Turn Off Your iPod: 41 Sounds You Can Miss While Traveling

Listen

Photo: celine nadeau / Feature: marioanima

Music certainly has its place but, like all things in life, balance is key. Dont miss out on the road.

I AM NO anti-iPod warrior. Im not asking you to Kill Your iPod. I love mine. I love my music. And I will admit, sometimes I do get wrapped up in it a little too much. The other night I was walking home from the yoga studio, lost in my world of music, when I passed a lady standing on the corner. I barely noticed her look to me and say something. I took out an earphone. Sorry?

Oh, I was just saying hi!

Oh, hi!

I wonder how many his and hellos Ive missed because of my iPod.

Dont miss out

If its not his and hellos were missing out on, what else might we be? Sounds are an essential part of our travel experience. How much richer is it when you can hear waves crashing on a beach, instead of just watching them? I asked around the team and the Twitter community what their favourite sounds have been while traveling and living abroad. Here are their responses.

Chairlift snowboarder

Photo: gregor_y

Ross Borden, Co-Founder

At the ski hill

  • the squeaky bouncing sound of a chair lift tower over the dull roar of people ripping through powder below me

Julie Schwietert! , Managi ng Editor

In Mexico City

  • the sound of the tamale vendor circling the block at night, his speaker blaring Ricos tamales oaxaquenos
  • taxi and car horns
  • people protesting

In Havana

  • the jingle bells on the horses halter as the guy who gives wagon rides circles my mother in laws block each afternoon

In New York

  • the sound of the subway rumbling into the station

Richard Stupert, Intern

In Uganda

  • local artists being played out of a big sound system while waiting for a bus
  • on a bus in Kampala, a pastor got onto the bus before departure and said a prayer for all of us, that we might make it safely to Gulu. It was a little unnerving, but really gave the bus ride after that a sense of adventure
Running dogs

Photo: theilr

Morgan deBoer, Intern

In Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

  • the sound of no less than 10 dogs running behind me, (foot steps, panting) following me every time I walked down the trail in front of our hotel

In California

  • during a Christmas Parade, the neighborhood woodie wagon car club drove by, a lot of the cars played the beach boys loudly on their radios and the woman next to me yelled at the cars not covered in Christmas lights, Its a night time parade! You need lights!

Eileen Smith, Editor at Large

In New Zealand

  • on the trail near Franz Jose! f glacie r, I heard a kooky, uneven birdsong with trills and whistles and stops. I recorded it on my phone, over the sounds of a splashy creek. A day later, I ran into a group of ornithologists in the shared kitchen. They identified it as a tui, which I would never have known.

In Chile

  • the pingapingapinga of the gas truck guy drumming on the gas tanks as they go down the street
  • the whistle of the knife-sharpening guy
  • the veggie vendor shouting a mil a mil a mil las alcachofas (1,000 for artichokes), and the guy who shouts leche de burrrrrrrrra (she-donkey milk) at the Vega (main market)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Worlds Oldest Maps

Image
Man has been carving symbols in to stones as well as upon cavern walls for thousands of years so it was usually a make a difference of time before maritime inscriptions would arise to assistance guide a hunting as well as foraging patterns. From cavern drawings as well as Babylonian clay tablets to mill carvings as well as papyrus text, here are a little of a worlds oldest maps (in no particular order). 1418 Ming Dynasty Map The map graphic upon top of is pronounced to be a copy of an strange 1418 Ming Dynasty Map, that potentially proves that in a 15th century, a Chinese were already exploring a shores of modern-day North America. This chronicle was copied in 1763 by artist Mo Yi-tong as well as was sold for $500. Read A Review of a Historical Importance of Oldest World Map by Gunnar Thompson, PhD for some-more information. atalhyk 6200 B.C. Babylonian Clay Map During a 1963 excavation in Ankara, Turkey, British archeologist James Mellaart unearth what is pronounced to be one of a be
Keep reading

How meditation relates to happiness

Image
Meditation leads to mindfulness Studies point out how valuable meditating can be to overall well-being. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN meditating for thousands of years, but it seems only recently that its gaining credibility by the scientific community. The shame is that many wont even give things a second thought unless some researcher or scientist proves its benefits, choosing to ignore the wisdom of experience. An article at Forbes discusses research done that correlates meditation and happiness . First, a Harvard University study has shown that wandering minds are an attribute of unhappy people. 2250 volunteers (ages 18-88, from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations) were used in the study they were contacted at random intervals by the researchers and asked what they were currently doing and what they were actually thinking about. almost half of the time (46.9%) people were thinking about something else. They were then asked whether what they were thinking about
Keep reading

Travel Photographer Interviews: Glenna Gordon

Image
All photos courtesy of Glenna Gordon In a brand new series upon Notebook, we talk veteran photographers as good as photojournalists, as good as plead their opposite perspectives upon transport photography as good as tips for receiving improved pictures. Photojournalist Glenna Gordons work has appeared in a New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, London Times, Foreign Policy, Observer, BBC, Reuters, AFP, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, MS Magazine, Walrus Magazine, Marie Claire (CZ), Associated Press (AP), usually to name a few. She continually photographs for ubiquitous nonprofit organizations such as UNICEF, USAID, as good as UNESCO. She has been living in Africa (primarily Uganda as good as Liberia) since 2006 as good as maintains a blog, Scarlett Lion. In Oct 2009, Glenna along with colleague Jina Moore received a grant to work upon a plan about renewed justice, including an inquisitive square about a copyrighted law code, a cover story for Christian Science Monitor about lan
Keep reading