His trip is almost up, but I just learned about Terminal Man, a fella named Brendan who was sponsored by Wired to fly just about everywhere JetBlue goes in a one month. It sounds like a pretty wild ride. He’s getting a bit of a raw deal though in that he has to stay in the airports, but if you took the basic trip idea – flying an airline’s route map – and give yourself a bit of time to see the sights it could make for an great adventure
At first I thought that JetBlue was a perfect candidate for this type of trip. Since they fly all over the US it seems like you could just hop around anywhere. After clicking through their route map though, it looks like everything has you bouncing through Boston, JFK, and Orlando. If you’re going to end up going to the same places, why not extend your scope a little bit and fly the Emirates route map or fly around the US on Southwest that doesn’t require you to keep skipping back through hubs. They may not offer JetBlue’s all you can fly pass, but I’m sure that if you if you talked to them about it as an advertising opportunity then you could work something out.
I got a taste of my first ever film festival this week in Toronto in the Form of TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival with the film Life During Wartime. It started off feeling a bit like an inconvenient and over-priced film. We had to wait in line outside, paid $21, and had to sit in the second row. But once the film started there was a sense of community in the theatre that I’ve only felt at big midnight releases like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. People cheered, laughed, gasped together. It was great. Then, at the very end of the credits, three of the main actors and the two producers came out for a 20 minute question and answer session. A brilliant end to a good movie.
The great thing about the festival is that it last a solid week, which would make for a a great short holiday. You could book tickets ahead, see a couple of films each day, and explore and enjoy the city with the rest of your time. Sounds like a pretty perfect and relaxing getaway after the little taste that I had.
In about a week I’m going to start travelling a bunch for work. I’ll in a bunch of different cities over the next couple months and I need to figure out something fun and funky to do in each place to commemorate the trip. I’m thinking something along the lines of the famous “Where the Hell is Matt?” dance video above. I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I want to see if I can gather some ideas from everyone else out there to see if there are any cool thoughts as to what I should do. So lay the ideas on me. What should I do?
I’ve been watching South Pacific on BBC, and all the gorgeous images of tiny islands and endless ocean have got me wondering just what it would take to go explore the South Pacific. I’ve come up with a couple of options:
Find an expedition – There are variety of organisations that run scientific or cultural expeditions. Attaching yourself to one of these is a sure ticket to a unique experience, and learn a good deal as well.
Get a job – With some fairly basic searching, I found that there are reasonably well paying jobs, like this one, scattered around the South Pacific. Rather than taking a gap year, why not take a job in an exotic destination and use your new home as a base of exploration.
It’s worth noting that I’m not the first person to think of this. In The Sex Lives of Cannibals The author moves with his wife as she takes a job for an NGO in Kiribati. Suffice to say that it wasn’t the paradise that he’d hoped for. But in the end the adventure won them both over. After the returned to the States, they promptly decided to head back to the South Pacific.
On a boat – It isn’t as expensive as you might think to charter a boat to cruise around the South Pacific. Of course you need a team of at least four, and a couple of you are going to need to know how to sail.
Photo: Flickr user apdurruti under Creative Commons.
If the idea of a burger pilgrimage sent you of scheming up an itinerary, then Travel and Leisure has some lists to help you out. Check out their run downs of the best burger restaurants in American (though the list doesn’t include the two I put in my pilgrimage outline) and best fast food restaurants around the world. It’s hard to see planning a trip solely around burgers unless you are an absolute devotee, but if you’re in the neighborhood of any of these places, they’re probably worth checking out.
