The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune
Author: Tim Leffel
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591139368
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces

Bargaining is deeply ingrained in the culture of many destinations—and is something that you are expected to do. And for backpackers on the road, driving a hard bargain can even become a kind of status symbol.

It’s not normal practice in Western culture to haggle—so travellers often have misconceptions about how it’s done. Not wanting to get ripped off can sometimes motivate some to haggle too aggressively and cause offence. We once watched a fellow backpacker argue with the proprietor of a food stall in one of Beijing’s hutongs over the cost of a dumpling. The amount in question? About two yuan—just over US$0.30. Fed up, we called him away from the stall and offered to buy the dumpling for him. “That’s not the point” he argued—but what was the point then?

In some cases, the equivalent of US$0.30 may mean the difference between a meal for a family or not—and this is not an exaggeration. In China, (circa 2004), the average monthly income for a street vendor was ~676 yuan—the equivalent of about US$3.25/day. Out of this total, a Pekinese has to find food, rent, clothes and pay bills—the thought of saving for her own holiday is probably totally out of the question. As a Westerner, it’s good to remember how wealthy—and lucky—you are compared with the local population.

Nonetheless, haggling is an important skill for backpackers—as long as you don’t lose sight of the big picture. Accept that you’re going to lose. The trick is, however, making sure you don’t lose by too much. That’s why I dug Tim Leffel’s book—his insight arms your with enough knowledge that you’ll be prepared to lose—but do it shrewdly.

In The World’s Cheapest Destinations, Leffel provides a primer on the costs and value of round-the-world travel. He describes the book as “an overview and a jumping-off point. It can’t possibly take the place of a thick, general travel advice guide—or a guidebook for a specific destination or region.”

Leffel’s book certainly isn’t a guidebook, which might prepare you for how much a certain country or region can cost. Indeed, a guidebook rarely compares the cheapest countries and which regions offer the best value. Enter Leffel and his book, which fills just such a gap.

Leffel’s World’s Cheapest Destinations provides a capsule overview of 21 great travel bargains, with cost information for lodging, restaurant meals, local transportation and attractions. The book comprises seven destinations each from Asia and Latin America, the two regions of greatest interest to Kathryn and me. He also includes four European countries and three from Africa and the Middle East. Some might complain that some regions are given short shrift, but overall we feel that Leffel has done an admirable job of including destinations where travel is relatively good value—and even more importantly—of interest to the backpacker.

Our favourite feature—and one which sets it apart from other books on offer—is the section “what you can get for a buck or less” in each country at the close of each chapter. For example, a good ol’ US greenback will get you a 100-mile train ride in India while it might only win you five or six subway rides in Cairo.

Of particular interest to us was Leffel’s habit of outlining prices for those travelling alone, as well as those travelling as a couple. Leffel notes that a person travelling alone will spend more than two persons (naturally), writing: “A couple can usually travel on roughly 1.5x what a single person can, due to room shares, taxi shares and splitting some meal items”. He addresses the cost of travel from several angles and discusses value for backpackers and mid-range travellers alike. Where he feels splurging represents good value, he doesn’t hesitate to encourage his readers to spend a little extra. For example, when discussing accommodation in India, he writes: “Above all, this is a place to keep your finances in perspective; sometimes an extra dollar or two per night can mean the difference between a dark, grubby cubicle with peeling paint and a big, bright room with a great view.”

For the round-the-world traveller who is planning an adventure, Leffel’s book will prove to be a good tool and a good jumping-off point that will quickly provide an indication of where one might find great value in some of the most exotic regions in the world. In any case, we consider this book highly recommended for adventurous round-the-world travellers who are looking to travel on a shoestring.

Click here to purchase The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune from Amazon.com.

"Cheap Trick: A review of Tim Leffel’s ‘World’s Cheapest Destinations’" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The human cost behind the Three Gorges Dam project

The cultural origins of southern China are deeply rooted in the Yangtze River—and it has long been the backbone of China. The Yangtze, or Chang Jiang (literally “The Long River”), is the longest river in Asia—and the third-longest in the world. But the Yangtze—and all of the life that surrounds it—has undergone a truly astonishing transformation wrought by the largest hydroelectric project in history—the Three Gorges Dam.

Up The Yangtze

In Up the Yangtze, Canadian documentary filmmaker Yung Chang returns to the gorgeous landscape of his grandfather’s youth to trace the surreal life aboard a ‘farewell cruise’. Just a few minutes in and Chang’s film began to resonate with me. Back in 2002, I too had the opportunity to travel on one of the farewell tours up the Yangtze, and was able to witness the past as it disappeared into the future. My three-day cruise was indescribably beautiful; however, the ship on which I travelled was not nearly as luxurious as the liner featured in Chang’s documentary. Change’s film brought me back to what I saw on that cruise—a last glance of a country in dramatic flux. This is a moving depiction of life in China—and coupled with the cinematically breathtaking images of the river region—is a powerful record of the difficult transition facing a China rushing headlong into the future. In the summer of 2002—at around the same time Yung Chang began recording footage for his film—I arrived in Chengdu and moved eastward up the Yangtze towards Yichang, an area of the river often eulogized for its apricot flowers and spring rain in poetry and painting.

