I had dreams of a soft bed, in an air condition room in New York City while I… Read the rest

Welcome to Gypsy Wednesday! Every Wednesday, I strive to highlight all the juicy morsels related to travel and beyond.

Calling all women travelers!  Don’t you crave fashion once in a while, not just function?  Introducing Rollasole!  Watch and learn:

In the video I said LA twice, my bad.  Initial cities for launch are New York, Las Vegas, Miami and Los Angeles.

Check their site for stock and events: www.rollasole.com.

Rollasole is also sold at these retailers:

• www.target.com for $9.99 USD.
• Fred Segal, Santa Monica.

Related posts:

1. Gypsy Wednesday – GRRRL Traveler Welcome to Gypsy Wednesday!  Every Wednesday, I strive to highlight...
2. Gypsy Wednesday – Joel Ward of Freedonia Welcome to Gypsy Wednesday!  Every Wednesday, I strive to highlight...
3. Gypsy Wednesday – My Time to Travel Welcome to Gypsy Wednesday!  Every Wednesday, I strive to highlight...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

South Kleang by Elizabeth

Sosauce Photo: 1 GB Free Photo Storage. Upgrade to a power account for unlimited photo storage & more!

var flashvars = { plugins: 'viral-1&viral.onpause=false&viral.functions=all', mute: 'false', file: 'http://careerbreaksecrets.com/wp-content/plugins/proplayer/playlist-controller.php?pp_playlist_id=2127-0&sid=1280001085', enablejs: 'true', javascriptid: '2127-0', backcolor: '111111', frontcolor: 'cccccc', lightcolor: '66cc00', skin: 'http://careerbreaksecrets.com/wp-content/plugins/proplayer/players/skins/default.swf', stretching: 'fill', repeat: 'false', autostart: 'false' }; var params = { wmode: 'transparent', allowfullscreen: 'true', allowscriptaccess: 'always', allownetworking: 'all' }; var attributes = { id: 'obj-pro-player-2127-0', name: 'obj-pro-player-2127-0' }; swfobject.embedSWF('http://careerbreaksecrets.com/wp-content/plugins/proplayer/players/player.swf', 'pro-player-2127-0', '600', '400', '9.0.0', false, flashvars, params, attributes); In northwest South Africa, the terrain is desert. And while [...]

Compared to many of the places we’ve been, travel in Europe is easy, relaxing and comfortable. There are literally tons of things to see and do here, about a million guides to help you decide what to do, and buses do not break down nearly as often as they do in Africa…what’s not to love? Most people come to Europe for culture, history and good food; the real challenge with all of that is knowing where start. There are a plethora of free walking tours, usually starting off from the main train station or tourist information booth. Generally a short tour of the main city attractions, these tour companies might either try to sell you on another ... Related posts:

1. Country Guide: South Africa South Africa is not a small country, not only is...
2. Review: Steri Pen Classic There is no doubt in my mind that this device...

In my recent post Gap Year to Career Breaker I highlighted the differences in travel during 1995 vs 2010. For the most part the differences are logistical & technical, but the experiences are always magical. And as a photographer, I’ve been surprisingly delighted in the transition from film to digital. No longer do I have to [...] Related posts:

1. Reflecting On Our Six-Month Anniversary

Today’s Travel Video Spotlight is an video that we took while horseback riding on the beach in Dahab, Egypt. Our guide offered to take this video and as you can see it was a pretty shaky ride!

–
Would you like to have your travel video featured in our Travel Video Spotlight? If so, send us a link to your video and if we feel it’s worthy enough to be shown to the world, we’ll add your video and a link back to your site!

-

Before leaving for France one of the best ways to warm up to the French culture is to spend a couple of days in the beautiful city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  It is also a great tourist destination in its own right.

Montreal is one of Canada’s most beautiful and romantic cities.

Located on the St. Lawrence River, it has a certain European vibe. Cafés line the sidewalks of Old Montreal, bicycles are readily available for rent, grand historical buildings have stood the test of time and old Cathedrals are the cornerstone of French culture and site seeing.

