Honolulu, Hawaii - http://surfeatsleep.blogspot.com
Brenda is a surfer girl from Honolulu who is passionate about ultralight, independent, global travel. She shares her world through her personal travel blog, SurfEatSleep (email her for permission to read it), and is happy to correspond with you via email (brenda.yun@weblogsinc.com) or Twitter (brendayun).
We're less than a week away from Thanksgiving (gasp!). One thing I'm thankful for: Thanksgiving doesn't involve giving gifts. I still have another month to thinking about gifts (thank God!). Here are some other things to be thankful for.
Gadling would first like to congratulate Dave C., the lucky winner of our Moon Belize giveaway! Dave C. wrote: "I don\'t get the change to do as much diving as I like, but when I can, I won\'t miss it. If in Belize, I would certainly not want to miss the opportunity dive at the Blue Hole. Diving gives me a sense of peace I can't get doing anything else, and the Blue Hole just looks like a tremendously mysterious and beautiful place to dive." A copy of Moon Belize is heading to your doorstep as I type this. I hope you enjoy the Blue Hole, and thanks to everyone who participated.
I was so blown away by the fantastic Belize must-sees that I compiled some of the best giveaway comments below.
From Dennis: "Snorkeling at Mexico Rocks. Off the beaten path, beautiful and never crowded. It's like your own private garden of coral heads and sea life."
From Molly: "As newlyweds crushed under a mountain of student loan debts, we were thrilled to see the review of Moon Belize. We want our honeymoon to be there and are saving up. Definitely top of my list are the ruins and back country hiking."
From Peach: "I'd love to go manatee watching! These are some of my favorite creatures & I've seen them in captivity but thats never really quite the same as seeing something in the wild."
From Joe: "I'm starting a SCUBA program soon and I want to do my certification dive in Belize!"
We're halfway through November. For those of you living in the northern hemisphere, if you haven't felt winter yet, you will soon! Here in Hawaii, winter is rainier but the waves are bigger and better. I guess that goes for most parts of the world: the weather may stink, but there's always a bright side. Here are some semi-bright travel reads for today's installment of Gadlinks. Enjoy!
Unlike fellow Gadling writer Catherine, who took a painfully slow train through China, President Obama took Air Force One to China, where he will be doing his diplomatic "thing." Here are some things we can all learn from the Chinese. [via Yahoo!]
It's time to look at the festivals and events happening around the world, and this week has a particularly international selection of happenings. If you're close and have time, then you have no excuse to get out and go!
Mexico - Birders will unite in the Yucatan Peninsula for the Yucatan Bird Festival from November 19-22. For the 8th consecutive year, the festival offers a wide range of field trips, exhibits, conferences, and a "birdathon." Objectives of this annual festival include promoting the rich diversity of bird species found in the Yucatan and developing a conservationist culture among tourists and tour providers.
California - The California Surf Festival celebrates awareness and support for surf history preservation this weekend from November 19-22. It is an international event destination bringing people from all over the world to Oceanside, California, to experience surf culture through films, music, art, photography and interaction with those who embody the culture as well as highlight the surf community of California.
Amsterdam - The International Documentary Film Festival begins this Thursday, November 19. The film extravaganza will present over 300 documentaries over the course of 10 days, ending on the 29th.
Israel - Shalem Dance Festival will begin this Thursday, November 19 in Jerusalem. Over 50 Israeli and guest dancers perform in original contemporary dance works. This year's highlight will feature contemporary dance ensembles from Africa. The festival ends on the 21st.
India - The Mim Kut and Pawl Kut Festival will be celebrated this Friday, November 20 in Mizoram. Celebrated in the last week of November or the first week of December, the festival celebrates the completion of the harvesting season.
Helsinki - This year Helsinki's Chocolate Festival has a larger "box," as it is held at Wanha Satama fair centre November 21-22. The festivali celebrates the diversity of the sweet stuff. Choco-connaisseurs share their sweet wisdom about the impact of chocolate on health, wellbeing, history of chocolate, production and variety.
If you make it to one of these events, let us know how it was, or if you know of an event that's coming up, please let us know and we'll be sure to include it in the next "Get out and go" round-up.
Sosauce, a self-proclaimed "travel geek blog," is looking for the most unique, engaging, and breathtaking postcards that celebrate the saucy side of travel. If you have a favorite travel photo, turn it into a postcard and help them decorate their boring white walls and turn the office into a travel haven. The contest involves mailing a postcard that features your favorite photo. Sosauce will show it off – not only in the office – but all over the web too. Special prizes are waiting for the most unique, engaging, and breathtaking photos of people, architecture,and landscapes.
Anyone can enter! You can submit a postcard for any, or all, of the following categories:
People such as locals, workers, natives, portraits
Architecture such as historic buildings, monuments, museums
Landscapes such as scenery, mountains, nature, the outdoors
The winning prizes for each postcard category include all of this:
$50 gift certificate to a restaurant of YOUR CHOICE
$20 gift certificate to the Sosauce Store or a FREE Premium Account
Editorial bio-pic in the New Faces of Sosauce blog series
Online promotional campaign c/o Sosauce
YOU as the Featured Photographer of the Day on Sosauce
Each photo will be judged by the Sosauce team in New York City according to best combination of photo composition and creative sense of place. All you have to do is hop on over to Sosauce for to enter. The steps are a little involved, but you get a few cool freebies for going the extra mile.
