Driftnik

Playing For Change: Song Around the World “Stand By Me”

Happy new year everyone! Very cool and inspiring video filmed around the world of different musicians playing “Stand By Me.” Playing For Change is the project.

Posted on December 31st, 2008 by evan in Music, Video | No Comments ».

The Worst Travel Writing

2008 is coming to a close and the internets are being inundated by best and worst lists. The Chicago Tribune published an article entitled “Readers Picks: Overrated Travel Destinations of the World,” which could be one of the worst things I’ve read on travel. Here’s a few of the destinations that they list as the most overrated: Bali; Santa Fe, NM; Costa Rica (apparently the entire country); Lake Tahoe, and The Beach. They also list Sacramento and Riverside, but I don’t understand why anyone would recommend these places as travel destinations. Who’s ever planned a vacation to Riverside?!

Writing off The Beach as in every beach though?! The article says more about the contributors than the destinations. One contributor complains about a trip to Reykiavik, Iceland in February. Yes, I would agree traveling to Iceland in February is probably not all its cracked up to be, but then again I doubt anyone has raved about a trip there in the dead of an Icelandic Winter. That’s just a fact about travel destinations, most are seasonal. Don’t be an idiot and go to Iceland in the winter and complain about it. Clearing these guys are idiots.

The only destinations that I completely agree with the writers on as being entirely overrated are the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Hollywood Blvd.

ABC News publishes a much better article on the Top 10 Travel stories of 2008.

Posted on December 21st, 2008 by evan in Travel Writing | No Comments ».

New Sport: Speed Riding — Looks Kind of Fun

Here’s video of Francois Bon, Frenchman and inventor of the sport: Speed Riding, descending Argentina’s 22,834-foot Aconcagua. It took 10 days to ascend and 4 minutes to descend 9,000 ft. The good stuff in the video start 2:30 into it.

From National Geographic: “Speed riding is the sport (if you can call it that) of rapid descent. Adherents leap from mountaintops and fly down sheer faces at near-free-fall speeds, guided only by a small, specialized paraglider. When the grade flattens, they touch down briefly to ski ridiculously fast before taking off again over the steeps. Bon, 36, is the grandfather of the sport. In 2006, he leapt off the Eiger and Mont Blanc. In 2007, he made some riotous runs in New Zealand’s Southern Alps.”