It’s hard to put your finger on just what makes Notesfromtheroad.com so great. There are the absolutely stunning photos, certainly. And there’s also the love for (and profound knowledge of) the natural world that comes through in almost every post, too.
Author Erik Gaugerhe describes it as ‘the unvarnished, messy truth of travel, told by a regular guy’ but the reality is something rather different. He has an unusual and solipsistic perspective on life, travel, the universe and everything.
Ultimately, though, the appeal lies in the way he conjures up images of bouncing tumbleweed, encounters with bears and awe-inspiring nature in this distinctive, subjective voice.
What is a glacier? Well, to scientists they’re large, slow-moving rivers of ice formed high up in the mountains where more snow falls than melts.
And for the rest of us, they’re an amazing phenomenon to behold across the globe, from Alaska to Austria to Antarctica.
But while there are many other stunning natural sights in this world, there’s something unique and intriguing about glaciers because of their fragility in our environment.
1. Fox and Franz Josef, New Zealand. These sibling glaciers on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island descend unusually close to the coast and even further down into a temperate rainforest. Accessible both by helicopter and on foot, they’ve proved to be a popular attraction.
2. Pasterze, Austria. The largest of Austria’s glaciers, Pasterze lies at the foot of the country’s largest mountain and although it currently has a large visitor center along the Grossglocknerstrasse mountain road, it’s expected to lose a huge 60 % of its mass by 2010.
3. Perito Moreno, Argentina. One of the most important sights in Argentine Patagonia, Perito Moreno is fed by the South Patagonian ice field in the Andes and is, unlike most of the other glaciers in this region, actually advancing. It’s also one of the most accessible in Patagonia - there are three viewing areas allowing travelers some stunning close-ups.
4. Hubbard, Alaska. The longest tidewater glacier in Alaska, it extends for a massive 76 miles from its source on Mt. Logan. As it’s also advancing, it’s an actively ‘calving’ glacier - meaning chunks of it continually break off and fall into the sea. Reached by boat or on foot, this makes for an exciting spectacle as well as an intriguing creaking noise which the indigenous Tlingit people have called ‘white thunder.’
5. Athabasca, Canada. Straddling the continental divide, this glacier is part of the Rocky Mountains’ Columbia ice field. It’s already receded to under half its original size but remains one of the most difficult and dangerous to reach.
6. Vatnajokull, Iceland. Iceland’s largest glacier covers 8% of the country and lies in a doubly fascinating landscape surrounded by active volcanoes, ice caves and hot springs - the latter of which are open to visitors.
7. Yulong, China. Situated in the Yunnan Province of China, this receding glacier is similarly inaccessible to visitors as the high altitude climb to the final observation desk often requires the use of oxygen.
8. Antarctica. Home to countless glaciers, Antarctica is now becoming a popular destination for responsible tourism and, when you take a look at the range of amazing sights it has to offer, it’s easy to see why.
9. Biafo, Pakistan. This remote glacier in the Karakoram Mountain Range is just about accessible via a lengthy hike along the edge of Snow Lake. But if you can make it, it’s a truly unforgettable journey.
10. Furtwangler, Mt. Kilimanjaro. And finally, one of the most iconic glaciers in the world: the snows of Kilimanjaro were made famous years ago by Hemmingway, but here, too, the ice is receding rapidly and some reports even predict it to have disappeared by as early as 2015.
HostelBloggers say - grab your backpack and see them while you still can!
This week, while HostelBloggers sit quietly at our desks in London, thousands of arty folk are crowded into Black Rock City in the Nevada desert for one of the most intriguing and unique events in the world - the Burning Man Festival.
Held around American Labor Day each year (from 25 August to 1 September in 2008, to be precise), it’s named for the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy at the climax of the festival after a week of creativity, experimentation and radical free expression.
Gifting, nudity, spontaneous self-expression (interpret that as you will) and general revelry are all actively encouraged.
But it’s far from being just a load of naked hippies gathered in a desert. Rather, it’s an iconic symbol of counterculture.
Although the organizers claim it can’t be explained to those who’ve never been, it can sort of be summed up as a week of controlled anarchy where participants exist outside of normal culture and society within a separate created (and very artistic) community.
Part of the novelty of Burning Man is that nearly everyone participates in the festival - the philosophy is that you’re appreciated for your offerings (be it art, technology, music etc.) and in turn you appreciate what others have to give.
