From Colombia and Bolivia to the home base, Brazil, we’ve been bringing you some exciting dispatches and vibrant photography from Carnaval celebrations across South America.
Who knew Carnaval was celebrated in Oruro, Bolivia?! Hal Amen’s spectacular photo essay gives us a glimpse into the colorful festivities in this Altiplano city.
Having a digital voice recorder within easy reach while traveling is becoming more and more essential. By capturing audio moments that may otherwise have remained unmemorable, you enhance your overall travel experience.
For travel journalists – professional and amateur alike – a voice recorder is a worthwile investment. You minimize those awkward moments of silence that occur during interviews while you try to scribble down notes as fast as you can.
I own this particular model and its been a breeze to work with.
With up to 260 hours of audio recording capacity on two AAA batteries and 512 MB in-built memory, the ICDP620 gives you a lot of functionality for a decent price.
Its navigation keys are basic: “record”, “play”, “enter”, “stop”, “rewind”, and “fast-forward” buttons. You can adjust the microphone sensitivity, and choose from three recording modes – Long Play (LP), Standard Quality mode (SP), and High Quality mode (HQ).
Other cool features include a voice activated recording (VOR) mode which pauses the recorder during significant silence, and resumes recording once voices are audible again.
Included with the kit are digital voice editor software, two AAA batteries, and a USB cable for downloading audio files.
Price: $50.85 | BUY
What do you really need to make superb travel podcasts while on the road?
Matador Goods caught up with podcaster extraordinaire Craig Martin to find out.
We’ve all done it.
That last minute repacking we do at the airport security checkpoint – combing through carry-ons for every gel, gloss, liquid, and powdery substance you can find, and trying to force fit them into a free plastic bag.
Well, FlyBags are the latest in travel kits and are designed to meet TSA 3-1-1 Requirements (i.e. 3-oz bottles in clear bags, etc).
In addition to getting the nod of approval from TSA, they are actually super sturdy and excellent for organizing those grooming essentials and toiletries while traveling.
FlyBags are free of Azo dyes and pigments, making them safer for the environment, and each bag comes with three 2.5 ounce refillable bottles for your liquids, an eye mask, and earplugs.
What’s even cooler than their ultra-chic design are the color options: “blue bomb,” “pink scissors,” and “gray dagger“. How’s that for tongue-in-cheek humor?!
So, if you want to make your TSA experience a breeze or you just like collecting cool looking, travel organizing kits, the FlyBag’s for you!
Price: $16.00 | BUY
With it, you’ll be able to browse the web, look at some spreadsheets, write that next great American novel, and then blast away some enemies in a game of BioShock.
This laptop has a 2.0 GHz dual core AMD processor (which can be overclocked to 2.4 GHz with a simple touch of a button), 4 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA Geforce 9600M GT, a 15.4 inch LCD screen and a 250 GB hard drive.
It also comes with the essentials such as built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3 USB ports, and an integrated web cam.
Café Life Venice is a remarkable hybrid: part guidebook, and part coffeetable book. Written by Joe Wolff, and beautifully illustrated with photographs by Roger Paperno, the book profiles 17 traditional, family-run establishments in Venice.
The cafés, trattorias, pasticcerias and bacari (Venetian-style wine and tapas bars) listed in the book are scattered across Venice: some in tourist-thronged San Marco, and some in the lesser-visited — and totally magical — sectors of the city, like Cannaregio or Dorsoduro.
At every location, the author-photographer team interviewed the owners and staff, and photographed the establishment and its surrounding neighborhood, providing the reader with a rich history and context.
The book is compact and informative enough to be worth packing away for your next trip, and it’s also sufficiently compelling (both in terms of the photography and the mouth-watering content) to make for a good armchair read.
If you’re headed to Venice (or even if you’re not!), you’re interested in learning more about the city’s unique culinary traditions, and you’d like to avoid the usual tourist-trap meals in favor of some locally owned gems, I’d recommend Café Life Venice.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some serious Venetian daydreaming to get back to…
Photo by josef.stuefer (Creative Commons)
If you’re seriously interested in travel photography, you probably need to add a solid wide angle lens to your kit if not already in there.
