In a couple weeks, we’ll be heading to Oregon for a road trip, so keep your eyes open for a new travelogue. Originally, we planned to go to Oregon and Washington, and maybe up into Vancouver. But when we started looking into what there is to see in Oregon, we realized that we could easily spend two full weeks there. We will probably head further north on a future trip.

Stephen put together a big spreadsheet with places he’d like to photograph, with the “must see” spots highlighted. Since we are starting in Northern California, our first stops will be Lassen Volcanic National Park and Lava Beds National Monument. After maybe a couple more stops in California (Redwood National Forest?), we’ll head on in to Oregon.

Our “must see” list for Oregon includes Crater Lake National Monument, John Day Fossil Beds, Painted Hills, Wallowa Valley, Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park, Hecata Head Lighthouse and Bandon. There are more than 30 additional places on our list of possible stops. Is there anything else we should add to our list of musts?

Like our American Southwest driving trip a few years ago (no travelogue yet, sorry), we will be booking hotels as we go. Last time, we accomplished this with an iPhone, but I am really looking forward to using the larger iPad on this trip. Looking up hotels on the smaller iPhone screen could be hard on the eyes. AAA now has several apps that I am anxious to try out.

The other thing that will make the trip interesting is updating my blog on the iPad. It is definitely easier to do the typing on my old MacBook (which I sold), but with the iPad, I can pull it out anywhere and post an update. I don’t have to wait for Wi-Fi back at our hotel room. Because I spend a lot of time waiting while Stephen sets up shots, this will be great. I am also going to try to take more iPhone pictures and post those with the travelogues as I go. Of course, I will replace them with Stephen’s much nicer pictures after he has had a chance to process and copyright them. I’m looking forward to trying out the iPad blogging on the go experience.

One thing I haven’t been able to do is get my blog up and running in the WordPress app on the iPad. I have my blogs set up to be IP restricted for posting, so I need to take a moment and figure out what IP to use for the iPad and get that set up. On our trip to Bhutan last fall, I would just turn off the IP restriction, post my travelogue, then turn it back on. So it will be a lot easier if I just configure everything to work on my iPad all the time.

UPDATE: I finally got the WordPress app set up on my iPad for both my blogs. It turns out that the problem wasn’t the IP restriction, but that I just had to log on to WordPress first and enable it. Then I just added the 3G IP address for my iPad to the few IPs I can post from, and I was up and running. We leave for Oregon on Thursday. Chiqui was so excited when the dogsitter came to pick up the key on Saturday. She adores the dog sitter, so Chiqui is always happy to have her come and stay.

I love Dorling Kindersley’s Eyewitness Travel Guides. The full color pictures are wonderful for deciding where we want to go (not so great on the details once we get there). Any time we travel, we check to see if there is a DK guide for our destination. I wanted to take a look at the most recent Eyewitness Travel books available so I did a search for DK and came across this other DK site, DK Travel. The site allows you to compile a bunch of information about your destination, then organize it into your own personalized travel guide as a printable pdf. You can even add attractions to the site if something you want to include isn’t there, and you can peruse other folks’ guides as well.

I wanted to try it out, but wasn’t ready to actually create one for a trip, so I selected a place I have already visited – Hong Kong. To create a guide, you just browse all the different attraction, lodging, dining and other information, then click “Add details to your guide” any time you find something you like. Once you have added everything you want, you can edit the information by changing the order and organizing it into chapters. Then you add a title and your own image to the cover, and click the button to create your guide. The site will provide a pdf, which you can then print out. You can also publish your guide to the website for other travelers to peruse.

My Hong Kong guide was very hastily thrown together. I didn’t really bother to organize much or put things in the right chapters, but I was still extremely impressed. For instance, if I selected Stanley as one of my attractions, the guide automatically included the top 10 things to see on Stanley, as well as practical information about getting there. With a little organization, my guide would have been pretty awesome. I can see either organizing your guide by areas or by day, including your hotels and dining plans. Each area or day would have its own chapter.

