Airport Security on Wulffmorgenthaler

via The High Definite

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that cult filmmaker John Waters was picked up hitchhiking in Ohio by indie band, Here We Go Magic. Their tweet announcing it read: “Just picked up John Waters hitchhiking in the middle of Ohio.. No joke. Waters in the van.” Waters, who is apparently hitchhiking cross-country, spent six hours with the band during which he bought them all lunch.

DCist has the full story from the band:

Now what do you say to conspiracy theorists who think that John Waters is a huge fan of Here We Go Magic, and this was just orchestrated as a publicity stunt to promote the band?

[Laughs] Wow. That would…I’d be completely awed. I would push that story, I wouldn’t mind at all! But the truth is we actually picked him up hitchhiking. It was a complete and utter coincident.
So what happened once the car pulls up alongside him and he gets in the van? We pulled up and we saw him and everyone went, “That’s definitely John Waters.” We opened the door and I said, “Hello how you doing? Where ya coming from?” And he said Baltimore. We were like, “Uh huh,” totally knowing that he was from Baltimore. So we said, “Come on in!” He got in the van and he got all tangled up in the seat belt, it was really adorable. That was the first thing that happened. We’re traveling in a van and there are all these seat belts that block your way. You know, the ones that go from the side to the seats in the middle.

So he was totally tangled and he didn’t even remove himself. He just sort of sat down, entrenched in seat belts. He was a perfect gentlemen. We addressed the fact that we knew it was John Waters and he very calmly accepted that information. It sort of rolls on from there. The shock of the event wore off pretty quickly in exchange for the warmth and the kindness and cleverness of this human being that’s now sitting next to you. He became a human being very quickly. He answered every single question and he was even a little shy about photos. Finally it was like, “My mom wants a picture” and “Do you mind if I Tweet this” and he was fine with it. We were like, “What on earth are you doing this for?” He was like, “I have a lot of control in my life and I just wanted to let go of the reins a little bit, have an adventure.” He’s such a true artist and it’s so cool!

A sad parting. Best of luck Mr. Waters! Wish I could put u in my pocket.

via Richard Von Busack

images via Here We Go Magic

Simplehoney is a recently launched San Francisco-based travel startup that wants to make booking hotels easier and less stressful. The web service “matches guests to hotels based on their travel preferences, style and upcoming trips.” Sign-ups for simplehoney are currrently being offered and by answering a short quiz, hotels will be recommended to you. Currently, they are covering Hawaii and San Francisco but will be expanding in the future.

Simplehoney is founded by web developer Eric Nakagawa (who previously founded I Can Has Cheezburger) and former corporate attorney Joyce Kim (previous CEO of soompi.com). Here is the story of how they became co-founders, as told by Kim.

via TechCrunch

logo image via TechCrunch
other images via simplehoney

Yesterday the Google Maps team introduced photo tours, 3D tours of famous world landmarks that are generated from public photos on Panoramio and Picasa (intro video). Browse the more than 15,000 photo tours here, or take a look at Shoshone Falls in Idaho.

via Google Lat Long Blog

The Motels of Route 66 is a documentary film and book project by Simon Cantlon and independent film production company Paper Moon Films that will explore Route 66′s iconic vintage motels. A Kickstarter campaign has been started to help fund the production costs for the project.

The project will be traveling the road and capturing the tales within the walls from the motel owners, the travelers and the architecture itself.

It will also include an interactive element seeking submissions from people of their own footage from Route 66. Some of this submitted content will be integrated into the final film and book.

Time Kit by Alex Griendling

So You Created A Wormhole is a group time travel-themed art exhibition at iam8bit gallery in Los Angeles. The show’s all-age opening reception is Friday April 13, 2012 from 7 pm to 11 pm. The exhibition runs through April 29, 2012.

Well, it’s in honor of the scholarly new book, SO YOU CREATED A WORMHOLE: THE TIME TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL, written by Mr. Phil Hornshaw and Mr. Nick Hurtwitch. The authors will also be in attendance opening night to sign books and party like it’s 1749!

The Time Traveler by Barnaby Ward

Travels by Ken Wong

by Mitch Loidolt

To pass the time during long flights, artist Nina Katchadourian goes to the lavatory, adorns herself in tissue paper costume, and creates hilarious self-portrait photos in the style of Flemish Renaissance paintings. She calls the series “Seat Assignment: Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style.”

