Category: Travel – General (Page 1 of 6)

Uruguay has recently introduced a digital nomad visa

While Uruguay may be one of the more expensive South American countries, it is the most progressive, including reproductive rights for women. Plus Uruguay have some nice beaches and authentic Gauchos.

Euronews »

Uruguay’s digital nomad visa is for people who either work remotely for companies outside of the country or are self-employed. You can’t apply jointly with a spouse or dependents but can submit individual applications for each person.

Dick Proenneke thriving alone in the wilderness of Alaska

Dick Proenneke in “Alone in the Wilderness” is the story of Dick Proenneke living at Twin Lakes in the Alaska wilderness.

Dick retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin on the shore of Twin Lakes. He filmed his adventures so he could show his relatives in the lower 48 states what life was like in Alaska, building his cabin, hunting for food, and exploring the area.

Bob Swerer has used some of the footage from Dick’s films and created 4 videos about Dick, “Alone in the Wilderness”, “Alone in the Wilderness part 2”, “Alaska, Silence and Solitude” and “The Frozen North”. They can purchase from Bob Swerer Productions at the DickProenneke.com website.

Below are some excepts from these films.

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Lisbon is this year’s best-value European city

Every year, Post Office Travel Money compares the costs of short breaks in cities across Europe for UK holidaymakers – overall and for specific items like accommodation, meals and cultural attractions.

Our annual City Costs Barometer helps you see upfront which destinations are the best value or most expensive before planning your trip, including how prices have changed in the past year.

  • Best-value cities
    1. Lisbon £224.76
    2. Vilnius £225.01
    3. Krakow £250.91
    4. Athens £262.22
    5. Riga £284.99
    6. Porto £325.30
    7. Zagreb £329.72
    8. Budapest £330.53
    9. Warsaw £330.95
    10. Lille £332.11

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Plan your trip across the roads of the Roman Empire using modern mapping technology

OmnesViae is a modern route planner based on the roads of the Roman Empire.

Big Think »

Geolocating thousands of points from Peutinger, OmnesViae reformats the roads and destinations on the scroll onto a more familiarly landscaped map. The shortest route between two (ancient) points is calculated using the distances travelled over Roman rather than modern roads, also taking into account the rivers and mountains the network must cross.

Motorcycles now banned from parts of The Pyrenees

The ban excludes motorcycles, ATVs, quads, buggies, etc., from local roads and trails in the Parque Natural del Alto Pirineo, a national park in the Pyrenees and the largest in Catalonia, Spain.

The Pyrenees mountain range spread across Spain, France, and Andorra. The challenging twisty roads are known attract drivers and riders from around the world who seek challenging roads.

The regulations described in the ‘Action Plan for the declaration of a zone of special protection of acoustic quality in the Alt Pirineu Natural Park’ distinguishes motorcycles, mountain bikes, quads and buggies as ‘particularly noisy’ vehicles, without take into account their type approval or the level of decibels they emit.

The action plan includes the following:

  • Limit the passage of noisy vehicles to certain areas of the ZEPQA, taking into account the regulation of motorized traffic inside the park, restricting access to certain tracks either throughout the year or at certain periods.
  • Restrict motorized access to the entire network of forest trails and paved paths of the ZEPQA of Alt Àneu and Farrera, except the access roads to urban centres, by vehicles considered excessively noisy consisting of all types of vehicles such as motorcycles, quads, ATVs and buggies that are not electric, except those of registered residents, beneficiaries of livestock forest exploitation, public services and those duly authorized by the Alt Pirineo Natural Park and/or the respective local entities.
  • Promote the use of electric vehicles.
  • In addition, there is a specific point dedicated to ‘Carrying out awareness actions specifically aimed at drivers of vehicles that emit more noise: motorcycles, mountain bikes, quads and buggies.’

Read the whole article here.

Are technology-free hotels a trend of the future?

Let’s hope so.