A long weekend in Montreal is the perfect getaway and here are a few things that will help you to occupy your time while visiting our relaxed French speaking city this summer.

1. Old Montreal - Not to be missed. Old Montreal feels as though you are in Europe. Cobblestone streets, Victorian architecture and classic street lamps line the walkways. Watch street performers and musicians as you enjoy a coffee on the terrace of a fine café or shop in the market or one of the many boutiques in Old Montreal. Exploring Old Montreal is about taking your time and enjoying the moment. Pretend you are in Europe and all you have to worry about is enjoying your café au lait with a soft croissant.
2. Visit the underground city – Montreal can get mighty cold in the winter but that doesn’t keep people at home. Visit the worlds largest underground city. Many Canadian cities have underground malls and walkways due to the cold weather, but Montreal takes it to the next level with over 32 km of tunnels containing restaurants, bars, shopping malls and even concert halls!

Summers can be very hot in Montreal. Just because it is located in Canada, doesn’t mean that temperatures don’t rise in the warm months.  Take a break from the heat in the cool underground and find some excellent deals in the shops.  Loose yourself and see where you end up in this massive complex.

3. Rent a bicycle - Montreal is a very bike friendly city. Like many European cities you can rent a bike with the swipe of a credit card and start exploring. You can then drop your bike off at any other rental location with are many and easy to find.  Make sure to ride along the Lachine Canal a 14 km cycling, inline skating and walking route starting just west of the Old Port.  There are bike lanes and bike paths everywhere and cyclists are a plenty in the active city of Montreal.

4. Marvel at Notre Dame Cathedral – It may not be as famous as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, but it is a proud monument in Montreal. Unfortunately the square in front of Notre Dame is under construction until next summer, but it is still an extraordinary example of Gothic architecture.  Make sure to go inside to witness its ornate displays of religious events.

5. Hike up Mont Royal - Go for a hike for a gorgeous view of the city. Not only is Mont Royal a wonderful park for hiking or to go on a picnic, it is also a trendy neighbourhood of Montreal offering great dining and shopping.

6. Eat a Fix Prix Meal - While you are up at Mont Royal head over to Rue Rachel and have a fantastic 5 course dinner at Apres Le Jour. Make sure to bring your own bottle of wine! You can find restaurants all over Montreal where diners can bring their own bottle of fine wine to enjoy while eating their set meal. Experience French Cuisine at its finest without having to think very hard about what you are going to eat. Just pick a selection off of each course and enjoy as the staff pours your wine and keeps the food coming.

7. Crescent Street - Go out on the town for some dining and dancing on Montreal’s most vibrant street.  This is where the kids and party goers hang out. Montreal is famous for its nightlife in Canada and here is where you will find it.  The drinking age in Montreal is 18 years old, so you will find a lot of Americans and youth from neighbouring Ontario coming over to enjoy an early drink.

8. Hire a Handsome Cab – Montreal is the city of love.  Known as a calèche in Quebec, this horse and carriage ride is a must for couples in love. Like Paris, Montreal is Canada’s city of romance.  There is nothing more romantic than hiring a horse and carriage to take you through the cobblestone streets to enjoy the cities historical buildings.  What I love about the horses in Montreal is how healthy and happy they are.  We have seen a driver stop in the middle of a tour to give his horse some water and a break to cool off on a hot day.

9. Take a Cruise on the St. Lawrence -  From the Old Port in Old Montreal, hop a riverboat to view Montreal from the St. Lawrence River.  It is a romantic and relaxing way to enjoy the city.  Different companies offer brunch, dinner and site seeing cruises daily. There is even a tour that offers an exciting ride through a Jet boat tour through the lachine rapids.

The St. Lawrence river is Canada’s main waterway shared with the United States, you will be sailing on one of the most important trade routes in the world.

10. Spend an afternoon at the waterfront – Pathways and parks line the waterfront.  Rent yourself a quadracycle to explore the area or bring your inline skates. You can bring a picnic lunch or enjoy a famous Montreal bagel.  Catch an afternoon performance of Cirque de Soleil (Montreal is where it was founded) or enjoy the most recent Imax movie before heading for dinner at one of the many restaurants.

