Looking to escape the tourist trail in San Francisco or Philadelphia? The Quirky San Francisco blog is currently offering a free 43-page biking itinerary of the Bay area. Aside from that, you’ll find regular tips on offbeat restaurants, shops and more from long-time SF resident Randy Schroeder. On the other side of the country, uwishunu.com […]

Following up on my recent post about world news podcasts, I thought I’d post a list of cool online audio travel resources. Not all of them are podcasts; some of them are live streaming files. Indie Travel Podcast: Created by a New Zealand couple with a mad passion for travel, this podcast series is usually […]

Here’s a trend I like: hotels offering shared cars to their guests. Not only does it save guests the hassle and expense of renting a car, it also introduces many of them to the concept of car sharing. And it encourages travellers to use a blend of car trips and public transit–a great way to […]

Courtesy of WorldNomads.com, an Aussie travel insurance and travel services company, comes this great 25-minute documentary about a volunteer project to build a bridge and a water faucet in the village of Qelqanqa in the Peruvian Andes, southeast of Lima. A page on the WorldNomads site provides more details on the project. The trip was […]

When I was a child, my dad and I used to sit in our basement tinkering with an old radio that, for reasons still unexplained, had incredible powers of reception. Late at night, we could pick up stations far from our home in suburban Toronto–New York City, say, or Chicago. The idea that sounds had […]

I posted an item earlier today about homestays in India; I’d been captivated by a fascinating website describing opportunities to stay in private homes and meet local people throughout the country. That was about an hour before terrorists attacked Mumbai. I’m shocked and saddened, as so many are around the world, by the news coming […]

Mahindra Homestays is a new venture from one of India’s most powerful families (they’re involved in all sorts of businesses, from auto making to finance). The website, aimed at European travellers, allows you to search by region, price, type of building or type of activity–you can specify that you’d like to stay somewhere where you […]

As regular readers of this blog know, I’m a huge fan of vacation home and apartment rentals. I’ve rented properties on three continents and, fortunately, have never been the victim of a scam. But fraudsters are out there, as shown by this recent CBC story about a Gatineau, Quebec, family who lost $4,000 while trying […]

One way to get unique, unvarnished insights into foreign cultures is to read blogs and articles written by students participating in semester-abroad programs. Today I stumbled on a recent post by American student Laura Ashbaugh, who is currently living in Amman, Jordan. In her post, she reflects on her conflicted relationship with her host family’s […]

As the sun came up, I peeped through the window of our guest house onto a timeless vista: fields of potatoes and other crops, rimmed by hills and mountains. In the distance, a farmer was already at work behind a horse-drawn plow. In the village of Huamacchuco in the Peruvian Andes, many people wake and […]