And, a few days ago after I posted on why there’s no tomorrow in travel, I came across the below video. Many of you might have seen it already (as of this writing it has over 830,000 views) but I wanted to share it for those who might not have seen it. It’s various people from the Burning Man festival reading Dr. Suess’s last book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

It’s an amazing video that is bound to brighten your day. Go watch it, enjoy it, and feel great about life.

This video has also made me finally decide to go to Burning Man this year.

Maybe I’ll see you there but if not, I’ll be thinking of all the other amazing places you’ll go this year.

So I asked.

And here is what people said:

Most towns have celebrations featuring traditional music, dancing, and a bonfire. Many Swedes head out into the country to celebrate with their friends and party. Many celebrations often start with friends having a breakfast including champagne and strawberries in a park. The biggest celebration occurs in the university town of Uppsala. Over 100,000 people come to celebrate Valborg in this town. Uppsala also features students rafting on Fyrisan through the town center with home made, theme decorated rafts, that usually break and collapse by the end of the race. Needless to say, this is a giant celebration and especially good for those looking to party.

I didn’t go to Uppsala. I went to the more traditional Valborg celebration in Skansen. Skansen is an area in Stockholm with a traditional village, zoo, garden, and hiking trails. During Valborg, they have traditional dancing, music, vendors, and, of course, a big bonfire. I enjoyed the music and dancing even though I didn’t understand what they were saying. Before the bonfire is lit, there was a very long speech about the coming spring, the holiday’s history, and how the bonfire helps chase away evil spirits. The Swedes seemed as bored as I was and when the bonfire lighting began, the crowd erupted with joy. After all, the bonfire was pretty amazing:

The music is a Swedish folk song by Yvonne Roome. If you want to see more of my travel videos, check out my Youtube page.

So when my friends wanted to tour a coffee plantation in Boquete, Panama, I was less than enthused. “Can’t we go hiking instead?,” I asked. “No, we’re doing the coffee tour,” they replied. We had hiked the previous day and they wanted to do something different. I grumbled but reluctantly, I agreed. I wanted to spend time with my friends and maybe learning about coffee might be better than actually drinking it.

There are a lot of coffee plantation tours throughout this area of Panama. This region is famous for its coffee and produces most of what Panama exports. You couldn’t walk a block in Boquete without finding a coffee shop. I’m not a coffee drinker so I can’t say the coffee here is better than elsewhere in the world but I did (surprisingly) enjoy what I drank. Most plantation tours are 1/2 day tours and cost between $25-35 USD. They make for a good morning or afternoon tour. You can book them through any hostel or from the tour shops in the center of town.

And the park? The park is amazing:

Unfortunately, the day I visited many of the trails were closed due to heavy rains and flooding. (I spent my first two days here indoors because of 24 hour rain!) The total trail from Cahuita town to the other end of the park is 8 km. When I went, only the first 2 km were opened. That was still enough to hang out on a beautiful beach, see howler monkeys, iguanas, whitefaced monkeys, tremendous amounts of birds, and beautiful butterflies. If I saw that in an area close to town, I can only imagine what it would be like further inland, way from most people.

Practical Information
Hours of Operation: The park is open from 6am to 5pm
Cost: The park is free but they do ask for donations.
Getting There: You can take a bus from San Jose or Puerto Viejo. Buses from San Jose are about $4 USD while it is $1.25 USD from Puerto Viejo.
Eating: I only found two places I really liked in town. Cafe Choco Latte which has fresh baked bread, huge breakfasts, great sandwiches, and coffee. The second was local “soda” (cheap restaurant) in the middle of town called Riconita de Sabor. Great local food for only a dollar or two.

If you are coming down the coast towards Puerto Viejo, stop in Cahuita for a few days. While the beach may not be as nice, the hiking and wildlife are much better. If I didn’t have such limited time during this trip, I would stayed longer a few more days.

But then I stopped. My parents no longer went, my friends didn’t ski, and my winter breaks in college were spent working. As I got older and became adverse to the cold, I simply never wanted to be near snow. Winter was a time to go to tropics not into the mountains.