For me, this wouldn’t replace published travel guides (whether they are actual books or digital guides), but I love the idea of having an outline for a trip, arranged the way I want it arranged. The guide will also be very lightweight and you could print a couple so you have a backup copy. The main drawback at the moment is that there are a limited number of destinations on the site. I am sure they will add more as time goes on, but I won’t be able to create a guide for our next destination – the pacific northwest. But if you travel a lot, I highly recommend checking to see if your next destination is available.

I’ve been dying to download Lonely Planet‘s 1000 Ultimate Experiences app for the iPad, but at $10, I wasn’t sure it was worth it. But yesterday, I was surfing around in the iTunes store, and happened to see that it was on sale for $2.99 in honor of the international launch of the iPad. I clicked on buy immediately, still smarting from having missed Lonely Planet’s European guide apps when they were briefly free downloads. I don’t know how long it will be on sale, so if you are interested, grab it quick.

The sale was extremely timely, because our plan for this weekend is to figure out where we will go on our next vacation. The app is arranged as a deck of cards, each with a different travel idea. Sets of 10 cards are sorted into various categories, such as “Friendliest Countries”, “Greatest Historical Journeys” and “Most Surreal Landscapes”. The pictures are beautiful and the app is really full of great ideas. Apparently, there are some videos here and there in the app, but I haven’t run across any yet. One feature I really like is the share button, which allows you to email the card you are viewing as an image. I think would be great on the train if I run across an idea I like – I can just email it directly to Stephen (and cc myself if I want). After you hit send, you are immediately returned to the card you were viewing in the app.

Is the app worth $3? Definitely! Is it worth the $10 I was unwilling to pay? Well, $10 is cheaper than the corresponding book, which is currently $15.63 on Amazon. But I seem to be less willing to spend money on iPad apps. That is probably a little silly, because I can’t take too many books with me on a trip, but the amount of information I can have on my iPad is practically limitless. I have some similar Lonely Planet books, like The Travel Book, Blue List 2008, and A Year of Watching Wildlife, as well as DK’s Where to Go When. We do utilize these when deciding on a vacation destination, especially the DK book, but having them on the iPad would definitely be more convenient, especially because a couple of them are huge and heavy. I will definitely keep my eyes open for similar titles on the iPad, now that I have tried 1000 Ultimate Experiences. I haven’t tried any of the location-specific Lonely Planet iPad apps, but I will when we finally decide where to go this year. If you have any favorite travel apps for the iPhone or iPad, please comment.

Tim Cahill

Thank goodness I decided to go. I had heard of Tim Cahill, but I’ve never read any of his work. I just knew he was a travel writer, which turns out to be a bit of an inadequate description. His adventures are at once relatable and exotic. One of the pieces he read tonight was about the “bug scream“, a sound I have undoubtedly emitted far more often than the not so squeamish Mr. Cahill. The story had me cringing and laughing my head off at the same time. Another piece about yoga, from Hold the Enlightenment, was equally captivating. I loved his jolly cynicism and vivid descriptions. This is the kind of travel writing I aspire to, but I suspect I am slightly too lazy to even come close.

Of course all this made me want to run right out and buy every single one of his books, an impossibility given that Stephen has banned me from bringing any more books into the house. I did check BookMooch, but he is a popular fellow and not one book was available to mooch. Looks like I’ll be heading to the library, although I might try to download one on my iPad when it arrives Friday. His books may be a little too dangerous to read on the train though, because I have no doubt I will be guffawing like an idiot.

As excited as I am to read more of Cahill’s work, I would say that hearing him read in person is the real treat. The story of the entranced duck is even better when you get to hear his duck imitation. If you get the chance to attend one of his readings, don’t miss the opportunity.

Stephen just posted his pictures from our recent trip to Bhutan. They are absolutely beautiful, please take a look if you have a chance. You can also read my Bhutan travelogue. I will be adding photos into my travelogue over the next few days.

