Today's travel intel
It's Budget Travel's credo that you don't need most travel products. Our official reason is that we think they're almost always a waste of money. Our unofficial reason is that you'll look like a total geek if you carry around some of this stuff. In fact, nothing says "geek" like a pair of bottle-opener sandals. Well, on second thought, maybe an 84-tool Swiss Army knife screams "geek.' Here's a full round-up of travel gear for geeks. (I would like to add another product to this round-up: Vibram's new aquasocks with toes. As a very wise man -- who happens to be my boss -- once said, just because you can make toes out of neoprene doesn't mean you should.)
America has been rated the world's most unfriendly destination for foreign travelers in a new global poll. Only Canadians still like us, or at least, they are the only nationality that continues to visit our country in the same numbers as in 2000. The drop-off in European and Japanese visitors is all the more astonishing because today's exchange rates with the euro, the pound, and the yen make the U.S. relatively cheap. Details on the global poll can be found in this article in the New Zealand Herald (via BoingBoing)
What's the world's most treacherous road? This blogger and the Washington Post both say they have found the answer: Bolivia's Road of Death. This road has a 40-mile, unpaved section that is a lane "hacked out of the mountainside, bordered by 3,000-foot cliffs." (See images at the Dark Roasted Blend blog.)
I recently told you about the slide show "How to Take Better Pictures of Your Friends," put together by Budget Travel's photo department. You may also be interested in some expert scrapbooking tips and some time-saving tricks for making photo books.