Yet over the last two years, my friend Ryan has been pressuring me to go to go skiing at Keystone Resort. (He works for Vail, which owns Keystone.) I kept resisting. I’m overseas I would say. But being in the states meant I had run out of acceptable excuses so I finally relented. After buying winter gear warm enough for Antarctica, I boarded a plane to Colorado.

It was weird to be on skis after 11 years. It also made a good video:

I was pretty bad at first but managed to go through some deep powder and off trail before the trip was over. My friends were impressed with how fast I relearned to ski. They expected me to be awful but I wasn’t. If I had a few more days, I probably could have been back on some black diamonds trails.

The first day, I fell twice with my private instructor. But my biggest spill was on the second day. While heading down the mountain, my ski came undone from the binding and I tumbled like a snow ball down the trail. It was an unpleasant experience. (Though I wish I had THAT on video!)

In the end, I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. Though it snowed for 4 days straight, I got used to the cold. It wasn’t so bad. Eventually, I only had 3 layers of clothes! And I really had fun skiing. A lot of fun. I forgot how much fun I had when I was a kid. The first 18 yrs of my life came back to me and it was blast.

Maybe the winter isn’t so bad after all. Yes….maybe good things do happen in the cold….

Now, that is an interesting thought to have.

Editor’s Note: I paid for my flight but Keystone paid for everything else. Except my laundry. I paid for that too.

Note: Sorry about the bad video, this was taken on my point and click camera. Since I had no intention of doing this, I didn’t have my HD Video camera with me at the time.

So to put the landscape of New York into better context, I took a Context Travel tour. Context Travel offers historical and cultural tours to cities throughout Europe and the United States. I did their Vatican tour in Rome and was excited to take some of their New York tours. Many travel writers I know rave about them and I like the idea of a cultural as opposed to sightseeing tour. My time with them was spent this way:

My tour lasted 3 hours, though the condensed 3 minute video only gives a small glimpse into it. You get to learn about the Port Authority, the New York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, The Chanin Building, and the United Nations. All places I simply couldn’t fit into a video. There wasn’t enough time and I got yelled at quite a bit for filming inside. (In private buildings, they don’t really approve!) I highly recommend one of these tours. They give you a different perspective on the city and the tour leaders knew their stuff. Context hires PhD’s and experts on the tour’s subject. My guide was an architect at one of the city’s big firms.

Regardless of whether you ever go on a Context tour, I think the idea of what they do is important. Context’s mission is to give people deeper knowledge than just in the museum display or site brochure. That really resonates with me as I think learning about a place is just as important as seeing a place. Many people (including myself) often visit places without ever learning their history. Knowing the history of place gives us a deeper and richer understanding of where we are, whether that means reading a history book, listening to a podcast, or taking an architecture tour.

Note: Context Travel gave me this tour as well as the Vatican tour for free. Furthermore, if you want to take a Context tour, check out my guide to traveling the world where you can get a 15% off coupon on all their tours.

(Video from SMU Travel Bug, which is sadly not updated anymore!)

Since I got the link to that video, I have probably watched it a dozen times. I was feeling a little down about traveling lately but now I’m set right and I realize that I’ll never change my life. I love what I do too much.

However, everyone raved about this place so I decided to visit it as part of a long walk around the area. The scenery in the area is beautiful but the monkeys do get quite agressive. I took of a video of my experience and since pictures are worth a thousand words, I’ll let ou judge the area for yourself:

Tips for Visiting the Monkey Temple

• Watch out for the monkeys! Lots of people feed the monkeys so they are used to interacting with humans. This can lead to trouble as some monkeys might get too close to people. If you choose to feed them, put the food on the ground beforehand. Don’t get too close to them. I saw a monkey get “in attack position” at this woman and another attack the leg of another tourist.

All in all, I wouldn’t make visiting this place a priority, especially if you are short on time. There are far better things to see in Ubud than this. Skip this and go on a day trip to the Jatiluwih rice terraces. It’s a far better way to spend your day.