Inside Hook »

According to a 2018 study involving 2,000 U.S. adults, most check their phones an average of 80 times a day, or once every 12 minutes, while on vacation. Some even check their phone more than 300 times each day. A second study conducted in the same year and of the same sample size determined that 43% of U.S. adults find it difficult to completely unplug, specifically from work, while on vacation.

This was, of course, prior to the pandemic, which — thanks to the introduction of apps like Zoom and Slack — exacerbated the issue greatly.

Fast forward to 2022, and “technology-free” is now being pedaled as an amenity across several notable properties, whose guests seek them out because of it. Sheldon Chalet, for example, doesn’t have any TVs, phones — save for the emergency phone system — or wifi on the entire property. That, according to owner and property manager Marne Sheldon, is mostly due to Sheldon Chalet’s location — on a nunatak 10 miles from the summit of Denali in the Don Sheldon Amphitheater inside Alaska’s Denali National Park. In other words: the signal strength isn’t excellent. If anything, Sheldon counts it a selling point. »

Changing conditions for visa-free travel to EU for non-EU nationals from December 2022

From December 2022, non-European Union nationals who do not require a visa to enter the Schengen area, will need to request prior authorisation to visit Schengen countries.

You will be able to apply online for authorisation via the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS).

The ETIAS authorisation is not a visa. Nationals of visa liberalisation countries will continue to travel the EU without a visa but will simply be required to obtain a travel authorisation via ETIAS prior to their travel. ETIAS will be a simple, fast and visitor-friendly system, which will, in more than 95% of cases, result in a positive answer within a few minutes.

An ETIAS travel authorisation does not reintroduce visa-like obligations. There is no need to go to a consulate to make an application, no biometric data is collected and significantly less information is gathered than during a visa application procedure. Whereas, as a general rule, a Schengen visa procedure can take up to 15 days, and can in some cases be extended up to 30 or 60 days, the online ETIAS application only takes a few minutes to fill in. The validity will be for a period of three years, significantly longer than the validity of a Schengen visa. An ETIAS authorisation will be valid for an unlimited number of entries.

The ETIAS travel authorisation will be a necessary and small procedural step for all visa-exempt travellers which will allow them to avoid bureaucracy and delays when presenting themselves at the borders. ETIAS will fully respect this visa-free status; facilitate the crossing of the Schengen external border; and allow visa free visitors to fully enjoy their status.

The exact date on which these changes will come into force is not yet clear.

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Angela Maxwell, the woman who walked the world for six and one-half years

In May 2, 2014, Angela Maxwell started her walk around the world – alone – with the aim of seeking a deeper connection to the world. On December 16, 2020, six and one-half years and 20,000 miles later, she brought that connection back home.

Florian Sturm, BBC »

As she prepared, Maxwell found a whole world of women explorers to embolden her. She fell in love with the writing and slow travel style of Robyn Davidson, who traversed Australia with camels. She learned about long-distance walker Ffyona Campbell; and read up on Rosie Swale-Pope, who hitchhiked from Europe to Nepal, sailed around the world, crossed Chile on horseback and, at age 59, began jogging around the world.

Once she made the decision to go, Maxwell sold all her belongings and organised the necessary gear. She packed a cart with 50kg of camping equipment, dehydrated food, a military-grade water filter and four seasons of clothing. Maxwell left her hometown of Bend, Oregon, on 2 May 2014 and headed into an adventure so grand it was probably best she didn’t know exactly what was waiting for her along the track.

When I first connected with Maxwell over Skype in June 2018, she was already nearly four years into her journey, having walked more than 12,500 miles in 12 countries on three continents. Curious, I asked her what kind of person it takes to walk around the world. Her face gleaming, she quipped, “a stubborn one”. She then added, “It’s probably a combination of ambition, a little stubbornness and a pinch of passion – not for hiking as a sport, but for self-discovery and adventure.”

Watch Angela Maxwell’s inspirational 2018 Tedx talk at Tedx University of Edinburgh. She was still walking at the time of this talk.

Angela’s web site » She Walks The Earth

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