There’s an added dimension, of course, in the dramatic setting. The Black Rock ‘playa’ is the vast exposed bed of a prehistoric lake consisting of ancient volcanic lava flows and collected ash. It’s one of the most hostile landscapes on earth and so the festival also becomes a test of survival.
The remote desert is reachable only by road (and therefore driving) but never fear if you’re without access to a car, the organizers set up a ride-sharing forum each year on the website to help a wide selection of participants get there.
It was formed back in 1990 when a group of friends who had been celebrating the summer solstice - and self-expression through ritual bonfires - merged with an event already held at Black Rock involving temporary sculpture and performance art.
Since its humble beginnings, Burning Man has continued to grow in huge leaps and bounds until participants totalled a massive 50,000 last year. For 2008, the theme is ‘American Dream’ and tickets cost between $210 and $295 (available only in advance online or from outlet stores).
If on first inspection that seems a little steep, in HostelBloggers’ humble opinion it’s a more than fair price for eight days packed with all manner of genuinely unique experiences.
It’s not always silly games and cheap pints in the world of budget travel. Today HostelBloggers learned of the premature death of inspirational backpacking enthusiast and genre-defining author, Dave Freeman.
The advertising-exec and natural born wild-child wrote the book 100 Things To Do Before You Die back in 1999 - the original adventure bible which not only produced a rash of other such lists but also motivated a whole generation of travelers to pick up a rucksack and head into the unknown.
Among the clinically sane activities he recommended are running with the bulls in Pamplona and ‘land diving’ on the Pacific island of Vanuatu which is basically an extreme version of bungee jumping (yes, such a sport apparently exists) that involves launching yourself off a cliff attached to a vine rather than a bungee.
Freeman was just 47 years old when he fell in his family home and died. That he had completed just half of the book’s adventures seems to have a particular resonance in the context of the slightly morbid introduction he penned nearly ten years ago.
“This life is a short journey,” he writes, urging readers to try and “visit all the coolest places on earth before you pack those bags for the very last time.”
We wonder if he had any inkling that his last of those great 100 journeys would be his final adventure. But if ever there was a moral from this sad tale it’s that life really is too short.
During the summer months the extra hours of daylight have a profound effect on people in the uppermost reaches of the northern hemisphere. From the Swedish frog dance to the awe-inspiring White Nights of St Petersburg, the weeks on either side of the Summer Solstice are dotted with some of the most spectacular - and often downright peculiar - events in Europe.
Swamp soccer (pictured), wife-carrying, mosquito-killing, phone-throwing and air guitar competitions - here, eccentricity is very much the norm as a series of one oddball event after another is unveiled.
Given the long hours of gloom that lie in store, it’s hardly surprising that all this extra daylight induces a euphoric effect in people. But don’t just take it from HostelBloggers: “Maybe we are a little bit crazy… maybe we are just bored”, Reuters reports Toni Haukamakix as saying from the sauna-championships.
Crazy, maybe. But only in the best possible sense of the word.
It’s not a bad life being part of the HostelBloggers crew. But whether we’re out on the road gathering content for a great new post on the EXIT Festival in Serbia, or feverishly searching the web, our fingers curled over into keyboard tapping claws, for the latest curios from the world of budget travel, a fair bit of hard graft goes into it.
It’s all worth it in the end, though - and never more so than when we find something like this little gem:
The whole thing bubbles over with the enthusiam of an adventurer and it just works in so many ways.
Despite only being made up of the shortest of snapshots, it manages to convey a real sense of journey - that’s undeniably helped by the way his hair and beard grow as it progresses! It’s also packed with vibrant images, ranging from breathlessly iconic landscapes to the intriguingly mundane, and it bounces along on a great little soundtrack.
But if the video’s cool, then digging a little deeper dredged up a whole load of other brilliant stuff. The author, Chris Rehage, is a free-spirited German traveler, blogger and filmmaker, who left his home in Bad Nenndorf, Germany, a few months ago to retrace the old Silk Road through China.
The latest musing from his time on the road can be found on his blog, The Longest Way, while a whole load of stunning images (like the one above, of his time spent following the Great Wall) are crying out to be marveled at on his photo site.
All in all, it’s an impressive body of work, and HostelBloggers for one will be glued to it over the coming weeks and months.
It’s the eternal question on the lips of locals and backpackers in London alike - where can we get a cheap pint in this pricey city? With most pubs in the center of town now charging around (cue collective horrified gasp) £3.50 a beer, we felt it was our duty to sniff out some affordable pubs around Soho.
