Category: Collections

Ever wake up with the room spinning and your skull cracking, wondering if anyone else feels as crappy as you do? They do. The following is the best of the Twitterverse from drunkards all around the world.–SO I WAS DRUNK in the bed of a moving truck last night… Hit a speed bump and somehow rearranged my face.

You love to hate them. Horrible commercials are all over the tube, inciting anger and making us wonder how someone, somewhere has money in the bank from creating something so awful. Jason Policastro takes a look at some of the current offenders.Ride WarriorROLLER COASTERS ARE TOTALLY EXTREME. If they were trying to capture what it’s like at your standard American amusement park then they should have posted footage of 5000 morbidly obese children standing in line, clutching stuffed Tasmanian Devils and shoving blimp-sized cotton candy clouds down their throats which would later be vomited into their bumper cars.

We put our sweet tooth to the test with these high-performance confections.I’ll just come out and say it: my idea of high-performance sport nutrition has never involved candy. Vegetables, whole grains, protein – all of those things. Gum and jelly beans – not so much.Enter Quench Gum and Sports Beans, two candies that pledge to improve performance by providing athletes with the vitamins and minerals that they need to function.

Just imagine … relaxing on a golden beach in Thailand, trekking through a teeming jungle in Peru, swimming up close and personal with the inhabitants of the Great Barrier Reef, roaming the electric streets of Tokyo at 3am in a sake-fuelled haze – Ah, the possibilities!BUT AS THE REAL world back seeps back in (a dreary nine-to-five desk-job, perhaps?

Photo by stars.alive.Chances are there’s some life wasting going on behind your front door right now. Spending hours each day staring into the eyes of your television can steal from you huge chunks of time during what could be the best years of your life.SURE, THERE ARE a few channels that offer programming that awakens and educates.

Get more mileage out of your iPod by installing RockboxMany travelers already carry an iPod with them when they travel. However, few know that the iPod can be used as more than just a multimedia player.© Photo by Rowshan DowlatabadiBy installing the free Rockbox software and making a few pre-trip preparations, you can transform your iPod into a powerful travel accessory.

Travel writing can be a powerful political act, as explored by LP writer Robert Reid and affirmed by our own Tim Patterson.IN 2006, THE great travel writer Robert Kaplan gave a seminal speech at the Columbia School of Journalism.Kaplan argued that mainstream journalism suffers from an obsession with soundbites, and that journalists should take time to steep themselves in the sort of local knowledge that only first-hand experience can provide.

It’s that time again where we look at pictures of different travelers and travel writers tweeting. We don’t fully understand how this is culturally relevant but somehow it seems to be.THE LAST ROUNDUP of travel tweeps twittering got more than 3,000 views and 80 retweets. Alright, here they are: people’s faces + computer / portable device screens:@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@dahveed_miller @waywardlifeMatador TweepsFollow the Matador Staff on Twitter!

Feature photo by DBarefoot. Photo above by debaird.Travelers can do certain things to be ready should the worst happen while abroad.FEW PEOPLE KNOW what their lives are worth. My life was worth about $45, a credit and bank card, a new phone, an old watch, and a new iPod.Bryce, Katherine, and I took the night bus to Quito so we could make the Ecuador vs.

The Matador team has a few suggestions on novels, novellas and short stories that evoke as strong a sense of place as good travel narratives.I ENJOY WRITING and reading both fiction and non-fiction, and when I finish a great book, quite often the characteristics that made me love it have nothing to do with whether or not the story is true.

An overnight boat ride up the Niger River was all Phil Paoletta needed to put together 5 arguments for visiting the West African nation.LAST FALL, I WAS traveling in Mali, a land-locked nation in West Africa. A few weeks into my time there, I took a 20-hour ferry from Mopti, a busy port on the Inner Niger Delta, in the middle of the country, to Niafunke in the northern region of Timbuktu.

Lance Meade, our swashbuckling, airborne Matadorian, has kindly tackled your questions about the necessary but often terrifying experience of flying.HERE, LANCE SPREADS his expertise around on everything from volcanic ash to potential hidden make out nooks below the cabin.Q: I can see how it would be dangerous to fly directly a thick cloud of Eyjafjallajökull, but what is it about volcanic ash specifically that’s so dangerous for planes, even if it’s barely visible in the air?

The mother of all atlases!FOR US GEOGRAPHY nuts, the world’s largest book – the Klencke Atlas – in the possession of the British Library will be unveiled to the public for the first time in over 350 years this summer.Yes, the book is three and a half centuries old.The Atlas contains 37 encyclopedic maps which provide summary views of the world at the time of its inception.

Photo: JasonTrommHaving a talking pet is pretty cool, but unless you’re Dr. Doolittle, how do you find one that’s going to provide you with some sparkling conversation?ANY MEMBER OF the parrot (or parakeet) family is your best bet but before you rush out to your nearest pet store, you’ll need both time and money to spare; feathered friends require a huge amount of commitment and investment.

Photo by authorIn this first article in an occasional series, “Steal This Idea!”, Matador Change editor Julie Schwietert highlights one urban initiative that could be adapted for your own city.THE IDEA BEHIND this new series is to show off cool projects from around the world that can be adapted and implemented in your own city.

When I left college with a degree in journalism I found myself saturated in theory, but lacking in practical and applicable knowledge.I WILL ALWAYS be learning about how to become a better travel journalist.I’m no expert, but one of the great things about journalism is that there are no experts; the best travel journalists are curious, engaged people who are always ready to learn something new.

Blue Sky. Image released by Dept. of DefenseEveryone remembers where they were on 9/11. Julie Schwietert was working with mentally ill patients in New York.IT’S WHAT WE notice that hurts afterward. This year I’ll wake up on September 11 and think, as I have for the past seven years: “The sky was just so blue.

How to cope with the stresses of moving abroad while avoiding the threats of “Stockholm syndrome.”THIS IS MY thirteenth international move. I started off moving as a daughter, then as a student, then for work, then for love and now as a mom.You may be a nomad like me and only know the place you live in for a couple of years.

Feature and above photo by oNico®.As it turns out, going to Paris without money is the best way to do it.“HOW ARE YOU affording Paris?” my mother, in her overly-motherly way, wanted to know.“Well,” I said, with a twinge of desperation. “We’re not, really.”My partner and I didn’t have a hotel booked and we didn’t know what we would do when we got to Paris, except avoid spending as many Euros as possible.

Desiree Bilon and photographer Sean Brody soak in the surf in Sri Lanka but also make some time for temple.THE WAVES WERE breaking at Whisky Point. But by the time we arrived, the wind was up and the sun was blazing down. Not ideal conditions, but the water was turquoise–warm, inviting. Only a handful of other surfers were in the water.