I found instead a culture in transition—and a landscape preparing to be annihilated. China’s old, agrarian world was vanishing. Fishing villages dissolved in the river’s mud. The government, harnessing the power of the world’s third largest river, was violently displacing more than one million people.

Taken in 2002, this picture is of Fengdu—also known as the Ghost City. It is now completely submerged by the waters of the Yangtze.

I found the geography greatly affecting—as much for its natural beauty as for its impending destruction. Of course, the government has since flooded the gorges, destroying innumerable archaeological and cultural sites and displacing some 1.3 million people— as well as causing significant ecological damage. This was the China that I tried to capture—one that seemed to be trading its cultural and ecological heritage for the promise of a prosperous future, albeit a modern, more plasticized existence. One morning on the deck of my riverboat I wrote: 

We set sail at dawn.  The red sun,
a paper lantern, set fire
to the open sky of Chu.
Turning east, the sun between stacks
swung in the dawn. 

The big machines of government
pulled back the hems of mountains
revealing flesh and clay.
Birds wheeled in the morning,
under a ceiling of broken clouds,
through sunlight strung at
curious angles,
wings
shining
like the faces of
Chinese tourists
opening fanwise from below deck.
Emerging from the shadows,
into the bright Yangtze morning
to witness the boundless falling away
of a million people. 

Loneliness chooses its language
in the syncopation
of feet
winding up through the gorge,
the familiar track
linking futures over the vanished ridge.
Walls of stone, upstream to the west
will come, presently, tomorrow,
to hold back Wushan’s clouds and rain
until a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges. 

We stay above deck
until the heavy sky lies over the river,
growing black in the late light and
arc lights lick out empty windows
of vacant skyscrapers. 

Like Chang, I tried to resist the temptation to descend into editorial; preferring to simply present the tragedy. He does an admirable job of documenting the human cost of a country in economic and social flux—and provides a window into the sociological changes wrought by world’s largest civil engineering project —the astounding Three Gorges Dam. Now complete, the Three Gorges Dam is 1.3 miles wide and 610 feet tall. The artificial lake above the dam is over 400 miles long, stretching from Yichang to Chongqing. It’s a gut-wrenching piece of engineering might. 

What I liked most about the film was the way in which Chang portrayed the riverboat as a microcosm of China itself. Rich western passengers take in the panoramas of the Three Gorges above decks while the staff toils and sleep in the galleys below. Meanwhile, the riverboat travels upriver through a landscape of unprecedented upheaval, as the region’s inhabitants assemble their humble possessions as the floodwaters rise. 

Yung Chang handles the subject with insight and poise—he crafts a compassionate account of life on the Yangtze and a powerful documentary narrative of contemporary China. This documentary is a must-see for anybody contemplating a trip to the mainland. 

About Up The Yangtze

After taking a “farewell cruise” up the Yangzte, Yung Chang returned to document the experience before time ran out. What the Chinese-Canadian filmmaker saw in 2002 will disappear in subsequent years as the rising waters of the Three Gorges Dam submerge the villages along the riverbanks. Chang takes a two-pronged approach in shadowing a pair of luxury liner workers. To survive in modern-day China, it appears, Westernization is inevitable, which Chang (third-generation Canadian) neither celebrates nor condemns. Instead, he questions the ways in which economic progress erodes—sometimes even destroys—personal and cultural values. Purchase this film from Amazon.

"Up The Yangtze" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The Virtual Backpack is all about finding those pieces of kit–the ones that stand out. The ones that have won important volume in your pack and deserve to be lugged around the planet. Join us as we take a closer look at gear from the perspective of the long-term traveler.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1—near perfection!

Micro Four Thirds standard

The GF1 is based on the Micro Four Thirds standard. This means that the camera eschews the conventional mirror in digital SLRs that traditionally bathe the sensor in light—the reason why the GF1 has a much smaller footprint compared with its bigger brethren. Put simply, this standard allows for smaller and lighter camera bodies and lenses by greatly simplifying the sometimes intricate optical path required by a conventional SLR.

Honestly, there’s not much we can say about the quality of the GF1 that hasn’t been said elsewhere. And rather than concentrate on a traditional review of the GF1, we’d do much better to simply link to Craig Mod’s review of the camera. It’s the review that caused us to pull the trigger.

What Others Say

For 16 days Craig field-tested the camera as he climbed through the valleys of central Nepal up to Annapurna Base Camp. Craig writes: “The compact combination of Panasonic’s GF1 body and the 20mm f1.7 Lumix pancake lens works with you as a traveller. It’s a light, sturdy, capable, exceptionally well conceived photography kit that demands to be taken on adventures.” Check out the exhaustive review here. Craig’s shots are amazing.

A near perfect travel camera

Thus far, we’ve been very impressed with this camera. We picked it up a couple of months ago and intend to use it as our main travel camera during our round-the-world trip. We agree with Craig Mod’s assessment that the GF1 is “a near perfect travel camera”.

Lenses

If you’re considering the purchase, you’ll have to decide between two options for standard kit lenses—the more common 14–45mm lens or the now cult-classic 20mm f1.7 ‘pancake’ lens. We bought the package with the 20mm f1.7 ‘pancake’ lens—which is the lens we’d recommend based on reviews and—most importantly—size.

