Traveling is a great way to relax and unwind, or to explore and learn more about other cultures and places, or meet new people. I'm not sure if you can do all three at the same time, because most of my travel experiences require me to just have one or the other, never all at the same time.

Perhaps a more lengthy duration of the trip with some expert budgeting can help you plan out when to relax, when to explore, and when to let the wind take you where it blows, but since most of my trips are generally shorter or have a very tight budget, it's easy to see why I can never achieve those traveling goals in one trip.

In any case, here's a list of some obvious travel advice with which you may already be familiar, but some of which didn't seem obvious to me, up until I read them. Here are some of the advice which I found quite interesting and resonant:

Although I never willingly put myself in a position in which I would get soaked, I never would have imagined that simply wearing my wet clothes would be the best way for them to dry. At the very least, my thought process is that I don't want to get sick so I better get changed.

There was only one time when I got absolutely soaked while traveling, and that's when my father, my cousin, and I went on a ride at an amusement park which as it turns out had a big splash in the end, and so we ended up having to buy a new shirt from the store nearby. Despite feeling uncomfortable, I wore my pants until they dried, so I guess that's the spirit of the advice.

When I was younger and traveling with family, we often would economize and maximize our trips so that we can do so much with so little. Now, that we're older, I have learned that it doesn't matter how much you're able to save on a trip, because in the end, it won't be as enjoyable, especially when you travel with much older people.

These days, we prioritize comfort and/or convenience over economy, and so spending a little bit more on accommodation, transportation, and other aspects of traveling that could be a hassle, definitely helped a lot in our recent travels. And so, I understand where this tip is coming from, and I totally agree with it.

I found that whenever I travel and get out of the hustle and bustle of my regular, daily life, my mind is able to break away from invisible shackles that seem to keep it bound to something, which I believe is obligation or in other cases, responsibility. Being able to relax and look at new and unfamiliar scenery gives us time to unwind and slow down.

Of course, if you're traveling with a schedule, then it might not be as slowed down as it could be. But, letting go of a very strict schedule, and just enjoying every moment and experience you encounter in your travels, can have this effect of time slowing down with everything around you seemingly so fresh and brand new.

And finally, the previous tip connects with this one. Simply being present in the moment and letting the different sensations and sensory experiences wash over you will heighten your positive memories of the trip. I mean, the reason why we even went on a trip in the first place was so that we can throw all our cares away, and forget about our usual worries, even for just a moment.

So, it's no surprise why people who are able to just live in the moment have the best travel experiences. They're able to take in everything that's happening without resistance, and just go with the flow. In doing that, we will then be able to open ourselves to opportunities or encounters that present themselves, and get the most out of them.

Nothing really novel, game-changing, or enigmatic about these pieces of travel advice, just some obvious observations which can perhaps get us to reflect on our next trip and what to do. Personally, the most life-changing travel advice that I have taken to heart is traveling light. It eases all my troubles and gives me freedom to go where the wind takes me. - via Kottke

(Image credit: JESHOOTS/Unsplash)

With the advancement in drone technology, photographers are now able to capture more detailed and stunning aerial shots of different scenery, sights, and spectacles like we never have before. And each year, the Siena Drone Photo Awards gathers some of the best drone shots photographers have sent in and gives the winner €500 worth of photography equipment, the "Pangea Prize" crystal statuette, and two overnight stays at the Siena during the awards ceremony among other prizes.

This year, the promising crop of finalists include an aerial shot of Indian wrestlers, a pack of pelicans, a whole village trekking a 160-kilometer-long (100-mile-long) stretch of mountainous jungle and swamp called the Darien Gap, crowds gathered around a bull fight in Mexico, roaming Banni buffalos, a six-mile bridge in China, and the village of Kargapazari in Turkey steeped in snow. These are only some of the nominees of the Siena Drone Photo Awards, also featured on NPR.

Out of the these, I thought that the most captivating one was the photo by Hüseyin Karahan, a former Turkish naval officer, who took a photo of Kargapazari village during a time when people were about to leave a mosque after prayers. Seeing as they were struggling to go out, he used his drone to take a wider view of the situation, and that's when his camera saw a very picturesque, almost abstract landscape, showing how the whole village had been snowed in.

