. I had no idea what any of it was, and aside from one soupy dish that was almost too hot even for me, it was all delicious. Next time I might take with me a book, this book.

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS | More
Support this podcast: on Patreon

A bit surprised that human’s evolutionary predilection against eating foods they’re not familiar with didn’t come up in conversation, but there’s so much rich material here otherwise, I’ll wager it may have been excised for time constraints.

Words of the day: grotty and neophobia

Somehow I’ve never had a bacon sandwich (BLTs, yes, but never just bacon). Will have to remedy that.

Why You Should Never Accept The First Hotel Room You’re Offered | Huffington Post

Read Why You Should Never Accept The First Hotel Room You're Offered by Suzy Strutner (Huffington Post)
Be courteous, but firm.
Continue reading Why You Should Never Accept The First Hotel Room You’re Offered | Huffington Post