The ‘pancake’ lens keeps the camera’s profile small enough to slip into a pocket—almost. At the same time, however, it remains versatile enough to give great results in a variety of light situations. It makes for an interesting package—a normal range prime lens means no ‘zoom’—and you’ll have to shuffle back and forth in lieu of rotating a zoon ring. In the future, we’ll likely complement it with the 14-45mm OIS lens.

With the ‘pancake’ lens, our whole kit can now fit in a handlebar bag. The last time we travelled for a considerable length of time, we lugged around a Canon Rebel with an 18-55 kit lens. Not only did it take up a lot of space in our daypack—the kit was heavy! What’s more, the small profile of the GF1 has the added bonus of making you feel less conspicuous when taking pictures. So far, this seems to be the ultimate travel camera—an unobtrusive creative tool that you can carry anywhere! And one in which you don’t have to sacrifice results.

Conclusion

The build quality of the GF1 is solid—it feels like a sturdy truck in your hands—a piece of gear that won’t be any worse for wear on the road. To squeeze this level of image quality into a camera of this size was unheard of until just recently. The Micro Four Thirds standard delivers results that approximate the results achieved with entry-level DSLRs. Ultimately, the GF1 does not measure up as a substitute for DSLR, but serves as a great complement to one—especially for travellers wanting to carry a small light body.

For more information, check out the Panasonic Lumix GF1 on Amazon.  As far as we’re concerned, this little unit has won itself a place in both our real-world —and our virtual—backpack.

"Panasonic’s Lumix GF1—a great all-around travel camera" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

A Map for Satruday

A Map for Saturday chronicles Brook Silva-Braga’s travels through 26 countries on four continents. Along the way, a number of solo travelers intersect with Silva-Braga, helping tell the story of the places they’ve been and the experiences they share.

I liked A Map for Saturday. It’s a film that, like its director, goes its own way. Its narrative is assembled around the experience and the cast of characters, focusing on each character’s personal growth and emotional experience as vagabonds. Locales serve as backdrops and never as subjects. As Kevin Kelly writes on his blog, “This kind of vagabonding is more a state of mind than a state of motion.” And its that state of mind with which Silva-Braga is concerned. Ironically, this is at once the film’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. As a fellow traveler, I would have appreciated a more expansive look at the destinations and the cultures therein. It seems that this was an opportunity missed, and some of the scenes come off as somewhat myopic. It’s not that I expected the movie to supplant National Geographic, but I think I would have appreciated some of the narrative a little more if it had been wound into the setting a little further. This isn’t to say it doesnt happen. At one point, the movie turns its attention to post-tsunami Koh Phi Phi in Thailand, and the loosely coordinated efforts of backpackers working aside locals to help restore the island in the absence of any sustained assistance from the Thai government. Here, backpacker and destination are inexorably linked, and the movie fires on all cylinders. The result is the most compelling five minutes of the entire movie. But that’s a minor criticism, and a tough thing to do when you are faced with vagabonds as subjects. 

A Map for Saturday expertly captures the depth and breadth of the backpacking experience owing to Brook Silva-Braga, around whom the film is assembled. The movie succeeds because Silva-Braga is open and honest in a manner that is at once both charming and disarming. The prospect of thirty pounds of film equipment might be too heavy a load for a conversation to bear—especially those transient conversations that occur in hostels and the backs of buses. Silva-Braga, however, put his subjects at ease and takes up a good portion of the load, leading his subjects in the right direction and offering them the opportunity to provide their perspectives. The result is spontaneous and compelling film—nowhere is this better evidenced than in the segments focused on Sabrina Hezinger (Silva-Braga’s German girlfriend in Australia, who ended up staying in Sydney and going to university there). Despite her difficulty communicating (at the outset of her trip, her command of english isn’t too strong), Silva-Braga really captures her expressiveness.

Bottom line, I really enjoyed the film. It breaks new ground and in so doing demonstrates that long-term travel can be simultaneously self-indulgent and one of the most important things you may ever do. This theme is revisited in the DVD’s extra features, wherein Silva-Braga provides updates that reveal the effect that long-term travel has had on the cast. This is a theme reinforced shortly before the credits roll, when Silva-Braga himself admits: “A normal life really doesn’t seem that attractive anymore. I can’t imagine not traveling again. I can’t imagine going back to a real job.”

While Brook Silva-Braga may be best known for A Map for Saturday, he has a new project on the go—One Day in Africa is his second documentary feature. In February 2008, he crossed from Spain to Morocco for an open-ended trip through Africa. Following a day in the life of six African people from six different countries, it explores the range of diversity on the massive continent. It’s now available for pre-order. Check it out here.

"A Map for Saturday" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

We wanted a robust netbook that we could take on our travels.

The Virtual Backpack is all about finding those pieces of kit–the ones that stand out. The ones that have won important volume in your pack and deserve to be lugged around the planet. Join us as we take a closer look at netbooks—specifically the HP Mini 110—from the perspective of the long-term traveler.