Talking about the photo, Karahan mentioned how Turkish photographer Ara Güler inspired him to take up photography, and how there was such beauty that we can see in the spontaneity of our world. From his experiences taking the photo of Kargapazari, he was reminded how vast our world really is, and how small we are in comparison to it.

Meanwhile, Roberto Hernandez's photo of a bullfight in Mexico City's Plaza Mexico arena shown above is a great depiction of the spectacle, not just of bullfighting itself, but how that event brings people together. In fact, the photo shows more than 42,000 people who were gathered at the arena to witness the final moments of that bullfight.

From above, the collective throng seem so small and insignificant that one doesn't realize how many there really are, and that there's such a great number packed into this arena. Apparently, in order for Hernandez to get this great shot of the arena, there was much planning and testing that went into it. He shared how he had to rent the roof of the tallest building near the arena, and from that height, he was able to take this shot.

Finally, the other photo that stood out for me from among the collection was Sanchayan Chowdhury's photo of the famed Abdul Jabbar's Boli Khela - a wrestling tournament that was being held in Chittagong, Bangladesh. What entranced me in this photo was the geometry of the shot as well as the use of space.

According to Chowdhury, he took the photo not only as a commemorative token of the event, but also as a means of honoring his cultural heritage and capturing the passion of the wrestlers and the vibrant atmosphere of the event.

(Image credits: Hüseyin Karahan; Roberto Hernandez; Sanchayan Chowdhury/NPR)

This video contains NSFW language. There is so much documentation about the struggle for the American colonies to separate from British rule, but for some reason we focus on one quip in a letter from John Adams to his wife about celebrating independence with "bonfires and illuminations." This custom quickly settled into fireworks, because if there's anything Americans love, it's blowing things up.

Roger Horton is back to get honest with us about the Fourth of July, which was supposed to be the Second of July. We tend to just ignore that, as we do the fact that many of the things our country was founded on were compromises that made no one happy, but got the document out that started the Revolutionary War. The way we celebrate today has little to do with the actual events that gave us the holiday, but at least we have a good time. Still, be careful out there.  

George Frandsen has been collecting coprolites since he was 14. Those are fossilized turds, or dinosaur poop. It's a subject that may not appeal to everyone, but we've learned a lot about dinosaurs by the things they left behind, so to speak. Frandsen has the world's largest coprolite collection, despite giving them away regularly to museums. In 2014, Frandsen launched the Poozeum as a virtual and traveling exhibit, hosted by various museums around the country. But as of May, the Poozeum has a permanent home in Williams, Arizona. The displays include the largest dino coprolite ever found, so big it got its own name, Barnum. There's also a statue of a T. rex on the toilet, reminiscent of Rodin's sculpture The Thinker, which has become the Poozeum's most iconic image.



You could say the Poozeum is a crappy museum, but that's kind of the point. The museum doesn't smell; after all, these are fossils that are millions of years old. They also have a gift shop where you can buy all kinds of poop-related souvenirs. The Poozeum is open every day except Monday, and admission is free. Be sure to check it out the next time you are in Arizona. -via Boing Boing

In the latest episode of Ze Frank's True Facts series, he learn about five very strange species of eel. There are more than a thousand species of eel, so you probably haven't seen anywhere near most of them. Still, all eels are fish, but not like other fish. or example, the ribbon eel is born male -all of them. But you can't reproduce like that, so some turn into females as they mature. Moray eels have a second set of jaws like a xenomorph, and some can hunt prey on land. The pelican eel is called that because of its terrifying mouth. American eels and European eels don't even have sex organs until late in life, when they grow a pair (literally), and meet up to have an orgy in the ocean, right before they die. But those facts are just a tiny taste of the weird things you will learn about eels. Expect double entendres, snide remarks, and juvenile humor, as always. This video has a 70-second skippable ad at 6:23.

See Also: Previous True Facts videos.

Woolly mammoths died out around 12,000 years ago, except for a couple of populations that were stranded by rising seawater on St. Paul Island and Wrangel Island off Siberia. These small herds flourished for much longer, thanks to plenty of vegetation and no predators. The Wrangel Island mammoths became very much inbred, and they died out around 4,000 years ago, the last of the woolly mammoths.

