Weekend Travel Thread: Survival Edition [Y-not]

Welcome to your Weekend Travel Thread.

Today's thread is brought to you by "Are you gonna eat that?"

Everything is trying to kill you:

Apparently, no matter how careful you are when you're traveling, you're likely to have picked up some sort of Killer Bacterium along the way:

a new study just published in EuroSurveillance, the peer-reviewed journal of Europe’s equivalent of the CDC, raises the possibility that even if you are doing the right thing, you could pick up some very nasty stuff while you’re abroad — and that what you bring back could endanger not only you, but others around you as well. A team of French researchers reports that healthy travelers who had no contact with foreign medical systems brought back extremely drug-resistant bacteria, probably just from drinking water, and that the bacteria persisted in their guts for at least two months after they came home.

File this under 'time to find a new travel agent' -- Stories of Survival Against All Odds:

Steven Callahan
Setting sail from the Canary Islands towards the Caribbean in a small sailboat, Steven’s boat sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and he was left adrift for 76 days. He eventually made landfall in the Bahamas.

Somehow, I am reminded of Tom Baker's character in Blackadder II:

Suffering from jet lag? There's an App for that:

The app works based on two mathematical models that describe circadian rhythms. The models are outlined in a study published today (April 10) in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

"Overcoming jet lag is fundamentally a math problem, and we've calculated the optimal way of doing it," said study author Danny Forger, a professor at the University of Michigan.

The app designs lighting schedules for its users, based on their itinerary. All of the schedules follow a basic rule: You should be exposed to the brightest light possible at one point during the day and to darkness at another point.

Hostile hostel guest:

Travel horror stories:

“It smelled like sour milk, cheap wine and feet.” Links to really bad TripAdvisor Reviews, including this gem:

To call this a ‘fleabag’ B&B would be an unconscionable insult to both fleas and bags everywhere. In my 25 years of business travel, I have never experienced such a consistently, depressingly mediocre property.

Sounds like a satisfied customer. Wonder if he's ever stayed at Fawlty Towers?

To wrap things up, courtesy of CNN here's a list of travel-related songs. Some hits, some misses imho.

It didn't make their list, but I've always liked this one:

Really evokes the spirit of driving along an empty highway for me.

Have any of you hit the road this week?

posted by Open Blogger at 09:24 AM

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