After having spent some time traveling with the HP Mini 110, we have come to see the advantages and disadvantages of working on a ‘netbook’. What exactly is a netbook? Netbooks are low power, lightweight, small form factor laptops that have increased in popularity this year and last. Most are about the size and weight of a Condé Nast publication—and about as thick, too. They offer a good deal of computing power in a package that is smaller than most higher-end laptops. Specifications are generally uniform regardless of manufacturer and typically include a 7–10-inch display, 1GB RAM, a basic graphics processor and a modest storage drive. They aren’t meant to be supercomputers but they do allow you to stay in contact with the outside world wherever you go, offering more power than a smartphone, so you can still type up documents, surf the web and watch movies.

What makes a netbook attractive to long-term travelers is not just their low price, but their small size, low weight and energy efficiency, which allow one to continue working while mobile. Netbooks make it easier to stay in contact via email as well as publish updates to the web, download photos from various cameras with the built-in memory card reader and edit images to upload to the web.

Cost

Netbooks are popular with long-term travelers in part because they’re light and they’re cheap; hence, if they are lost or stolen, they are replaceable—certainly not as bad as losing a $1,150 laptop. That’s one of the reasons we opted for the HP Mini 110. It is priced near the $300 mark, which makes it a viable option.

Size

Portability is likely one of the most important factors for long-term travelers. Most modern notebooks are either built for business, multimedia or video gaming and often clock in at 5–7 lbs, leaving a fairly large footprint on your desk (and in your backpack) as a result of 15-inch or larger screens. On the other hand, most netbooks weigh in at less than 3 lbs resulting in far less strain on your body when you are mobile for long periods of time. As far as we’re concerned, with a netbook, size is more important than bells and whistles. The HP Mini 110 is light (less than 3 lbs) and small—it measures about 10” by 7” and is about 1″ in height. The screen is ~10.1″.

Security

Netbooks offer a secure alternative to the ubiquitous internet cafes that line the tourist trail. Coupled with a good virtual private network (VPN), they offer a means to pay bills, make purchases, and check bank accounts. Backpackers are generally hesitant to enter personally identifiable information into public computers—a good precaution in the event the computer in question is compromised by keystroke loggers or other malicious software (of which the owner may not even be aware). Note that another alternative is bringing along an operating system on a USB thumb drive, which also provides a safe, secure environment, even in an Internet café! While this is beyond the scope of this article, we will explore this further in a future post.

Wi-Fi—the Holy Grail

Increasingly, hostels and guesthouses are offering wireless access, but for those backpackers with laptops in their rucksacks, free wireless internet access is still a holy grail. With the increasing amount of access available, however, it’s likely that airports and cafes will be forced in time to stop selling it at a ‘premium’. Indeed, a number of hostels and guesthouses are starting to recognize the benefits of offering their patrons free Wi-Fi access. Luckily, some companies are starting to realize the benefits of offering customers free Wi-Fi internet access.

What sets the HP Mini 110 apart

Keeping in mind that netbook specs are generally uniform, you’ll find a standard set of netbook components on the HP Mini 110, including an Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Windows XP, and a 160GB 5,400rpm hard drive. Rather than provide you with an exhaustive list of specs (other sites do a much better job than we could), we’ll concentrate on a few factors that influenced our decision.

Keyboard. The first is a very practical consideration. Indeed, the small size of a netbook often means a cramped keyboard. However, HP has fit a near-full-size (92%) keyboard into the HP Mini 110. Best of all, the right ‘Shift’ key is full size and placed directly under the Enter key. Additionally, there is a complete row of dedicated function keys. While this was our first netbook, we were at odds with the smaller form factor for the first week, but have now gotten used to typing. Of course, you wouldn’t want to type for long stretches, but emailing, instant messaging and short letters shouldn’t prove to be too problematic.

Webcam. The HP Mini 110 offers a built-in webcam and Skype for staying connected with friends and family. The integrated 0.3-megapixel webcam provided pretty decent images in a video call over Skype; our caller could see clearly. The microphone, located just to the left of the webcam, picked up some background noise, but our caller could hear us just fine without our needing to speak up.

5-in-1 memory card reader. A dedicated card reader provides the ability to transfer photos and music without the need to connect your device (ie digital camera, camcorder, mp3 player, etc.) directly to the netbook. Compatible with SD Card, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and xD cards—no additional cables needed!

Some things we didn’t like

The touch pad. While the excellent keyboard is a significant plus, its inclusion comes at a cost—a poorly designed touch pad—which remains an overall weakness in the Mini’s design. It’s wider than it is taller, and that makes scrolling a pain. Moreover, the mouse buttons are located to the far left and right sides of the pad, rather than sitting underneath. The reasoning for the unique button placement is to make room for the larger keyboard, larger screen and a full row of function keys. It’s a trade off for a better typing experience, but can prove to be annoying.

The AC adaptor. The AC adaptor sports a very small power brick—which is a good thing; however, the total cord length is over 60 inches. This configuration might be okay in the context of a larger laptop but for our purposes take up too much space in our backpack.

Conclusion

The HP Mini 110 is one of the best netbook options in the sub-$400 budget netbook category. It offers a nice hardware configuration, a good-looking design and an excellent keyboard. The HP Mini 110 is a very nice option for those on the lookout for a low-cost netbook that they can toss into their packs. For these reasons, it has won itself a place in both our real-world and virtual backpack!

For more information, check out the HP Mini 110 on Amazon.