The assumption was that the Wrangel Island mammoths died from genetic diseases due to inbreeding. One specimen's genome showed multiple disabilities, but is that what killed the last mammoths? A new study released this week suggests not. Scientists analyzed the DNA of 14 Wrangel Island mammoths and compared their DNA to seven mainland mammoths that lived much earlier. While some anomalies were found, they weren't enough to cause extinction. Mutations can arise in a limited population, but those are often eliminated when the affected animal doesn't breed. The scientists conducting the study say that the Wrangel Island mammoths were doing just fine breeding within their small population. When they suddenly disappeared, it must have been from an environmental disaster or a disease. Read about this research that throws a new light on the extinction of the woolly mammoth at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Lou.gruber)

LeBron James and Bronny James become the first father and son duo to be in the NBA at the same time.

Now they are teammates on the Lakers! pic.twitter.com/dITQ4WQ9RA

— NBA (@NBA) June 27, 2024

On Thursday, Bronny James of the USC Trojans made history when he was drafted into the NBA. He was pick #55 (out of 58), and went to the Los Angeles Lakers. That means he and his father, LeBron James, will be teammates. It is the first time that a father and son have played in the NBA at the same time, much less on the same team. That's because athletic careers usually do not last that long. LeBron James has been in the NBA for 21 years. Within minutes, everyone on Twitter came up with the same joke.    

Savannah James, LeBron's wife, took the jokes in stride. But the real punch line came from Grok, the Twitter chatbot available to premium members. The AI program summarizes news and trends on Twitter to present to users. Due to overwhelming "evidence," it took the story seriously.

Those who know have been telling us that artificial intelligence can have a sense of humor, but it appears that AI has a long way to go in detecting when people are telling a joke. -via Uproxx

The University of Nebraska is a school located at a football stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. That stadium, Memorial Stadium, is the holiest of shrines for Cornhusker fans.

The Associated Press reports that at a recent meeting of the board of regents, the governors of the program considered building a columbarium under the football field so that deceased fans will never miss any future home games. The proposal would have set different prices for the location of one's ashes, with higher prices charged for the 50-yard line and the end zones.

Sadly, the Board of Regents rejected the proposal, apparently with dismissive laughter.

Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri

Eating right is only part of proper nutrition. You need to also consciously consider how you are digesting your food. Influencer Mairlyn Smith proposes going on a "fart walk" about an hour after you eat. This is a walk in which you let rip with any flatulence you feel forming in your body or, as I call it, a walk.

The New York Post explains the science behind the trend. The motion of the abdominal muscles during a walk encourages intestinal activity. To optimize your flatulence, walk with your hands behind your back and your neck flexing in front of you.

Smith and her husband engage in fart walking as a couples activity. Think of it as a bonding opportunity.

-via Dave Barry

This falcon head is a pretty good work of taxidermy, except it isn't. It's not just a simple recretion, either. Look closely, and you'll see this is a construction of found objects, specifically non-recyclable trash, placed in just the right position to make something totally different at just the right angle. This is the work of Thomas Deininger, whose work highlights environmental concerns. The intricate assemblage shows us the massive variety of trash we produce, but also shows us the wildlife it affects. The falcon head was made quite some time ago, but after an accident trashed it, the buyer came back and Deininger repaired and reworked it into this masterpiece. Let's see another one of his illusions.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is part of an exhibit of Deininger's works called Apocalyptic Ornithology at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Coconut Grove, Florida. See more of Deininger's art at Instagram.  -via Everlasting Blort

The first human flight in a hot air balloon was. in 1783. The development of a parachute seems to have followed soon after. It makes sense that if a balloon will descend slowly because of the air inside, even when it's no longer hot, a similar piece of fabric can slow a falling person. However, the first parachutes were not all fabric, but were made of fabric stretched over a frame to keep its shape, like an umbrella.

