From other Travel Blogs...

Malahide Castle, Ireland

TRAVEL TIPS
Get good advice on Travel Hacker with their 40+ Safety Tips for Solo Travelers.

Getting burned out on travel? Amanda at Vagabondish has some ideas for people who are All Traveled Out.

A new budget travel blog on my RSS reader is Less Than A Shoestring. One of my favorite tips: The Three-Day Rule.

TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
Madison, Wisconsin is a fun place to visit (and according to cousins, it's a nice place to live, too). Ben at Vagabondish recommends things to do in 36 Hours in Madison, Wisconsin. Doug and I might have to road trip out there and test Ben's ideas.

Travel Hacker provides another great resource with the Top 50 Biking Vacations, all over the world.

Will you be in Rome before March 20th? Intelligent Travel recommends the exhibit of frescoes from Pompeii at the National Museum of Rome.

Ben from Euros Ate My Dollars describes Traveling in Barcelona and gives some tips based on his experiences. The stories from Ben and Brittany are always entertaining, and this one doesn't disappoint.

Need some destination ideas? Check out Jack's article on Eyeflare about 3 Islands in the Mediterranean.

TRAVEL FOOD
Greg from Vagabonding begins! shares pictures of food that he has tried during his travels. The dumpling soup and sushi look delicious, but I'll pass on the deep fried snake and catfish head.

For more travel articles, check out the section marked From other Blogs in my sidebar.

Paul Bunyan Trail and Nisswa, Minnesota

From Baxter to Lake Bemidji State Park, there is a 100 mile, mostly paved, trail in Northern Minnesota. The Paul Bunyan Trail was built on an abandoned Burlington Northern Railroad grade and is used by walkers, bikers, and in-line skaters in the summer and snowmobilers in the winter. Although its website hasn't been updated recently, there is still a lot of good information about the trail and the towns it passes through.

There are 14 towns along the trail and someday I would like to bike past all of them. Until then, I'll enjoy the trail section near Nisswa. If you are biking the trail, I suggest that you plan a stop in this popular lake resort town. If you have children with you, there is a great park with a fun playground right off the bike path, just past the main strip of shops. On the way to the park, you can stop at the old-fashioned ice cream and candy store, The Chocolate Ox.

If you want something sweet, but aren't interested in candy or ice cream, just past The Chocolate Ox, at the end of the row of shops, is a small stand that sells fresh mini-donuts during the summer. Don't feel like you have to pass by all those shops, though. The Painted Turtle for unusual jewelry, fun purses, and interesting things for the house, Rainy Days bookstore, and Raedke Art Gallery are just a few of the options. Although some of the stores are expensive to shop in, you can still find great deals. Of course, there are also the requisite souvenir shops.

If eating, shopping and playing at the park aren't enough, during the summer, the Nisswa Chamber of Commerce hosts turtle races at 2:00 on Wednesdays. If you time your ride on the bike trail just right, you can enjoy all these options before you head off to Pequot Lakes and beyond. If you make it to Bemidji Lake State Park, you can continue your experience all the way up to Canada on the Blue Ox trail.

From other Travel Blogs...

First off, congratulations go out to Our Man in Granada for winning the Budget Travel Online writing contest. His article on Vietnam is a great read, and his win is well deserved. Congratulations, Steve!

Jas from Through the Lens did a post for Brave New Traveler this week, sharing 6 Quick Tips for Shooting Better Action Photos.

At Around the World in 80 Days, Mark writes an interesting post about biking through Normandy and Brittany.

There were some posts about Cambodia, with The Lost Girls reporting on their visit to Phnom Penh and the Guardian Unlimited also writing an article about traveling to Cambodia.

The Guardian Unlimited also has an interesting article about Romania, Lost in Transylvania.

For even more articles, check out the section marked From Other Blogs in my sidebar.

Thank you to luciano 46 at Flickr who is sharing this photograph under a creative commons license. I chose his picture of Quebec City because that is my next travel destination.

For more travel articles, check out the section marked From other Blogs in my sidebar.

Honduras to Boulder Bicycle Tour

(For some reason, Blogger doesn't like the code from travelistic or youtube to embed the video in my post, so you have to pretend there is a video here instead of a picture from Ryan's flickr page)

A video about Ryan Van Duzer's bike trip was uploaded today on Travelistic. I thought it was great, so I googled Ryan and found his blog from the trip, The Ryan on his cycle diaries. He did the bike ride in three months at the end of 2005, after two years in Honduras with the Peace Corps.

What is he doing now? According to an interesting article on DailyCamera, he produces, "Out There," a public-access t.v. show about outdoor activities. You can see some of his videos on YouTube.

Hiking and Biking in the Denver area

If you are looking for something to do on a free day, consider visiting one of the many parks in Jefferson County.

Mount Falcon Park - We visited the park several times when we lived in Denver. Although it was steep at times, the 1.7 mile Turkey Trot Trail was a good hike for the boys when they were younger.

They can hike longer distances now, and I would love to go back and explore some of the other trails. In the picture to the left, we were heading back down to the parking area. If you look closely, you can see the Denver skyline in the background. From other parts of the trail, there are great views of Red Rocks Park.

Deer Creek Canyon- Another easy hike is the 1.6 mile Meadowlark Trail at Deer Creek Canyon. There were rocks for the boys to climb, and we also walked through some woods, reminding us of the parks in Minnesota. Again, I would like to go back now that the boys are older and hike some of the more difficult trails.

Waterton Canyon- If you've had enough hiking, and want to try biking, head over to Waterton Canyon. The dirt road is closed to traffic and follows the South Platte River for 6 miles up to the Strontia Springs Dam. Past the dam, you can continue up Waterton Canyon to the Colorado Trail, but you will need a mountain bike for that part of the trail, otherwise a road bike is fine.