Although it’s off-topic, I wanted to let people know that I have started a second blog for all my non-travel-related writing and photos. It’s called Kara’s Reliquary, and the latest post is The Big D.O.G. Bailout, a defense of my dog’s value as a member of our household. I am sure readers will be hearing a lot about my goofy dog, but I will also talk about art, books, photography, music, fixing up our elderly house, and whatever else catches my fancy. I hope you’ll take a moment to check it out.

Two of my dearest friends, Michael Holloway Perronne and Geronimo Quitoriano, have released their first travel book, the Quickie Gay Guide to Cape Town, South Africa. Following a recent trip to Cape Town, Michael decided to put out a travel guide specifically for gay and lesbian travelers, as there wasn’t anything comparable available. Geronimo provided his fantastic photography skills on the trip. Michael’s publishing company, Chances Press has released a number of fictional books, but this is his first travel guide. Hopefully there will be many more.

The Quickie Gay Guide Cape Town, South Africa is available from Amazon for $8.95. Amazon also sells a Kindle edition. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can purchase it as an e-book from Lulu. Both the Kindle and e-book editions are $4.95.

There are probably lots of places to generate maps showing the places you have traveled. I have been using World 66 maps on my BookMooch bio to show where I have sent books and from where I have received them. I use this one just because its the one I know about. It is fun way to show people where you have traveled. I wish they would break out Hong Kong from China, though, because visiting Hong Kong is not the same as visiting China. I would love to hear about other places where you can generate travel maps.

I have visited 10 countries (including my home country, the United States):

I have visited Australia, Bhutan, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Hong Kong (China), Mexico, Peru, South Korea and the United States.

I have visited 21 states and the District of Columbia:

I have visited Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New York, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Inspirational Retreat in Agoura Hills, California

The cottage has a bedroom for the teacher to stay in for multi-day classes, and there is nearby Westlake Village Inn for students, at a reduced rate. This sounds like a wonderful way to spend a weekend: being creative in beautiful surroundings!

Since the launch of iTunes, I have permanently set my radio dial to NPR and turned to browsing the internet to find new music. My iPod is overflowing with tunes to listen to on long flights (not to mention episodes of This American Life – the best radio show ever). Here’s a small selection of favorites from my playlist, with an emphasis on music from around the world. These are in no particular order. Please comment and share your favorite songs.

1. United Kingdom: Afro Celt Sound System – When You’re Falling
Members of the band hail from England, Ireland and Africa, and this song also features vocals and keyboard by Peter Gabriel. A really infectious song.

2. Algeria: Souad Massi – Why Is My Heart Sad?
One of the saddest songs I have ever heard, and I don’t even understand the lyrics. I listened to this song over and over again while reading a very sad book, Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. Absolutely beautiful song.

3. Netherlands: Anouk – Lost
Another sad song, this one about lost love.

4. Norway: Bel Canto – Waking Will
I originally heard this song in a finalist video from a World of Warcraft machinima contest, believe it or not. I am still not sure what the plot of the video was, but the song is lovely.

5. United States: The Bone People – Blackbird Has No Wings
The Bone People was my favorite local band in college. Led by Debra Marquart, a poet and English professor at Iowa State University, the band performed an interesting mix of jazz-poetry and r&b. They are not on iTunes unfortunately, and I have no idea if you can still buy their two cds. You can email Marquart at marquart@iastate.edu and find out.

6. Canada: Immaculate Machine – Jarhand
Immensely catchy song.

7. Italy: In-Grid – In-Tango
In-grid had a huge hit with You Promised Me (Tu Es Foutu), but this French song is my favorite In-Grid tune.

8. Belgium: Natacha Atlas – Amulet
Although Natacha Atlas is from Belgium, she sings in Arabic and her music is a fusion of Arabic and Northern African.

9. South Korea: The Wonder Girls – Bad Boy
Although the Wonder Girls are now trying to conquer the U.S., I prefer their Korean songs. This is a fun song, my favorite off their Wonder Years album.

10. Israel: Yael Naïm – New Soul
Apple used this song in their ads for the MacBook Air, and it took off. Great song.