While in the lavatory on a domestic flight in March 2010, I spontaneously put a tissue paper toilet cover seat cover over my head and took a picture in the mirror. The image evoked 15th-century Flemish portraiture. I decided to add more images made in this mode and planned to take advantage of a long-haul flight from San Francisco to Auckland, guessing that there were likely to be long periods of time when no one was using the lavatory on the 14-hour flight. I made several forays to the bathroom from my aisle seat, and by the time we landed I had a large group of new photographs entitled Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style.

via PetaPixel & Flavorwire

Life is either daring adventure or nothing at all.

Filmmaker Casey Neistat was hired to film a commercial for the Nike+ Fuelband #Makeitcount campaign. Instead of making a straight commercial, he took the money, went on a 10-day around the world adventure with his friend & editor Max Joseph and created the fun film short titled Make it Count.

via Gizmodo

No Kitchen Required is a cooking competition television series “that follows three chefs who are dropped off in remote locations where they must work with the locals to hunt, forage and collect ingredients for a locally-inspired meal.” The show, hosted by Dr. Shini Somara, premieres on BBC America on April 3, 3012 (10/9C).

Join New York restaurateur Michael Psilakis, first ever “Chopped” Grand Champion chef Madison Cowan and international chef Kayne Raymond as they prepare dishes from ten very different and remote locations including Dominica, New Zealand, Belize, Fiji, Chiang Dao, Thailand, Koh Lanta, Thailand, as well as Hawaii, New Mexico, Louisiana and Florida.

Each chef is free to choose the indigenous ingredients he wants to use—the challenge comes when he must acquire and prepare the ingredients in the same manner as the locals. The chefs’ meals will ultimately be judged by the community and one will be chosen as winner in each episode.

Sir Richard Branson has unveiled his plans for Virgin Volcanic, a faux voyage to explore the center of the earth using a giant passenger drill. This volcano-dwelling drill can hold three people and for this particular journey he has chosen himself, “Black Eyed Peas recording artist and science enthusiast will.i.am and actor/producer Seth Green.” Branson is quoted as saying, “I have long held a fascination with volcanoes since reading Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Alongside our adventures with Virgin Galactic and Virgin Oceanic, volcanoes are the next great unexplored terrain. What can I say, I lava challenge!”. (Are you sure there’s not room for one more, Sir Richard? I lava challenge too.) More information about this amazing voyage can be found at Virgin.

The team behind Virgin Volcanic believes going to the core of the five most active volcanoes is just the first step. In future this technology can be developed as a clean, safe and fast alternative to trans- continental commercial aviation. By taking the heat from molten lava Virgin Volcanic plans to develop a totally renewable energy source to power the VVS1. It is seen as a way to literally fulfil Richard Branson’s philosophy of screwing business as usual.

This would involve going through the Earth rather than round it. Experts predict that one could travel from Hawaii to Naples in a couple of hours via the molten lava flows, with passengers boarding and disembarking from a network of “Earthports” close to the world’s volcanoes.

The first Virgin Volcanic trips are scheduled for 2015.

Branson also recently traveled back to 1972 in the Virgin Time Travel machine. He is shown here looking stylish in bell-bottoms and goatee, all while toting the Virgin Records released album, Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield:

via Tim Holt

Everplaces is a travel app that lets travelers save and share their favorite places from around the world. Users can create collections of places, explore recommendations from likeminded travelers, and access their collections from anywhere with the Everplaces iPhone app (Android is on the way).

via Fast Company

Andrew Hyde has spent the past 20 months traveling the world and is now writing a book about his travels titled This Book Is About Travel (A Manual For Modern Travel). He recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the completion of the book.

This is a collection of essays and experiences from months of living on the road with only a backpack to my name. At times this is a difficult. Other times it is a mental escape. It was written on the road – from a hut in the a guest lodge in the high Himalayas to a beach hotel the Caribbean Sea…

Travel, at its core, is opening your heart to possibility.

It is not an adventure of extravagance or wealth. It is an adventure of constraints and character. This book, by design, is a manual for modern travel.

You may remember the recent photo of Andrew where he is sitting with his 39 things (one of which is a Laughing Squid t-shirt):

photo by Adria Ellis

Travel Posters for Lazy People is a series of humorous digital posters created by illustrator H. Caldwell Turner for CollegeHumor. All of the images are posted at CollegeHumor.

Every day’s a vacation when you have the Internet!

Flight attendant Mandy showing off a finished “Key Lime Cookie Dough Sort Of” recipe on Southwest flight 1200

On my Southwest Airlines flight to SXSW 2012 conference, I snagged the front row bulkhead seat. Little did I know, I would soon be in the middle of a very fun experiment put on by our flight attendants, Mandy and LaDonna. My seatmate Susan and I watched as they filled up ten vomit bags with various food items found in the plane’s galley. Mandy then announced that she wanted volunteers as she had been wanting to try out airplane food recipes with passengers for a long time. Volunteers were chosen (including my seatmate) and she began to tell us how to prepare the recipes.

