Turn Your iPod into a Travel Guide: 20 Travel Podcasts

in Podcasts | January 27th, 2008

Over the past year, we’ve seen a steady sup­ply of new trav­el pod­casts com­ing online. Some are pro­duced by the pub­lish­ers of major trav­el guides; oth­ers by pas­sion­ate indi­vid­ual trav­el­ers. Many are in video, some even in HD. These pod­casts will gen­er­al­ly help you trav­el much more knowl­edge­ably. And, in most cas­es, they’ll say some­thing about a trav­el des­ti­na­tion that a tra­di­tion­al guide nev­er could. This col­lec­tion will grow over time. You can find it housed per­ma­nent­ly in our Pod­cast Library locat­ed on the top right of each page. (There you can also find our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons, which will be handy, too, for your trav­els.)

• A Year in Europe iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A well reviewed pod­cast. “Scott and Sheryl quit their jobs and sold their home. Now they’re on a year-long excur­sion through Europe where they’re explor­ing the places they’ve read about and dreamed of vis­it­ing. Fol­low them on their jour­ney as they expe­ri­ence the cul­tures, art and his­to­ry they find fas­ci­nat­ing.”

• Ama­teur Trav­el Pod­cast — Video iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Focus­es on trav­el sto­ries with a dash of trav­el news, trav­el tips and trav­el resources. And, yes, as the title sug­gests, it’s in video.

• Antho­ny Bour­dain — No Reser­va­tions iTunes Web Site
  • Pro­duced by the Trav­el Chan­nel, this video pod­cast com­bines trav­el with the love of food.

• Beau­ti­ful Places (iPod/iTunes) iTunes Down­load Web Site
  • This video pod­cast focus­es on the great out­doors. Des­ti­na­tions explored here include Big Sur, Yosemite, Rocky Moun­tain Nation­al Park, etc. You can find an HD ver­sion of the pod­cast here.

• Big in Tai­wan HD iTunes Feed Web Site
  • These videos high­light the peo­ple, cul­ture, sights & sounds of Tai­wan.

• Copen­hagen Pod­walks iTunes Web Site
  • Pod­casts that will get you around Den­mark’s cap­i­tal.
• Dis­cov­er France with Sebastien iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Gives you a good look at French towns. In video.

• Find­ing Amer­i­ca iTunes Feed Web Site
  • See the real Amer­i­ca in video. Trav­el every major road in the USA and see the coun­try from some­thing oth­er than a glossy, man­u­fac­tured per­spec­tive.

• From­mer’s Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Trav­el info from Kel­ly Regan, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of From­mer’s Trav­el Guides, and David Lytle, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of Frommers.com. So far audio only. (It’s curi­ous that the big pub­lish­ers are pro­duc­ing less dynam­ic pod­casts than the small guys are.)

• Inside Grand Canyon iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn about Grand Canyon Nation­al Park with a park ranger as your guide. This is a video pod­cast.

• iPod Trav­el­er iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Two Lon­don­ers give you their per­son­al look at Europe. This audio pod­cast was dis­con­tin­ued in 2007, but the exten­sive archive remains.

• Italy From the Inside iTunes Web Site
  • A native Ital­ian tells first-time trav­el­ers how to make the most of Italy. Some in audio; some in video.

• Italy Trav­el Guide: Rome, Venice & Flo­rence iTunes Feed Web Site (Also HD movies here)
  • A close look at Italy’s great cities.

• Let’s Trav­el Radio iTunes Feed Web Site
  • An inter­net trav­el radio show that takes you to the four cor­ners of the world. Fea­tures talks with glo­be­trot­ters, artists, chefs and musi­cians.

• Lone­ly Plan­et Trav­el­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pro­duced by one of the lead­ing trav­el guide pub­lish­ers, these pod­casts are very inter­na­tion­al in scope. Audio only.

• Lon­don Land­scape TV HD iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A visu­al HD guide to the great city of Lon­don.

• Saman­tha Brown: Pass­port to Latin Amer­i­ca iTunes Web Site
  • Pro­duced by the Trav­el Chan­nel, this well-reviewed video pod­cast often focus­es on Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca, which is some­thing that’s hard to find .… at least so far.

• Trav­el in 10 iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A 10 minute trav­el pod­cast that takes lis­ten­ers to des­ti­na­tions around the globe to present sound­scapes and audio­tours from hip hotels, great restau­rants, con­certs, fes­ti­vals and events.
• Trav­el with Rick Steves iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pro­duced by one of the big­ger names in the trav­el indus­try, these audio pod­casts give you good glob­al cov­er­age. I should men­tion that Steves has some oth­er focused pod­casts includ­ing: Rick Steves’ Europe in Video; Rick Steves’ Italy Audio Tours; and Rick Steves’ France Audio Tours.

• The Trav­el Des­ti­na­tion Pod­cast: Tips for Trav­el­ers iTunes Feed Web Site

• Unabellav­ista: How to Tour Italy iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn about Italy’s art, his­to­ry, archi­tec­ture, food, and lan­guage. In audio.

