James Durston
Not ENTIRELY risk free - there's a YouTube video from a few months back showing a Zorb go out of control, jump the barriers to end a couple kilometers away at the bottom of a ravine! I think both occupants were killed. Tragic and a warning that operators should never take any chances.
Indeed there was - my own! I kept the really stupid mistakes out of the piece tho - no need to showcase to the world you're an idiot!
Certainly above average!
Welcome. I like this piece because I think many people don't even consider these 'ulterior effects' of their good intentions. More awareness, more sense.
Ooh dodgy - he's totally ripped off my piece I wrote two years ago - and posted on here a few days back!
Mediocre piece at best I would say. "Close to the city center"? "Free Internet"? Just a generic "efficiency"?? Reminds me of a pitch I got recently where the writer wanted to tell our readers to "Check your passport is valid" and "Do some research" among her "Top tips for travelers."
Nice piece. I remember traveling to Myanmar 10 years ago, getting back home and having to face questions from friends about "How can you support that tyrannical government?" etc. Point is the tourist dollars going into Myanmar then were small compared to the other benefits it was receiving from governments around the world. By ignoring such places you a) neglect real on-the-ground evidence of what's going on and the ability to inform the wider world and b) neglect one of the great opportunities for citizens there, who are often subjected to heavy censorships from media, to learn about the outside world, and their plight from an objective angle. I took newspapers with me into Burma from Thailand. The people there loved them. That's all changing now of course.
Mine was reposted a couple months back, but originally it went up in 2011. I can't see any obvious plagiarism, but he does seem to have followed a very similar structure to my piece. Anyway I'm not going to complain too loudly - the world of travel writing and a lot of journalism in general can look like one big incestuous, cannabilistic orgy if you care to look hard enough.
I didn't write it no, just contributed a couple items.
In defense of the piece:
9. As the piece says, yes it probably will be cheaper elsewhere, but it is unlikely to be the 'utter rip-off' people so often assume. The article suggests exchanging at least some cash at the airport so you don't wander around the city for an age trying to find one of the places that makes your decision NOT to change cash at the airport worthwhile.
11. Come on, part of the whole point of traveling is getting to wear flips for weeks on end! Seriously - sure, you're not going to go trekking in a pair of flipflops, but the point the article makes is that IF you DO buy flip flops, buy good ones.
12. Well, the fact that it's dog meat doesn't mean you'll automatically get food poisoning. Also, should one story about a dodgy vendor in Chile turn you off all street food everywhere, forever? There are risks with traveling - the only way you can minimize them all is to stay home. (Something I also support, by the way! - see here: http://travel.cnn.com/defense-staying-home-289606)
Nice post - the whole idea that you shouldn't eat anything but local food when traveling has irked me for some time. It's one of several travel snobberies that people need to lose. 'Local food', as you suggest, can be found everywhere these days.
A. You're writing a 1,500-word Guide to Berlin, and of the 25 attractions/venues you mention two of them gave you a nice (free) dinner.
B. A company offers to pay a website a fee to publish an article they would write ("well-written content created specifically for your site") that would also "contain references to our client."
A and B represent the extremes of this debate I think, and I've come into contact with both.
I think most people who hear 'sponsored content' will assume that the publisher of the piece (which in the case of bloggers may also be the writer) benefited financially from its publishing, and that the main reason for publishing the piece was that transaction.
Otherwise, I think grabbing a few freebies along the way can hardly be considered 'sponsorship' especially if the related coverage makes up only a little of the total piece.
Does this count as an "email"? I'd be happy to be a part of the testing team.
I love this bridge. Had the luck to walk across it 10 years ago, chatting to a few of the young monks there at the time. Some of the world's great sunset shots taken here!