"HP Mini 110—a netbook for the road" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

PacSafe's TravelSafe

The Virtual Backpack is all about finding those pieces of kit–the ones that stand out. The ones that have won important volume in your pack and deserve to be lugged around the planet. Join us as we take a closer look at gear from the perspective of the long-term traveler.

Of the array of products we took a look at in our article, “Travelling Safely: Personal Safety Products“, there’s one that we can wholehertedly endorse—Pacsafe’s TravelSafe. As such, it has won itself a place in both our real-world and virtual backpack.  As the manufacturer claims in its marketing literature, the lightweight TravelSafe folds small and is easy to take with you whenever you need to lock and leave your valuables. It is a lightweight, malleable and portable ‘safe’ for your valuables which can be locked secured to a fixture. The TravelSafe cinches and locks closed using an integrated, high-tensile stainless steel cable with padlock and locking device. .

When travelling through Asia a few years ago, we brought along a TravelSafe; it’s come along with us on every trip since. The TravelSafe is very lightweight, folds flat and offers more security than a padlock on your backpack owing to the fact that you can anchor it to any fixture in your hostel or guesthouse. It offers enough space for your passport, wallet, iPod, etc. In the past, we have locked the Travelsafe to the bedframe and then tuck it either under the bed, mattress or pillow. Thereafter, you can head out to the beach and need not worry about your passport or funds!

It’s greatest advantage is that it takes up little to no room when not in use. Of course, it’s not a real safe, but will prevent a crime of opporunity or even a determined thief with basic tools (who doesn’t have much time). While it may seem a little pricy, it boasts a really good cost to peace of mind ratio! Of course, you can read about it at the manufacturer’s website or buy one at Amazon

Owing to the peace of mind this provides, PacSafe’s TravelSafe has won itself a place in both our real-world and virtual backpack.

Further Reading

• Sean and Dawn over at Wandering Why are PacSafe evangelists—with a number of good reasons why. Check out this post.
• Backpacking.com’s Pia Taylor provides a very thourough hands-on with the PacSafe TravelSafe.
• We like About.com’s Lois Friedland’s assessment: “Using the PacSafe TravelSafe 100 will foil the casual thief or light-fingered hotel staff member who gets into your room, but I wouldn’t put the crown jewels in it.”

"Pacsafe’s TravelSafe" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Taking a break from books, after having posted reviews of Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson, we would like to turn our attention to the web. We spent the weekend checking out a couple of the web’s more popular travel publications—World Hum (WH) and Brave New Traveler (BNT).

Our goal here was to analyze and observe how the sites operated, hoping to pick up tips to help shape our own blogging strategy. Of course, we were not looking at replicating every aspect of these publications, but hoped to uncover some ideas, strategies and tips.

Both sites do not focus on destination-specific narratives, instead highlighting travel in the broadest sense

It should be stated at the outset that we’re not long-term readers of either publication. And although we’ve spent a good deal of time reading and reviewing over a few days, this article is comprised of what amounts to first impressions.

BNT describes itself as a daily travel magazine that incorporates “original content and previously published articles from guest authors”. Moreover, BNT avoids “destination-specific” narratives and instead focuses on topics like philosophy, health, politics and culture. WH, a subsidiary of the Travel Channel, focuses on travel journalism and caters to travel aficionados around the globe. It exists to serve the “travel addicted”.

Philosophies

Overall, both sites do not focus on destination-specific narratives, instead choosing to highlight travel in the broadest sense of the word. Perhaps the editorial teams at both publications feel that focusing on such narratives reduces their appeal to their respective ‘casual’ readership, or perhaps they feel destination-specific stories are better left to blogs documenting journeys of a more personal nature.

Instead, both publications tend to (for the most part) forego the travel story and focus on the philosophy of wanderlust, and the topics of culture and politics through the lens of travel. Of the two, BNT is the ‘hipper’ blog—WH is more staid both in the overall tone of their articles and in their site design, employing subtler hues and smaller thumbnails. At the time of this review, however, both sites had strangely coincident stories on Japanese love hotels . Not that that’s a bad thing—just odd. (Check them out—here and here.)

Both publish regularly, WH at the pace of about a ‘featured’ article per day; meanwhile, drawing from a larger community and a greater number of contributors, BNT tends to publish several features per day, although the articles are not as long or detailed as those in WH. BNT, however, tends to respond to news, breaking or otherwise, a little faster, whereas WH tends to be more of a ‘feature’ publication. Moreover, BNT’s articles are more idiosyncratic and unexpected while WH tends to be a little more staid and introspective.

Reader engagement

As far as reader engagement goes, BNT is the clear innovator. In January 2008, they joined forces with Matador—a social network of like-minded travelers. This partnership provided BNT with a network of quality travel blogs from which to draw, and extended its borders to draw in and engage readers from the community at MatadorTravel.com. All of BNT’s articles are enhanced because of the dialogue engendered by this partnership.