Robert Cocking was a British artist, and a big fan of hot air balloons. He was in Paris in 1797 to watch André-Jacques Garnerin demonstrate a parachute that brought him to the ground after he released the hot air balloon it was attached to. Cocking wanted to do that, and spent years designing his own parachute. It was also supported with struts like an umbrella, but the fabric was cone-shaped to hold more air. It was honestly a good idea, but was not as thoroughly tested as it should have been before Cocking tried it out in 1837, at 5,000 feet above the ground with a crowd watching. Read what happened the day Robert Cocking became the first death attributed to a parachute at Amusing Planet.  -via Strange Company

Some experiments tell us that monkeys can count to three, but not to four. Is there some cognitive function that keeps them from counting higher? After all, monkeys have five fingers on each hand, and ten toes as well, so you'd think they could count at least as high as five. And how do scientists construct these experiments, anyway? You might be amused to find that they do it with magic tricks, because a monkey will display dismay and confusion when a number of objects does not match their expectations. However, it turns out that what we know as counting, and math as a whole, isn't the same for animals as it is for humans. Once scientists figured that out, the way monkeys and other animals calculate amounts makes perfect sense. Human are the weird ones here, and it doesn't have as much to do with our understanding of math as it has to do with our language.  -via Laughing Squid

More pics direct from @MBTA HQ. This is the greatest timeline to be a MBTA rider. pic.twitter.com/NMscmXEiqm

— ariloo 🌱 (@ariellelok) June 26, 2024

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), often called "the T" by locals, is responsible for mass transit in Boston and 176 nearby communities. That's a lot of people to service, and the MBTA has suffered criticism for a long time. However, getting the system fixed would cost $24 billion dollars. So this past April, a group of protesters organized a rally to ask for a smaller goal: to put googly eyes on the trains. The group called Googly Eyes MBTA said, "If the trains can’t be reliable, at least they can be fun and bring a smile to the faces of over a million people per day."

It took a while, but the MBTA has come through. Googly eyes have been installed on five trolleys and trains. The public reasoning for the request was to spread joy to Bostonians when they are waiting for a train, but we suspect it was also to judge whether the T was paying any attention to the desires of the public. The appearance of trains with ridiculous faces on the front shows that they do indeed listen to citizens, although they cannot fix the system without adequate funding. And googly eyes are always a good idea. -via Metafilter 

In my undergraduate days, I had delusion fantasies of becoming a medieval European historian and wasted a lot of time and money moving in that direction. One of the reasons why this was and remains a very difficult career path is that there are few college teaching positions available in the humanities.

But it would appear that if you can land one, you're set for life with a salary in excess of a billion dollars.

I think that the original (and since corrected) job posting is for this one at Sarah Lawrence College, which has a salary of $10,500 to $14,000, not $1,050,014,000. We humanities people struggle with math sometimes.

-via Matthew Thiessen, who quips "Announcing my immediate shift toward research and teaching on Medieval Literature.

Ever since chests of tea were thrown out into the Boston Harbor during the American Revolution, coffee had been the staple beverage for Americans. So it didn't come as a surprise that one of the main factors that the Union considered as an ingredient of their victory during the Civil War was coffee. However, coffee at that time was pretty hard to come by, given the blockade that the Union had set up in the South, preventing coffee imports from Brazil from entering the country. Luckily, Stephen Allen Benson, who was born in Maryland but emigrated to Liberia to escape tensions in the South, had an interesting proposal to the North.

Being president of Liberia, Benson had told the Americans in the North that they had ample supply of coffee in their country, and they would gladly export them. Thus began the partnership between Liberia and George W. Taylor, a member of the Free Labor Movement, which would continue for the next decade, and supplied the North with coffee for much of the remainder of the Civil War.

However, one thing stood between this partnership, and it was that Liberia had not yet been recognized, and so, no formal trade treaties had existed between the two countries until President Abraham Lincoln officially recognized the republic in 1862. This created an opening for Liberian coffee to enter the American market, and before long, the Union Army was once again invigorated by the sweet-smelling aroma of caffeine.

On the other hand, the dwindling supply of coffee in the South made it difficult for the troops to maintain morale, with some soldiers even attempting to engage in secret trades with the North for their coffee in exchange for tobacco. This was further aggravated when Union troops destroyed 500 sacks of Brazilian coffee in Atlanta, which showed just how much coffee the North had, as instead of consuming the South's supply themselves, they just destroyed it.

At the end of the war, Benson unfortunately died but the trading partnership between Liberia and the US continued, even paving new partnerships to be formed with other countries like Britain and Germany. By 1885, Liberia was exporting about 800,000 pounds of coffee per year, which drastically jumped to over 1.8 million seven years later.

This whole trend of drinking coffee became embedded in American culture, and soon enough, the US was importing 11 pounds of coffee per person, per year.

(Image credit: Library of Congress/Battlefields)