My latest feature series on Gadling started today…I’ll be covering my travels in and around Madagascar – from Antananarivo to Tulear. I’ll be hitting politics & poverty, sapphire & solar panels…culture and language…with a mix of photos, video and audio clips.

Enjoy. “East of Africa” @ Gadling

This week I was invited by Virgin America to cover the launch of two new lines from California to Florida (SFO – FLL & LAX – FLL), where we had the chance to interview CEO David Cush and Richard Branson himself. Check out the full write-up and video below on Gadling.

Article + Photos @ Gadling
Exclusive Video @ Gadling

I’ve been getting into reading a little bit about Carl Sagan recently, just out of coincidence (and reading alot of digg.com). He died in 1996, but today would have been his 75th birthday – and so there’s been a ripple of news stories with his quotes floating around in the last few days.

One of them that I came across touches on musings about what the Voyager satellites were loaded with before they were sent out on their long and perhaps never-ending mission, and it’s quite an amazing thought really… what should we send out to sum up humanity – to sum up Planet Earth…what would you send out if you could launch a time capsule into space?

Check out what we sent:

”Accordingly, as each Voyager left Earth for the planets and the stars, it carried with it a golden phonograph record encased in a golden, mirrored jacket containing, among other things; greetings in 59 human languages and one whale language; a 12-minute sound essay including a kiss, a baby’s cry, and an EEG record of the meditations of a young woman in love; 116 encoded pictures, on our science, our civilization, and ourselves; and 90 minutes of the Earth’s greatest hits-Eastern and Western, classical and folk, including a Navajo night chant, a Japanese shakuhachi piece, a Pygmy girl’s initiation song, a Peruvian wedding song, a 3,000-year-old composition for the ch’in called “Flowing Streams,” Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”"

Pretty cool, no? And funny that music is such a big influence in representing who we are…

Read more [here]

Forgot to post this when it went up last week! It’s been a busy few weeks, but lots more content will be coming soon.

Kowloon Walled City @ Gadling

Two more posts to finish the series on Thailand:

Ko Samui @ Gadling

&

Sounds of Siam @ Gadling

Oh yeah, forgot to update that there have been a coupla’ posts on Gadling since I’ve been back too… check ‘em out.

The road (+rail +ferry) to Ko Pha Ngan @ Gadling

Ko Phan Ngan @ Gadling

Full Moon Party @ Gadling

A week ago, I was on a plane from Beijing to Hong Kong, after having taken the train from Hong Kong to Beijing for the weekend. As I was on that flight, I was making a mental list of all the things I had to do during my last 36 hours in Hong Kong, and then roughly 36 hours later, I was on a plane back to California.

And that is where I write this to you now – after a day at the beach, and a weekend spent with family & friends. It’s hard to think that six months passed while I was in Hong Kong, but I think I’ll always look back on it as a fantastic period of personal growth and introspection. And I owe alot of that to Joe, who not only made it possible, but challenged me and pushed me to become a better person.

– Video after the break –

This week, Hong Kong was in the news because Sarah Palin made a speech the day that I returned. As CNN showed clips of Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, and the skyline – it was nice to know that I really knew those places – I know their context, I know what happens there. And I think that’s what traveling is all about…knowing the context of a place.

Seeing pictures after the fact and understanding them, connecting with them, rather than just registering them in your brain.

Someone asked me why I decided to take the train (for 24 hours) to Beijing instead of a 2 hour flight…and it’s partially because I really like train rides, but partially because it helps me understand the context of the destination so much more. To see the countryside, the construction, the farms, the mist, the trees, blah blah blah.

So? I have two videos to share, one of Beijing – one of Hong Kong – that I hope you’ll enjoy with or without their given contexts.

New post on Gadling about Bangkok – recommendations, observations, and plenty of photos (most of which have appeared here in July).

Article @ Gadling

A fun piece about a street musician that can be found on the Khao San most nights of the week. Includes audio (at bottom of article), check it out

Article @ Gadling

My first article on a new series about Thailand went up today. New article every other day for the next few weeks!

As you might be able to tell from the article…I love the Khao San. I’ll never be able to forget some of the great conversations I had with interesting people here. You can literally walk down the road twice and meet people from 10 different countries, any day of the week. If you’re going to Bangkok and are looking suggestions, please let me know.

Article @ Gadling