Nice sunny day to enjoy a good #book (at Capital Tower)
This Weekend’s Hashtag Project: #WHPpetportraits
Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes & hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @instagram and look for a photo announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.
In honor of @zachdriftwood’s creative Pet Headz photography project, the goal this weekend is to capture portraits of your pets! Some tips to get you started: Hold a treat in your hand to capture your pet’s attention, have patience while capturing the perfect pet pose and don’t be afraid to channel your inner Zach by getting creative with your portraits!
PROJECT RULES: Please only add the hashtag #WHPpetportraits to photos taken over this weekend and only submit your own photographs to the project. Any image taken then tagged over the weekend is eligible to be featured right here Monday morning!
9 walks for Europe
Read more about several distinctive walks to do, when in Europe.
This one’s on the Bucket List.
Stars and Birds in Scotland
Britain is a land of walkers. Ambitious trails abound from the year-old, 870-mile Wales Coast Path, to the new 470-mile Gore-Tex Scottish National Trail from the English border to the northern Highlands. There are paths for foodies, art lovers and history buffs. And in one pocket of rural Scotland, there are paths for stargazers.
As of 2009, the Galloway Forest Park, in the rural Dumfries and Galloway region, is home to Europe’s first International Dark Sky Park, a designation bestowed by the Tucson-basedInternational Dark-Sky Association as determined by the relative lack of light pollution. On clear nights, stargazers gather in clearings at trailheads near the park’s visitor centers. But some of the best viewing, like the best hiking, lies in the remote highlands area accessed by the Queens Way road, where hikers can wander over spongy meadows or along the edge of Clatteringshaws Loch under a canopy of stars.
Stargazing, of course, is more stationary than ambulatory. On a recent trip, I spent many daylight hours on the numerous hiking trails that score the region, and turned up a Scottish sampler of Bronze Age sites (Torhouse Stone Circle near Wigtown), mossy forests (from the Kirroughtree Visitor Center), rugged highlands inset with lochs (from Clatteringshaws and Glentrool Visitor Centers in the heart of the park). I found seaside cliffs (near the southern town of Isle of Whithorn) and wildlife blinds, including one farmhouse feeding station along the Galloway Red Kite Trail that attracts flocks of colorful birds of prey. — ELAINE GLUSAC
Travelling in Indonesia’s Java
Read about visiting Mount Merapi in Indonesia Java here.
As we looked around, it was easy to imagine the lush, bucolic life. A few miles downslope, verdant fields were still being tended. But here, when we dug into the ground, the gray, gravelly sand was hot and smelled of sulfur. I threw a football-size rock, and the thud from its landing produced a hollow echo rising from below. There was not enough water or vegetation to dampen the sound.
“There are a lot of ghosts here,” Christian said.
US – The CEO of a US-based startup wanted to give his employees a once-in-a-lifetime experience – so he flew them all to Thailand for a month.
David Barrett, co-founder and CEO of Expensify, flew 20 of his staff to Railay Beach in southern Thailand for a month to work together and hang out with each other in a different environment,Business Insider reported.
Read more through the full article here.
Good going boss!
I miss Bangkok.
Read up on Thomas Fuller’s suggested 36 hour itinerary in Bangkok, Thailand.
There are several gems in there including:
- The Saturday (and Sunday) Chatuchak Market. Yes, do it not for the cheap and good finds but visit the market because it’s not the same as any market back home.
- Som Tam. Do not miss out on the Som Tam. It’s a Thai thing.
- The view from the top of Lebua State Tower. It’s a once in a life thing. You see it once, you remember it, you might not happen to go back again. Instagram your experience with and without filters.
Did I just forget to log-out of my Gmail again?
Ever had that sinking feeling that you might have forgotten to log-out of your Gmail account as you step out from that <insert place e.g. internet cafe, hotel lobby, free WiFi bar> and are 15 minutes away by cab, car, tuk-tuk, scooter and can’t get back?
NYT shared in a recent article how to do so. You can read the article in full here. Here’s hoping you actually have another computer when travelling to carry these instructions out.
In summary:
- Sign into Gmail from your browser on a second computer.
- Go the the bottom and look for a link that says “last account activity”. It should show a timing. This timing represents the most recent instance you checked your Gmail account.
- Click the “details” link and it will bring you to a listing of all your account activity across all your devices, i.e. phone, tablet and PC. This will also reflect the time the activity happened.
- If you notice other locations that state your Gmail account is still active, you can click on the “sign out of all other sessions” button to end all active log-ins.
For more information, check out the original post about the feature on the Gmail blog.
Hotel in a box?
How about a twist on back-to-basics living in a cube? Tablet Magazines has a feature out about some of the best looking, good location cube hotels across the world. Read more here.
New York Times article about travelling on a budget. It’s not about back-packing and cheap hostels.
Useful article by Emily Brennan on the New York Times about travelling light and making sure you have enough budget to spare.
The most useful tip for me:
Get an estimate of costs for accommodations, food, drink and transportation by reading guidebooks and doing online research, then divide that amount by the number of days you’re away to get a daily budget.
Read the article here.