Avalon travel writer, Joshua Berman, whose Moon Belize guidebook (8th edition) hit book stands in October, took time from his busy book tour to answer a few questions about travel, writing, and living and breathing idyllic Central America.
Don't forget to enter the Gadling Giveaway of the latest edition HERE (you only have until tomorrow to enter!), or read my glowing review of Moon Belize HERE.
Enjoy the interview!
GAD: Not that I'm criticizing your choice here, but how did you end up in Belize? In your mind, what makes it such a special travel destination?
JB: It was a natural northerly progression, beginning in Nicaragua in 1998, where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer; followed by Honduras as both a trip leader and guidebook researcher. Then one day my publisher asked if I would take over Moon Belize from Chicki Mallan, the book's original author, who was retiring. I said yes.
GAD: Based on your experiences living and traveling in Nicaragua and other parts of Central America, how does Belize contrast with its neighbors?
JB: Belize is less crowded, more diverse, more expensive, and just as tranquilo as Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua. Belize is the only English-speaking country in Central America and its heritage as a British colony also makes it stand out from the rest of Central America (including Belizeans' unique affinity for dark beer and stout).
It's "Wild West" day here at Gadling, so I dug into the travel blog archives to find some of the best "Wild West" reads. Hope y'all enjoy today's pickin's!
Believe it or not, there is such a thing as an urban rodeo -- and even more unbelievable (and awesome, if you ask me)? It's located in the heart of New York City and made up of black cowboys. [via The Economist]
Paniolo is the Hawaiian word for "cowboy" (though the literal translation of the word really means "sitting"), and the paniolo culture has thrived on the islands ever since 1809, with the arrival of a 19-year old sailor from Massachusetts named John Palmer Parker. As Parker passed along the islands on his way to China, he decided to jump overboard and try his life as a marksman on the Big Island, thus beginning a 200-year cowboy tradition that has lasted in Hawaii since the rule of King Kamehameha I.
Word of Parker's ranching abilities got around to Hawaii's King Kamehameha I, and the king asked Parker to round up the wild cattle roaming the hills of Waimea, a town well-known for its paniolo history. Since then, Parker became a close companion to the king, eventually marrying into the royal family and building what would become one of the largest cattle operations in the United States. By the 1920's, Parker Ranch was a 500,000 acre estate that held the biggest herd on the planet.
In order to tend the ranch's vast land, Parker hired Mexican cowboys called vaqueros, who taught the Hawaiian cowboys important riding and ranching techniques. The original paniolos of Hawaii are a dying breed, though, as more and more Hawaiian ranchers apply modern techniques as opposed to the ones brought by Parker 200 years ago.
Nothing makes a more beautiful photo than rolling sand dunes at sunset. Having recently experienced the tranquil oasis of Huacachina in Peru, I now fully appreciate the dry, natural beauty of the world's deserts.
This particular photo was taken in Tunisia but expert photographer kellinasf. The warm colors and grooved textures of the sand contrast so well with the cool blue sky. The grooved dune side in the left shadow also adds to the photo's richness, don't you think?
If you have some great travel shots you'd like to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day!
It's Friday the 13th! I am hoping that makes it a lucky day for me. It's been yet another tough week on the home front for many non-travelers, so maybe some travel reads will help to lift our spirits. Have a look at these....
It's surf season here in Hawaii, but in other parts of the northern hemisphere it's also that time of year to dust off your skis or snowboard! Here's a great guide to responsible skiing. [via Green Traveller]
It may be wintertime in Italy, but that shouldn't prevent you from dreaming of one of these beautiful Italian isles. [via BootsNAll]
Gadling would first like to congratulate Dave C., the lucky winner of our Moon Belize giveaway! Dave C. wrote: "I don\'t get the change to do as much diving as I like, but when I can, I won\'t miss it. If in Belize, I would certainly not want to miss the opportunity dive at the Blue Hole. Diving gives me a sense of peace I can't get doing anything else, and the Blue Hole just looks like a tremendously mysterious and beautiful place to dive." A copy of Moon Belize is heading to your doorstep as I type this. I hope you enjoy the Blue Hole, and thanks to everyone who participated.
Avalon travel writer, Joshua Berman, whose Moon Belize guidebook (8th edition) hit book stands in October, took time from his busy book tour to answer a few questions about travel, writing, and living and breathing idyllic Central America. 
Paniolo is the Hawaiian word for "cowboy" (though the literal translation of the word really means "sitting"), and the paniolo culture has thrived on the islands ever since 1809, with the arrival of a 19-year old sailor from Massachusetts named John Palmer Parker. As Parker passed along the islands on his way to China, he decided to jump overboard and try his life as a marksman on the Big Island, thus beginning a 200-year cowboy tradition that has lasted in Hawaii since the rule of King Kamehameha I.