And lo and behold, the £2 pint is not just a myth - thanks to the (frankly marvelous) chain of pubs owned by the Samuel Smith’s brewery.
And they’re not just cheap and cheerful. Housed in a collection of attractive historic buildings, they offer a slice of traditional British pub life as well as bargain prices.
We started out in Holborn one fateful Friday night and staggered between the best of the Sammy Smith’s in the area. All in the name of research, of course!
1. The Cittie Of Yorke, 22 High Holborn. 5.30pm. This lovely little pub is a bit of a hotspot after work and typically crowded with lawyer types from nearby offices. The medieval wood interior is pleasantly gloomy and there’s a surprising amount of space when the large cellar is open downstairs. Intimate booths line the edge of the main bar and so many cases are discussed in there at lunchtimes that it’s rumored they’re soundproof…
2. The Princess Louise, 208 High Holborn. 6.30pm. Further along the same road lies the next on our list, the beautifully restored Princess Louise. Although relatively unremarkable from the outside, the interior is a sumptuous feast of Victorian design, with carved wood detail and smoky mirrors. The main floor is split into tiny private bars accessed by doors the approximate size of a hobbit which become something of a challenge after a couple of pints.
3. The Crown, 51 New Oxford Street. 7.45pm. Situated right in the middle of Bloomsbury, The Crown is just as traditional and attractive but has the added benefit of a large, shady outdoor seating area. It shares the lively space with neighboring cafes, creating continental-style al fresco drinking during the summer months. Well, sort of. Yes, it was raining when we were there. And yes, we still sat outside…
4. The Angel, 61 St Giles High Street. 8.30pm. By this point things had begun to get a little bit messy… But even our blurry eyes could appreciate The Angel’s simple charm with its little coal fire for the winter and an old-fashioned feel. The crowd are mostly dedicated regulars, making this the quietest pub on our list and perfect for a peaceful pint or two in this bustling part of London.
5. The John Snow, 39 Broadwick Street. 9.15pm. Progressing past a handful of sex shops and through increasingly kitsch, sleazy streets into the heart of Soho (and past a policeman or two) brought us to The John Snow. Named for the renowned Victorian doctor and public health pioneer of the same name, it stands on the site of a water pump which the good Doctor once identified as the source of a cholera outbreak in London. Nowadays, it’s rather less of a health hazard and, due to its great central location, is often packed with patrons spilling out onto the surrounding streets during the summer.
6. The Glasshouse Stores, 55 Brewer Street. 10.30pm. We made it to the final stop fairly successfully (although one of our number had to make a quick dash back to The John Snow to rescue his bag). The Glasshouse Stores is at the other end of Soho, near Piccadilly Circus. It may look tiny from the street but inside there are actually three floors and a billiards table… With buckets of ‘olde worlde’ charm and a handful of ale-drinking regulars, it’s the perfect antidote to the busy (and expensive) tourist bars that surround it.
So there you have it - a bar crawl that’ll get you quite a bit of change from a £20 note! If that sounds appealing (and really, it should!), then here’s an interactive map of the route we took.
And this is only scratching the surface, for there are actually a total of 32 Sam Smith’s pubs in central London. All of them are good old-fashioned English pubs with no unnecessary gimmicks, and, far more importantly, all of them serve cheap and tasty beer!
In many ways, Indonesia’s celebration of independence (held every year on the 17th of August) is much like other festivals worldwide: people take a day off work, dress up, eat good food, and partake in cultural performances. Oh, and they also slather grease onto huge palm trees, stick prizes at the top, and then compete to see who can climb up and claim the goodies!
The game is called Panjat Pinang, and it’s actually practiced year round in Indonesia. And, since visitors are welcome to take part, if you happen upon a group of youngsters trying to climb a slippery trunk during your travels around Indo, ask to give it a bash. Be warned though, it’s just as hard as it looks!
Recently, we posted about the EXIT Festival in Serbia. Now, with the dust having barely settled in Novi Sad, it’s time to turn our (loving) attention to another awesome music festival in Central/Eastern Europe: Budapest’s Sziget Festival.
In many ways EXIT’s slightly older sibling, the two events occur within a month of one another (Sziget ‘08 ran from the 12th - 17th of August), which means festival-happy backpackers can get a double dose of musical mayhem. HostelBloggers have been a few times before, and though we found ourselves a bit too out of pocket to go this year, that’s not going to stop us waxing lyrical about it!