• Walks of a Life­time iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pro­duced by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er. “Stroll across the world, from crowd­ed city cen­ters to rus­tic coun­try routes, with trav­el expert Rudy Maxa in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er mag­a­zine’s selec­tion of the world’s great­est walk­ing tours.” In audio.

• Video Trav­el Guides from Italy iTunes Web Site

• Wash­ing­ton Trav­el­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A week­ly walk­ing tour of the US capi­tol.

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Stay in Bed & Grow Your Hair: John Lennon and Yoko Ono Protesting the Vietnam War

in Music | January 25th, 2008

This looks like it’s the real deal — Yoko Ono’s trib­ute to John Lennon on YouTube. Among the video clips housed in the col­lec­tion, you’ll find footage that recap­tures the “bed-ins” that John and Yoko famous­ly staged in Mon­tre­al and Ams­ter­dam in 1969 to protest the Viet­nam War. As Lennon puts it, there’s no bet­ter way to protest the war than to “stay in bed and grow your hair.” That’s a form of protest that the lost slack­er in me can appre­ci­ate.

The footage is accom­pa­nied by the song, “Give Peace a Chance,” which was writ­ten dur­ing the bed-in. It was fol­lowed lat­er that year by “War is Over! If You Want It — Hap­py Christ­mas From John and Yoko.” The heart­break­ing YouTube video set to this song has over one mil­lion views.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

• The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts From Yes­ter­day
• What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot
• The Grey Video: Mix­ing The Bea­t­les with Jay‑Z
• The Com­plete Bea­t­les in One Hour (and The Sopra­nos in Sev­en Min­utes)

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Earthrise & Earthset in HD

in Science, Video - Science | January 23rd, 2008

In Novem­ber, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon with a high-def cam­era onboard. You can see the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set” by check­ing out these still images (Earth­rise and Earth­set) or watch­ing the video footage below, which has also been added to our YouTube playlist.

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Obama Speaks at Martin Luther King’s Church

in Current Affairs | January 23rd, 2008

The cel­e­bra­tion of Mar­tin Luther King’s birth­day was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent this year. It had a polit­i­cal edge to it, and unavoid­ably so. Dr. King’s work made pos­si­ble what we’re final­ly see­ing today — a black can­di­date mak­ing a seri­ous run at the Amer­i­can pres­i­den­cy. So it seemed entire­ly appro­pri­ate that Barack Oba­ma spoke Sun­day before the con­gre­ga­tion at Ebenez­er Bap­tist Church in Atlanta, where MLK preached long ago. In this 34-minute speech, you get a per­fect reminder of King’s lega­cy and also a stump speech deliv­ered in an ora­tor­i­cal style that King would appre­ci­ate. The video clip below has been viewed close to 450,000 times on YouTube. It’s also been added to our YouTube playlist.

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A Slew of New Audiobooks (for Free)

in Audio Books | January 23rd, 2008

Lib­rivox is on a roll late­ly. Since Decem­ber, the provider of free, pub­lic domain audio­books has released a num­ber of clas­sic works on audio. Below, we’ve list­ed some of the high­lights, which we’ve also includ­ed in our Audio­Book Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. (Here, you’ll also find free audio­books by oth­er providers.) For Lib­rivox’s com­plete cat­a­logue, click here.

2 B R 0 2 B, Kurt Von­negut (MP3 File)

A Child’s His­to­ry of Eng­land, Charles Dick­ens (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3s)

A Short His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States by Edward Chan­ning (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge, (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States, Vol. IV, Charles Beard (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

Med­i­ta­tions on First Phi­los­o­phy, Rene Descartes (Full Zip - Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

The His­to­ry of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II, Edward Gib­bon (The Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3s)

The Life of Charle­magne, Ein­hard (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual Files)

The Mas­ter of the World, Jules Verne (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual Files)

The Prob­lems of Phi­los­o­phy, Bertrand Rus­sell (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

The Three Mus­ke­teers, Alexan­dre Dumas (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

The Works of Tac­i­tus (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual Files)

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Comments We Love to Hear

in Uncategorized | January 22nd, 2008

In one of our recent pieces, we high­light­ed a video that fea­tured law pro­fes­sor Cass Sun­stein inter­pret­ing the sec­ond amend­ment and ques­tion­ing whether it con­ferred the right to bear arms. In response, one of our read­ers offered this com­ment:

“Reeeeeal­ly good talk. My friend and I sat down to watch it, and before we start­ed, we laid out our posi­tions, basi­cal­ly one on each side of the debate. Sun­stein pro­ceeds to explain how we’re both wrong. Awe­some.”

I men­tion this sim­ply because it’s great to see the media (videos/podcasts) fea­tured here being used in this way. It’s great to see read­ers real­ly engag­ing with the mate­r­i­al and allow­ing it to shape their views. It’s the ulti­mate com­pli­ment in some ways. Thanks Ben.