Tone

As a result of its community, the style of post that seems to best connect with readers at BNT is the ubiquitous ‘list’ article. At the time of writing, list posts dominated the front page, ie:

• The 5 Deadliest Travel Fears (And How To Defeat Them)
• Top 10 Places for Teaching English Abroad
• 25 Ways To Earn Money When You’re Broke On The Road

Of course, these articles are popular because lists are scannable, succint and tend to go viral, encouraging discussion and word-of-mouth. Hence, they are a natural fit for the folks at Matador. Converesely, the feature-length pieces at WH tend to dig a little deeper and offer a greater amount of introspection. Reader engagement at WH, however, tends to be a little more unilateral. Take for instance its popular ‘Ask Rolf Potts’ segment, wherein everybody’s favourite vagabonder fields questions from readers in the space of a blog post. Rolf Potts does, sometimes, engage readers in the comment stream, but it’s generally the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, authors at BNT tend to engage their readership at a much higher rate. Let’s be fair, however—the talent pool from which WH draws is much less extensive and tends to boast longer bylines than those at BNT. We certainly don’t expect seasoned writers to engage their readers to the same degree as less well-known, less experienced authors.

Design & usage

From a design and usage standpoint, both sites are similarly organized, but BNT serves up a little more eye-candy. We especially like the ‘called-out’ features along the top of their home page, each with thumbnail. In terms of navigation, both sites are similarly organized. Built on WordPress, BNT has a more traditional blog-style layout, ie it has a very busy sidebar. WH’s design is a little more muted in this respect, but to its advantage. WH tag and category-based structure is a little more intuitive, ie each section on the homepage—Top Story, Features, From the Archives, etc—is assembled through tag- and category-based relationships. The end result is that WH’s  organization is much cleaner and easier to use.

Traffic

In terms of traffic, according to Alexa WH ranks an impressive 44,629, with 759 sites linking in, compared with BNT’s ranking of 55,558 with 512 sites linking in. Compete.com, another web service similar to Alexa, reported 75,937 unique visitors for WH in the June period, compared with 42,473 for BNT.

Although services that measure metrics on the web provide information that should be regarded as dubious at best, they do serve to provide points of comparison. The bottom line is that WH enjoys a little bit more exposure than BNT owing to its Travel Channel pedigree. At the same time, however, BNT leverages the Matador community to remain competitive.

Subscription options

BNT has embraced twitter with more gusto, and provides subscription options (RSS and Email) right from the front page. The link to WH’s Feedburner feed is displayed with much less prominence. No surprise here, as the former publication appears to embrace the more ‘social’ aspect of publishing on the web. To be fair, WH provides the same services, but delivers them with less panache. WH is on Twitter, too, but reveals the fact in tiny text at the bottom of its index’s sidebar.

Conclusion

While both publications deserve a spot among the feeds in your RSS reader, we find ourselves returning more often to BNT. Although the writing at WH is top-notch—better even in some respects to that at BNT—the social aspect of BNT is the draw. It’s just full of personality because it’s filled with personalities.

This posting was inspired by Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog—a downloadable e-book designed to help you revitalize your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will all help to improve! Darren’s book essentially provides one action or activity to do per day for a 31 day period—and a lesson around why it should be done. Today’s ‘list post’ was the second activity from the work book, the first was our post on building a better travel blog. We’ve been working through the activities that Darren has suggested and will include a note whenever a post is inspired by his program. For anyone who hasn’t checked out Darren Rowse’s eBook already, we highly recommend it. In addition to providing substantive recommendations on how to improve your blog, there is an excellent community built around his methods.Highly recommended—check it out here.

"World Hum and Brave New Traveler Compared" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Broadway pp352

As his publisher, Random House, is fond of saying: “Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door memorable travel literature threatens to break out”.

Bryson is a decent travel writer but a better humorist; several times through Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country I was moved to laugh out loud. Once, on the commuter train into Toronto on my way to work, a woman was so stirred by my sustained smile she inquired after what book I was reading. Bryson’s at this best when relating a wry anecdote—that’s when his timing and pacing suit him well and he’s as entertaining as hell.

It doesn’t hurt that Australia plays the not-so-straight man to Bryson’s flippant turns of phrase. Remarkably friendly inhabitants, enigmatic aboriginals, extreme weather and peculiar and lethal wildlife all serve as excellent subjects for Bryson’s quick wit.

Bill Bryson is the anti–Paul Theroux. Like Theroux, he’s the kind of writer that makes you feel like you’re riding shotgun, and manages to evoke a real sense of your inclusion in the scene, drawing out the colours, scents and sounds of a particular location. Unlike Theroux, however, he’s not nearly as self-indulgent. And that’s a good thing.

Beautiful Syndey Harbour. Photo by Michael McDonough.

Bryson, for example, would never dare to write an account of his eavesdropping on a group of tourists as they discuss one of his classic books. What Bryson can do, however, is turn a 500 km solo ride through barren outback into a side-splitting affair as he relates the banter of commentators discussing a cricket match, a sport he likens to watching a slow-motion tea party.

The only criticism I can level is that the book is rather devoid of Australians. Sure, it’s full of Australia, but where are the people with names and narratives of their own? If we were to believe Bryson’s account of Australia, the continent is mainly peopled with bored service staff who work for mediocre but somewhat overpriced hotels.

The end result is that Bryson does a great job about relating his travels trough Australia. Ultimately, however, this is more a book about Bryson than by Bryson. It is only secondly a book about a vast and wonderful continent. Sadly, there was great opportunity in this book to discover a deeper, more compelling narrative, but it’s an opportunity lost to an otherwise gifted writer.