As with EXIT, part of Sziget’s schtick is in its setting. The word ’sziget’ means ‘island’ in Hungarian, and, set on a lump of land in the middle of the Danube, this is very definitely the Island Festival. There’s only one way to (and from) the music, and that’s via a bridge that connects Budapest with the island in its midst.
On first sight, this bridge can seem, frankly, pretty terrifying, given the mass of people waiting to landslide through its gates. But never fear! This is where the festival spirit starts, and within five minutes of waiting, you’ll probably already be drunk on all the pumping music and prevalent camaraderie (not to mention the beer that people freely pass around!)
Once on the island, it becomes instantly clear that Sziget is huge. And it’s welcomingly huge too. With a couple of hundred thousand people milling, mushing and moshing about, it’s wonderfully easy to get lost and meet people. Sziget surfs high on a wave of friendliness, and many a happy day can be spent teetering around and chatting to randomers.
Musically, Sziget is known for its wide-spanning coverage of just about every genre imaginable. Wander around the 24 stages, themed villages and camping sites, and you’re more than likely to encounter everything from mainstream rock to operatic thrash metal!
Particular highlights (well, for HostelBloggers, at least) include the ever-lively World Music Stage (pictured above), and the Ambient tent, where you can sip warm cups of chai during the day, and sleep to relaxing beats during the night.
Tickets for ‘08 cost €120 for the week (or €150 to camp on the island), while one day passes set you back €32. If you’re thinking about it for 2009 and don’t fancy the camping scrum, hostels in Budapest do tend to fill up pretty quickly, so try to arrange your stay well in advance.
Sziget in a Nutshell:
Food: Good. Expect to spend about €6 a day. There’s a good selection of stall vendors, and a couple of well-stocked grocery stores as well.
Drink: Excellent. About €1 per pint. Check out the bar next to the World Stage for five in the morning ad hoc table dancing.
Organization: As it should be - no one gets in without paying; tickets are exchanged for wristbands promptly; on-island security presence visible, but not in your face.
Services: Plenty of toilets, which are kept as clean as humanly possible, and showers which occasionally run lukewarm.
Best Moment: Crowd-surfing in a dingy.
Worst Moment: First sight of the bridge.
Most Frequently Broken Law: Swimming in the Danube.
Most Inadvisable Action: Swimming in the Danube (it’s disgusting!)
Survival Tip: If all the music gets too much, head to the Northern or Eastern edges of the island. You’ll find sand, trees, and perfect calm.
About a week ago, HostelBloggers went along to the London leg of the Red Bull Air Race. Not really knowing what to expect, we took our seats in one of the temporary grandstands, and filmed a bit of the action…
There’s something basically illogical about flying planes four meters off the ground whilst racing against the clock. And that’s pretty much what makes this series such a hit.
We were delighted to find the action surprisingly tense, and not without its drama, either - the favorite to win ‘crashed out’ in the first round, while multiple other pilots also managed to fly straight into the huge inflatable bollards that mark the course.
The Red Bull Air Race travels around the world, with legs in Rotterdam, Porto, London, Perth, San Diego, Abu Dhabi, Detroit and Budapest.
The Red Bull Air Race in a Nutshell:
Food: A few overpriced food stalls - about £4 a burger. You’re allowed to take your own food in, though, as long as it’s not kept in a hard-sided box (i.e. coolbox)
Drink: Similarly overpriced. £3.50 for a bottle of beer.
Best Moment: Watching the planes! It’s mental, really…
Worst Moment: Getting rained on.
Survival Tip: We were unusually lucky in that we had grandstand seats, but, at £45 a pop, they’re pretty pricey. Ordinarily we’d have been slumming it down in the cheap seats, where tickets for the standing areas went for a much more reasonable £15. Try to stand where you can see the big screens, as these help explain the action and provide decent fodder between races to keep you interested.
1. The Cittie Of Yorke, 22 High Holborn. 5.30pm. This lovely little pub is a bit of a hotspot after work and typically crowded with lawyer types from nearby offices. The medieval wood interior is pleasantly gloomy and there’s a surprising amount of space when the large cellar is open downstairs. Intimate booths line the edge of the main bar and so many cases are discussed in there at lunchtimes that it’s rumored they’re soundproof…
