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A Little Recap…Ah, Saturday

24 October 2009 No Comment

This has been an incredibly busy week on the site, so busy in fact that I can’t say that I got a whole lot of sleep!

Although I thoroughly tested the site’s new theme before the new look launched, the new comment format caused me a mini heart attack for a full day at least…and it still sucks a little. Any suggestions for a WP comment plugin you love?

Well, most of the comment kinks have been (hopefully!) ironed out and I plan on sleeping heartily this weekend.On another note, BootsnAll featured A Little Adrift in their list of Best Round-The-World Travel Blogs…I am terribly flattered :-)

And a huge thanks to Deb for her guest post this week, a moving account of traveling through the Sudan and witnessing the steadfast dignity of the Sudanese. If you didn’t catch it, definitely have a look now, it’s well worth it; then pop by The Planet D Travel Blog for other stories as Deb and Dave prep to leave in less than a month on their own round the world travels.

Highlights from the travel community:

  • A video post over at Vagabondish had me literally tearing up. It’s beautifully cut together with overlapping versions of Stand By Me performed by buskers from around the world. It’s a part of the sent me to the Playing for Change movement, so go see what they’re up to over there!
  • Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non Conformity blog, shares 28 Things He Wish He Knew Before He Started Traveling. There are some great tips, I agree with taking a lot of cash and also that you need to be prepared to represent your country. No matter where I go the mere fact that I am an American opens the door for political debate; I never pretend I’m a Canadian (I know my country has issues, but still, it’s my country…) and instead choose to  act as an ambassador of sorts. My one point of contention with Chris: buying RTW tickets. Yes, they are a better bargain if you HAVE to stick to specific dates, but I love the freedom of spontaneity and I always leave room for serendipity :-)
  • Anil from FoxNomad is my travel tech guru and his Techie Travel Tips guest post at Sharing Experiences is worth a read. Guaranteed to make you say: “Oooo, I want that!.” (I’ve got dibs on the long range USB antenna ;-p ).
  • Today is International Day of Climate Action, so go to 350.org and find an event near you…or just learn more about preventing climate change.

And that rounds out the week. The blog is heading to Ireland this coming week – I twisted my ankle the last two days in Scotland and didn’t site-see like I should have…my rainy-day pictures of Edinburgh castle are less than fantastic…so we’ll skip right over that to the Emerald Isle!

Cheers and happiness this weekend.

  • http://foxnomad.com Anil

    Thank you for the mention Shannon! Those USB antennas have some other pretty neat features too.. I'll make sure to post about it.

    So many great links here, I'm off to visit them all!

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/ShannonRTW ShannonRTW

      I will definitely keep an eye out for that post!! It warms my geeky heart to find out about new techie travel gadgets :-)

  • http://twitter.com/PeterLoh @PeterLoh

    Shannon, I love these new round-up posts. ALittleAdrift has become a great mainstream travel blog.

    Also, RTW tickets generally allow you to change dates & times free of charge, but routing changes involve a fee. However, I agree with you that the freedom to easily book flights off your planned route is most desirable.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ShannonRTW ShannonRTW

    True about the changing of the dates and such on the RTW tickets, I just hate that you have to nail down a route ahead of time! I can't decide that far in advance :-) Did you get a RTW ticket?

  • http://twitter.com/PeterLoh @PeterLoh

    Yes, but there's big chunks left out of it so that I can also be flexible with where I go (eg. I fly into Hong Kong and then 3 months later fly out of Singapore). I'd be really interested to book flights the way you did… but it would scare me a bit I think.

    How many flights did you have in total, or how many miles/km in flights in total? The stats page doesn't appear to be up to date.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ShannonRTW ShannonRTW

    You caught me! I did get behind on the stats, overhauling that right this second actually. Final count was 13 total journeys (not including changing planes for layovers) and includes the puddle jumpers I did between India to Nepal, then one from Czech to Amsterdam, etc. I paid for one flight that I didn't end up taking…that sucked. But it was fun to book as I went, I'll likely never do it any other way ;-) but it's not for the feint of heart, lol!