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The Future of Ideas: Download Your Free Copy (and More)

in Law | January 20th, 2008

In 2001, Stan­ford law pro­fes­sor Lawrence Lessig pub­lished The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Com­mons in a Con­nect­ed World. Here, Lessig launched a cam­paign against Amer­i­can copy­right law, argu­ing that it has become so restric­tive that it sti­fles cul­tur­al inno­va­tion and social progress .… which under­mines the orig­i­nal point of copy­right law. Back in 1787, the found­ing fathers includ­ed the “copy­right clause” in the Amer­i­can con­sti­tu­tion, look­ing to give authors a short-term incen­tive to inno­vate and ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the pub­lic good. (Arti­cle I, Sec­tion 8 empow­ers Con­gress “To pro­mote the Progress of Sci­ence and use­ful Arts, by secur­ing for lim­it­ed Times to Authors and Inven­tors the exclu­sive Right to their respec­tive Writ­ings and Dis­cov­er­ies.”). At the out­set, copy­right law pro­tect­ed forms of expres­sion — and let authors prof­it from them — for a min­i­mum of 14 years and a max­i­mum of 28. Then, the mate­r­i­al went into the pub­lic domain. But over time, the pro­tec­tions placed on cul­tur­al expres­sion have been extend­ed, and now works are pro­tect­ed so long as an author is alive, and then anoth­er 70 years. That’s poten­tial­ly up to 140 years or more. All of this has hap­pened because Con­gress has been suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied by large media cor­po­ra­tions (e.g. Dis­ney), want­i­ng to mon­e­tize their media assets (think, Mick­ey Mouse) indef­i­nite­ly.

Any­way, this is a long way of telling you that you can now down­load The Future of Ideas for free. Lessig per­suad­ed Ran­dom House to release the book under a “Cre­ative Com­mons” license, using the argu­ment that free e‑books will actu­al­ly stim­u­late sales of paper copies. (Do you real­ly want to read 350 pages on your com­put­er screen?)

This is not the first time that Lessig has worked with this mod­el. One of his pre­vi­ous books, Free Cul­ture: How Big Media Uses Tech­nol­o­gy and the Law to Lock Down Cul­ture and Con­trol Cre­ativ­i­ty, was also made freely avail­able in dig­i­tal for­mat. (You can down­load a free audio­book ver­sion or buy the paper ver­sion here.)

As a final note, I should men­tion that Lessig will be leav­ing behind his focus on these copy­right issues, and turn­ing his sights to cor­rup­tion in Wash­ing­ton. Below you can watch him out­line the prob­lem that he’s look­ing to tack­le.

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Resolving the Omnivore’s Dilemma: Pollan’s New Book

in Books | January 17th, 2008

Com­ing off of the run­away suc­cess of Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma, Michael Pol­lan has just pub­lished a log­i­cal sequel — In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Man­i­festo. His new book tells us what to eat, what not to eat, and how to stay healthy. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, his advice can be boiled down to a few words: “Eat food. Not too much. Most­ly plants.” But there is obvi­ous­ly much more to it than that. To fill in the gaps, you can buy the book or lis­ten to two recent inter­views with Pol­lan:

1.) The Leonard Lopate Show (Jan­u­ary 9) : MP3 — iTunes — Feed — Web Site 

2.) Sci­ence Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 4): MP3 — iTunes — Feed — Web Site

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Central Intelligence: From Ants to the Web

in Science, Video - Science | January 16th, 2008

Some­times order seem­ing­ly comes out of nowhere. It just mate­ri­al­izes. It hap­pens in ant colonies, in cities, on the web, in the brain. This episode of Radio Lab (MP3 — iTunes — Feed) takes a fas­ci­nat­ing look at how groups orga­nize and direct them­selves with­out the help of a leader, or some kind of cen­tral com­mand. The show includes con­ver­sa­tions with biol­o­gist E.O. Wil­son, econ­o­mist James Surowiec­ki, and neu­rol­o­gists Oliv­er Sacks and Christof Koch. Also includ­ed in the mix is Deb­o­rah Gor­don, a Stan­ford pro­fes­sor who has spent years study­ing ants, which are indi­vid­u­al­ly incom­pe­tent but do remark­ably com­plex things as colonies. There’s more to ants than you’d first think, so we’ve also includ­ed below Deb­o­rah Gor­don’s pre­sen­ta­tion at the TED Talks con­fer­ence. It’s called “How Do Ants Know What to Do?” And it’s added to our YouTube Playlist.

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The Long Shadow of Henry Kissinger

in History, Politics | January 16th, 2008

Although he has­n’t served in gov­ern­ment for more than 30 years, Hen­ry Kissinger still exer­cis­es more pow­er inter­na­tion­al­ly than Jim­my Carter, George HW Bush and Bill Clin­ton com­bined. That’s a strong claim, and it comes from Pro­fes­sor Jere­mi Suri, who has a new book out on the for­mer Sec­re­tary of State. In a wide-rang­ing and fast mov­ing con­ver­sa­tion (MP3 — iTunes — Feed), Suri talks about Kissinger’s lega­cy and how his realpoli­tik for­eign pol­i­cy shapes Amer­i­can deci­sion mak­ing down to this very day.

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