Along with my parents providing inspiration to get me out and adventuring – the place where they chose to raise me also played a huge part in making me into the adventure junkie I am. Spending a minute and a bit watching the video above that I shot while back home for a week in June should give you an idea why. I was raised with a big back yard. Admittedly not all of it is really ours, but as a kid it was ours to roam around on, and that left me with the lust for climbing mountains and seeing what’s beyond the next row of trees. Cheers mum and dad., and thanks New Mexico.
I’m back in my homeland of New Mexico at the moment and enjoying it like a proper resort holiday. I’ve been on plenty of hikes, chilling in a hot tub, and yesterday had a chance to do a little rock climbing. I managed to scramble up each of the routes we roped, and had some fun bouldering around, but the highlight of the day was seeing my friend Ryan’s silly grin as he marked the routes for the rest of us to follow. Certainly a reminder of just how joyful the great outdoors can be.
My friend Brian came for a visit to London, and we took a Saturday jaunt out to see the Royal Ascot. The horse races of My Fair Lady fame were just as ridiculous as I imagined: a sea of glamorous hats and the sound of corks popping all around. We had a lovely picnic and greatly enjoyed the races, but he real story of the day is how how everyone started the day being fancy and glamorous and ended the day as one giant shit show. I didn’t manage to catch any of the falling girls on film, but women who weren’t used to walking drunk in heels were stumbling all over the place. People passed out on the grass, and the whole place was covered in rubbish. What’a day.
I previously claimed that Kayak Buzz was for people dreaming of heading out on an adventure. But Explore takes that power of dreaming to the tenth degree. You just pick where you’re leaving from and how much you can spend. If you want, you can narrow by when you’re looking to go, but it isn’t compulsory. It’s amazing. I might just buy a couple of flights for next spring because of it.
I’ve lived in a couple of cities (DC and London) which can feel a bit like Disney Land come spring time, so I found this group of maps really interesting. They show where tourists and locals take pictures in cities all over the world. Eric Fisher describes his methodology:
Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more).
Red points are pictures taken by tourists (people who seem to be a local of a different city and who took pictures in this city for less than a month).
Yellow points are pictures where it can’t be determined whether or not the photographer was a tourist (because they haven’t taken pictures anywhere for over a month). They are probably tourists but might just not post many pictures at all.
Pretty nifty set of images that are really telling about where tourists visit and what they’re missing. Next time I’m headed out somewhere I may just have to check them out to get an idea of where the locals love to point their lenses.