Unfortunately—and ultimately—Bryson falls victim to the same criticisms I direct at Theroux. I want my travel writers to be vivid characters with strong identities, but I want them to realize that they have a job to do—serving as a surrogate traveller, and letting us travel by proxy.

That being said, this book is well-paced, entertaining, and chock full of interesting trivia about the continent. Laugh-out loud moments abound, and I would recommend the book. I found myself wishing, however, that the narrative aspired to something more or served a greater purpose.

I’ll take what I can get, though!

"Bill Bryson’s In A Sunburned Country" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The Ottawa Leather—perfect for light trails!

The Virtual Backpack is all about finding those pieces of kit–the ones that stand out. The ones that have won important volume in your pack and deserve to be lugged around the planet. Join us as we take a closer look at gear from the perspective of the long-term traveler.

The Ottawa Leather is a multi-sport shoe by Merrell that features waterproof leather overlays and an air Mesh upper. Merrel’s ‘Vibram’ soles offer excellent grip on dry ground but somewhat inconsistent performance in varied weather conditions.

When ordering Merrell shoes, use your normal size. Generally, Merrell shoes and boots do not require breaking in. I found that the Ottawa Leathers fit perfectly out of the box. They are very comfortable and light; I’ve often forgotten that I even have them on.

The leather uppers and single-layer mesh are meant to allow the shoe to be very breathable. My feet tend to sweat terribly, but they felt light and dry. You can actually feel a soft breeze through the mesh—quite satisfying!

The Ottawa Leather is marketed by Merrell as a hiking shoe, but light-to-moderate trips on easily traversed terrain is a more likely application. Hence, these are great daytripping shoes for seeing the sites, especially in hot or tropical climates.

The lack of ankle support doesn’t lend itself to more challenging terrain, and the the sole can be surprisingly slippery in certain areas—like on wet wood or rock—contrary to Merrell’s marketing literature.

The shoes clean up easily and look great even after months of daily wear; I’ve rinsed mine off when muddy and simply scrubbed them with a light brush, hanging them up to dry. The shoes have held up very well and show cery few signs of wear. No doubt that these shoes would outlast a year of round-the-word travel.

I’ve worn the shoes while spending days in downtown Toronto, as well, which entails a lot of walking on asphalt, cement and sidewalk. My feet were comfortable and fatigue-free by the end of the day. My legs and back also felt great, which attest to the support and comfort these Merrell shoes offer for light daytrips or moderate hiking on easier trails.

The Ottawa Leather is an excellent day-to-day and light trail shoe; however, they don’t perform all that well on trails that are rocky or wet. They are not the best choice for rough terrain hiking, but are perfectly suited for daytripping around the city, day hikes and running for your next flight.

Thus far, Merrell’s are my shoes of choice; hence, this shoe has won itself a place in my backpack.

"Merrell Ottawa Leather Shoes" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Flip Ulta—a great camera!

The Virtual Backpack is all about finding those pieces of kit–the ones that stand out. The ones that have won important volume in your pack and deserve to be lugged around the planet. Join us as we take a closer look at gear from the perspective of the long-term traveler.

The popularity of video-sharing sites, such YouTube and social nets such as Facebook, coupled with the integration of video-capture into ubiquitous mobile devices such as handsets and digicams, has turned virtually every backpacker into a budding travel videographer and documentary filmmaker.

The Flip UltraHD features 120 minutes of recording time and an included rechargeable battery pack. Its real advantage is in its form factor. Because it’s ultra-portable, it allows you to capture spontaneous video. What the Flip UltraHD offers to backpackers is an inexpensive and very easy means of recording HD video in a small form factor. And, when you are living out of a backpack for months on end, size matters—no matter what anyone tells you. Video is 16:9 widescreen, 720p HD (1280 x 720) at 30 frames per second (fps) progressive scan; recorded in MP4 format.

Its easy-to-use interface allows you to record up to 120 minutes of HD video (720p) on 8GB of internal memory—so no easily damaged and expensive tapes to take up real estate in your pack.

The Flip also comes with pre-installed software called ‘FlipShare’ that allows you to quickly and easily edit your videos. Flip users will especially appreciate the intuitive and rather elegant video editing software.

The flip-out USB plug lets you connect to your PC or Mac easily and automatically launches the FlipShare application. As the software is launched from the camera’s memory, it instantly transforms any run-of-the-mill internet cafe into a mini video editing studio. With it, you can edit individual clips and create feature-length custom movies. It’s a great feature for those who seek location independence. The software makes it extremely easy to free up its 8GB of onboard storage, by offloading your video to video-sharing sites or online storage hubs.

It also sports another indispensible feature for backpackers—the ability to supplement the rechargeable battery with good old, off-the-shelf AAs. This could prove to be a lifesaver when you find yourself in a country with strange looking electrical outlets.

The 2-inch colour LCD with anti-glare allows you play back and also delete your videos. But the screen is far too small to be useful, aside from allowing you to frame your shot.

The biggest negative is lack of image stabilization. Your image will only be as steady as your ability to keep the camera still. However, the lack of stabilization, while not leaving you with broadcast quality, doesn’t cause the problems that we thought it might.