Perfect for capturing scenery, cityscapes, market scenes and pretty much any situation with activity, wide angle photographs pull you right into the midst of the action.
Its no wonder, according to professional photographer Jim Richardson, most National Geographic photographers prefer wide angle lens for capturing those award winning and visually stunning shots.
That said, vendor specific wide angle lenses like Nikon Nikkors can definitely break the bank in terms of price, but vendors like Sigma come out with comparable topnotch lenses that cover at least 99% of the same functionality at half the price.
The Sigma 10-20mm ultra wide angle lens (the much cheaper equivalent of the $1,650 Nikkor 14-24mm Wide Angle Lens) has a silent Hyper-Sonic Motor (HSM) for high-speed autofocus.
In our What’s In Your Backpack Series, professional photographer Ryan Libre also touted the benefits of carrying this ultra wide lens, and I personally travel everywhere with mine.
Its Special Low Dispersion (SLD) glass elements help compensate for color aberration, and it measures in at 3.3 inches round by 3.2 inches long with a weight of 16.4 ounces.
Comes with a one (1) year warranty.
Price: $429.00 | Sigma for Nikon | Sigma for Canon
If you’ve ever crossed time zones, no doubt you’ve probably experienced these decades old symptoms of jet lag at some point:
Fatigue, irritability, nausea, anxiety, dehydration, constipation, diarrhea, headache, sweating, temporary memory loss….am I missing any?!.
Finally, beating the inevitable jet lag is possible and each crucial step on how to fight it has been detailed in The Cure for Jet Lag.
Authored by Lynne W. Scanlon and Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D, this book demystifies jet lag and scientifically breaks down its symptoms with various ways of treating them.
The first two chapters cover symptoms of jet lag such as fatigue and their expected duration and effects on the body.
Subsequent chapters are dedicated to explaining the different time zones, how they impact the body, and how to trick the body into naturally adjusting without incident.
The Cure’s three step program outlines how to overcame jet lag using specific foods, tea, coffee, low/high calorie meals, physical/mental activity, light/dark settings, and how to use them preflight, inflight, and postflight.
If you’re ready to kick jet lag for good, you may want to grab a copy.
Price: $20.00 | BUY
Ever find yourself squatting in some dirt-cheap room battling a severe bout of insomnia brought on by constant fear?
This portable device is just what you need to ensure some peace of mind while you snooze.
Joining the security-providing ranks of TSA approved padlocks and Bag Protector Alert is the nifty Reliance Controls THP215 Portable Wedge Alarm.
The alarm wedges nicely beneath any door or window and lets out a screeching 120 decibel sound that will surely deter unwanted guests.
Designed to easily grip carpets, it also comes with optional double-sided tape for fastening to frames, tiles, and other hard surfaces.
At just 4.8 ounces, it is super light in weight, comes with a 12V battery and a 1-year warranty.
Price: $13.15 | BUY
We previously discovered TOMS Shoes, an organization founded by Blake Mycoskie to help provide shoes to needy children.
Our next feel-good product discovery is Cleanup – bars of soap designed to resemble landmines.
Money raised through sales of the soap goes towards landmine removal efforts, as well as the Cambodia Landmine Museum Relief Fund.
This unique concept was developed by Hideaki Matsui as part of his senior thesis for the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
He’d been exposed to the horrors of landmines through photographs his parents shared during his youth, and thus, the idea of Cleanup was born.
The landmine design of the bars are a metaphor for the landmine removal process….”as the soap disappears, so do the landmines.”
The soap comes in two scents – Rosemary Mint and Coconut, and are made with natural ingredients.
So grab a couple bars of Cleanup and actively participate in raising awareness about landmines.
Price: $8.00 per bar (includes $2.00 Donation) | BUY