Montreal is filled with exciting and interesting things to do.  Head out of the city for excellent hiking, mountain biking and paddling.  The Laurentian Mountains are a hop skip and a jump from Montreal and are an adventure seekers dream destination. 

But that list my friends is for another post.

Maybe bloggers are a naturally vain group, with a healthy narcissistic streak running through their core. But of all the ones I’ve met there is a consistent and strong interest in website analytics; and I’m no exception. When we publish a post we like to know how popular it’s been, and we like to see how our traffic ranks with other sites we know.

Most people use Google Analytics to track their website traffic, but this is not the only measure available to the statistically inclined blogger. Here are 8 tools that might keep you distracted for hours, pondering over the progress of your plans for world domination. If I’ve missed any other sites please feel free to suggest them.

1. Alexa - probably the most recognised ranking globally, Alexa allows you to find your position in the global league table of websites. It also lets you know your ranking in a list of individual countries and provides demographic data of your website’s readers. By their own admission, the rankings become less reliable for those outside the global top 100,000. Their algorithm is a closely guarded secret.

2. Compete - similar to Alexa, but updated monthly rather than daily, meaning that a website can move through several hundred thousand ranking points in one day. Their results are harder to believe than those of Alexa from my own experience, as relatively small changes in traffic have resulted in dramatic shifts in ranking.

3. Invesp Travel Blogrank – a site that takes Alexa and Compete rankings, along with backlinks, RSS subscribers, page visitors and other metrics, and puts them into their secret magic formula. The rankings are compromised by the limitations of the input metrics (my RSS numbers regularly fluctuate between 50 and 160 in a day, while Compete appears equally volatile) but it’s still a handy site to see the relative profile of your site alongside others that you know. Updates are random; sometimes weekly, sometimes more frequent.

4. Travel Blog Sites – a very simple formula. Takes the average combined score from Alexa and Compete and provides a weekly top 100 of travel blogs. Nothing fancy, but an easy and visually appealing way to see how you measure up against others. It is updated weekly. Two major limitations with this one: if you’re stuck with a poor Compete ranking for one month you’ll be penalised for the next month on here, and more importantly it only ranks those sites that have registered with them, so it’s not a comprehensive list.

5. Technorati – a purist’s favourite, these guys use yet another closely guarded formula. Supposed to measure influence rather than traffic. I haven’t yet got to grips with Technorati but from what I hear a high ranking with this site is one of the most credible endorsements of a blog.

6. Sitelogr – a nifty way of tracking not just the traffic stats for your site, but also a measure of the daily ad revenue that you could be earning and the site’s overall monetary value. Useful? Unlikely. Interesting? Of course. Updates daily.

7. Website Outlook – similar to Sitelogr, but updates every 2 weeks rather than daily. The other useful measure that this site provides is the number of backlinks to your site; a valuable statistic when promoting a site to potential buyers or advertisers.

8. Blog Top Sites - my favourite of all the analytic sites out there. The site provides a tiny widget for your site that updates your website ranking on a hourly basis. If you click through it will also give you a graph of unique visitors and page views for that day, again updated hourly. Excellent for checking if your latest post has attracted any interest or not.

9. Top 50 in Travel – a brand new site set up by Brendan van Son, this ambitious effort combines hard data (Alexa rankings) with Brendan’s own assessment of a blog’s layout, content, writing quality and photo quality. Only started in July 2010: one to watch.

All these sites offer something of value, and of course each has its limitations. They can be useful in tracking how our blogs are performing, but can easily serve as a distraction from the main purpose of managing a blog. And don’t you find that you”ll always prefer the one that offers you the most favourable rank?

Review of travel blog ranking sites is a post from: 501 Places

Weekly Travel Photo – Indian Boy & Donkey

Related posts:

1. Travel Photo Of The Week – Relaxing Kangaroo In Australia
2. Travel Photo Of The Week – Cameron Highlands Sunflower
3. Travel Photo Of The Week – Malaysian Butterfly