For the most part, we found the Flip UltraHD to be a compelling product owing to its ease of use and form factor. All in all, we are very pleased with the Flip UltraHD. It doesn’t try to do too much, but what it does, it does very well. This unit is highly recommended for those on the go who just want to shoot HD video without having to deal with the overwhelming number of options available to other bigger, more expensive camcorders.

Until a more complete package comes along, this little unit has won itself a place in both our backpack—and our virtual backpack.

"Flip UltraHD Camcorder" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Just picked up an ’09 Giant Rincon a few weeks ago and have had it out on the trails a few weekends since then. Time enough anyway to provide a few initial impressions. The frame is not too heavy or too light—it has a a really nice feel. I’ve used this bike pretty hard and the tires and rims are holding up very nicely so far. No complaints due to the very solid construction.

The Shimano Rapidfire shifters are smooth, located perfectly and have nice auditory feedback. The paint job (matte olive/black—see the pic) is very easy on the eye—I especially like how the rims and spokes are painted black to match the tires and the front fork. It gives the bike a really understated look; it’s not as showy as some other Giant paint schemes.

I really can’t say anything bad about this bike, other than the fact the saddle is a little hard for my liking. It’s an excellent value for a person’s first ‘good’ mountain bike. Chris, the sales guy at Brant Cycle (highly recommended), actually suggested this bike over Giant’s entry model—the Boulder—as he felt the upgraded components were worth the money. In retrospect, I agree.

I wouldn’t push this bike too hard downhill or try to use it as a full-time commuter, but it seems ideal for those casual weekend trails and cruises through the neighbourhood with Kathryn! Highly recommended.

"2009 Giant Rincon" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Riding The Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux
Ivy Books pp464

Alright, let’s face it. We all love to hate Paul Theroux. And he loves to hate you. This is quite evident in his year spent exploring China by train, and his impressions about what has and has not changed in the country, as gathered in hundreds of conversations with Chinese citizens, make up a large portion of the book.

You’ll learn nearly as much about Theroux (or the character of Theroux, travel writer) as you do about the place. The train rides in themselves do not allow for much adventure—they are more or less a catalogue of food eaten and persons who annoy the writer by sharing his cabin. However, if you spend enough time with this writer you will begin to see that his cynicism is a real reaction to much of what he sees on his travels.

Thus ‘Riding the Iron Rooster’, is part history book, travel guide, and part adventure memoir. In it—most annoyingly in the first half—Mr Theroux gleefully points out the idiocies and self-indulgences of American travelers riding the Trans-Siberian into China, all the while cleverly disguised as one of them.

While the book was weighed down by this at the beginning, the pace and tone improve substantially later in the book—especially when he turns his sights toward Chengdu and, further west, to Tibet.

"Paul Theroux’s Riding The Iron Rooster" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Petzl Tikka Headlamp

The Virtual Backpack is all about finding those pieces of kit–the ones that stand out. The ones that have won important volume in your pack and deserve to be lugged around the planet. Join us as we take a closer look at gear from the perspective of the long-term traveler.

The Petzl Tikka Headlamp is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and offers plenty of burn time for outdoor adventures, and reading in overnight trains and buses. Weighing less than a golf ball, it’s perfect for use in tight quarters.

The fully adjustable strap is comfortable and equipped with a cushion forehead pad, so you can leave this one on all night in the sleeper car from Bangkok to Changmai—no headaches! Three LED bulbs offer up to 150,000 hours of burn time. And, powered by three ‘AAA’ batteries, the Tikka illuminates the trail ahead or that that page-turner novel for up to 150 hours. It is both very durable and solidly water-resistant, so it won’t short out when it’s soaking wet.

We found the light to be very bright, especially so when the batteries were fresh. While we mentioned that the headband is adjustable and comfortable, it’s the tilt on the lamp itself that provides a great deal of flexibility. We found the white light with a hint of blue to be pleasant and easy to read by. The three LEDs provide a surprisingly bright and usable light when the batteries are new (or newish).

While we occasionally use this light on the trails (late-night bathroom break, anyone?), we used this item almost exclusively for reading. The unit is bright and easy to read with, but the light it casts is only steady for the first hour or so.

After the second hour the light flashes between two grades of brightness. When the batteries are new, however, the light is bright and steady. After a couple of hours or so of use, the light begins to oscillate between bright and nearly-bright. After about five hours of use, the light alternates between nearly bright and acceptable. After about nine hours of use the light alternates between acceptable, dim and very dim. Because of this we find the unit, in reality, has about 9–10 hours of use (for our needs).

For many applications, this flicker would not be an issue. For reading, however, it’s somewhat annoying. We do love the unit wish it would dim consistently rather than cycle back and forth. Moerover, we are unsure if this is a Petzl issue, or one that affects the unit we own. Other than this minor complaint, the unit is absolutely wonderful.

An ultra-lightweight 4-LED headlamp with 3 brightness settings (maximum, optimum, economic) and a blinking mode. It sports batteries life of up to to 150 hours on regular settings (up to 400 hours on blinking mode). It’s water resistant and comfortable to wear. Adjustable elastic headband for comfort and to secure it in place.

To purchase the Petzl E47 PBY Tikka Plus 4-LED Headlamp, click here.

"Petzl Tikka Headlamp" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!