Mandy called the first recipe “Key Lime Cookie Dough Sort Of” and it consisted of crushed airplane-shaped cookies, Coffee Mate creamer and a wedge of lime. The next was simply peanut butter and several passengers attempted to crush peanuts to a smooth consistency. It got even better when the pilot came out and offered up an unexpected suggestion: Chocolate Mousse. It was a simple recipe made of powdered hot chocolate mix and Coffee Mate creamer. We ended up dipping our mini pretzels into the (somewhat delicious) finished “mousse”. Winners were announced and much fun was had by all involved. In fact, it may have been the most fun I’ve ever had on a commercial flight.

Here are some of the images from that fun flight and the rest can be found here:

Yours truly trying out the finished “Key Lime Cookie Dough Sort Of” recipe

Flight attendant LaDonna showing the bag of Plane Cookies needed for the “Key Lime Cookie Dough Sort Of” recipe

My seatmate Susan making the “Key Lime Cookie Dough Sort Of” recipe

Passengers making peanut butter

Mandy and the pilot checking out the flight-made peanut butter

My seatmate Susan dipping a pretzel into the finished “Chocolate Mousse” recipe

photos by Rusty Blazenhoff and Susan Taylor

Special thanks to Mandy and LaDonna!

Know What is a new city guide app for iPhone that features recommendations from local writers, bloggers, and critics. The app currently covers Los Angeles and San Francisco. Know What was developed by Escape Apps.

San Francisco-based videographer Jeff Diehl of Spots Unknown compressed his grueling 11 day journey across Mongolia into a 4 minute video. Diehl drove across Mongolia for the 2011 London to Ulan Bator Mongol Rally.

This gyroscopically stabilized pool table aboard Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship Radiance of the Seas makes it possible to play pool while at sea (the rolling motion of a ship made this feat previously impossible).

via Reddit

video by Dman3150

“PASS/PORT” is a five book set about different issues surrounding international travel. Each book is designed to resemble a passport. The set was created by Lebanese designer Marwan Kaabour.

PASS/PORT is a set of 5 books in the form of passports that critically investigate the different parts of the travel process. The project attempts to represent the ways the travel document embodies the very essence of restriction rather than allows passage. Our political borders are as closed as ever at a time when our notion of the world is that of a global village or an open city.

via BLDGWLF

Places I Haven’t Been (North America) by Evan Drolet Cook

via Hipmunk, Double Takes, Junk Culture & Eyeteeth

photo by Cameron Wittig

Sightsmap is an interactive heatmap that shows the most photographed sightseeing spots in the world. It is powered by data from Panoramio, a location-based photo sharing site. Sightsmap is by Estonian computer science professor Tanel Tammet.

via PetaPixel

San Francisco-based photographer Kien Lam quit his day job, packed his bags and spent a year traveling and documenting the world. Time is Nothing is the beautiful time-lapse film he made from his epic around-the-globe journey to 17 countries in 343 days. His brother William Lam created Places and Faces, the lovely score for the film.

via Neatorama

Delta Air Lines sent a hardcase with six outward-facing video cameras as checked baggage aboard a flight from Atlanta to New York City to show the behind-the-scenes journey of checked baggage.

via Hipmunk

Prompted by the unfortunate experience Lori Dorn had with TSA along with many other similar experiences, TSA has announced the launch of their new TSA Cares Helpline to assist passengers with disabilities and medical conditions prior to their flights. According to TSA they “established this new helpline because we are committed to treating each passenger the way they deserve to be treated – with dignity and respect.”

Starting today, travelers can call the toll free helpline number for TSA Cares before traveling if they have questions about screening policies, procedures or what to expect when they arrive at the airport security checkpoint. This line is available not only to passengers with disabilities and medical conditions, but also to their family members and travel companions who can speak to a knowledgeable representative from the TSA Cares helpline to answer questions about airport security prior to travel.

Air travelers can call TSA Cares toll-free at 1-855-787-2227, Monday through Friday, 9am-9pm EST.

“Mars in a Minute: How Do You Get to Mars?” by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a brief animation that explains three key issues to consider before planning your next Mars mission.

via Coudal Partners

Tom Jenkins of film and production company, The Theory, created Address is Approximate as a personal stop-motion animation project. This beautifully made film short uses images from Google Maps with Street View to follow the automobile adventures of a toy figure with a bad case of wanderlust.

A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View.

via Doobybrain.com