January 2011
34 posts
The Science of Drinking - FHM
Learn to drink like a real man in Newfoundland.
“‘Ha’ nobody screeched yeh in?” came a voice from the next table in the sort of thick brogue that makes it impossible to tell whether the owner is sober or smashed. I was staying at Fishers’ Loft in Port Rexton, Newfoundland, a ruggedly beautiful fishing town where whales and icebergs outnumber tourists. The...
Occidental Journey - Elegant Bride
A trip up California’s Pacific Coast offers incredible luxury and natural beauty.
I left my heart in San Francisco…and a thousand other places along the Californian coast. My wife and I spent our honeymoon five years ago driving the legendary Highway 1, so for our anniversary we decided to retrace our steps, rediscovering a road every bit as romantic as the one we remembered.
...
Working Dogs - Men's Health
Siberian huskies never tire. Believe me, I owned one. On more than one occasion we trailed him along the beach in a car until we got bored. In honor of his memory I leapt at the chance to go dog-sledding at The Resort at Paws Up in Montana, USA.
On arriving at my luxuriously appointed timber villa I discover a crackling fire, rustic furniture hewn from birch logs and animal hides and all the...
Eastern Europe - AAA Horizons
I’m taking a train back in time, crossing what was once the Iron Curtain from Vienna to Budapest.
Having just spent five sunny days in Vienna indulging in fabulous food, art and opera and wowing it up with artists and intellectuals, I’m curious to discover how time has transformed its less fortunate neighbor, Hungary. Both cities were once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — which, at...
New Zealand - AAA Horizons
On almost any trip to New Zealand you’ll cross the International Date Line, so remember to wind your watch back, say… about 20 years.
Sure it’s a joke but it’s also partially true. The combination of small cities, friendly people, lush farm land and natural beauty makes a trip to New Zealand akin to revisiting an idyllic childhood.
The North Island is more rugged of...
Newfoundland - AAA Horizons
Cold it a relative thing.
To anyone living south of the Canadian border, Newfoundland’s climate could be compared to that of a meat locker. But to adventurer Captain Bob Bartlett – who enabled Admiral Robert Peary to be the first man to reach the North Pole exactly a century ago — Newfoundland represented the last warm glow of civilization before making the big push towards the Arctic...
Dubai - AAA Horizons
In many ways Dubai is a mirage. Founded in 1095 by nomadic Bedouins, this unlikely metropolis grew from the shifting desert sands into an opulent oasis. Like all mirages, Dubai is irresistible to travelers.
I’m in the world’s tallest building in an elevator pulsing with light as it rockets 124 floors towards the observation platform. At 2625 feet (more than twice the height of the Empire State...
New Horizon - Symmetry Magazine
After enduring devestating bushfires just three years ago, the glorious Grampians region of Victoria is fully recovered and is once again bursting with natural splendour.
Fire can purify. After a terrifying bush fire “cleansed” half of the Grampians National Park in 2006, this Victorian wonderland is greener than ever. Eucalyptus trunks sport vibrant new growth as thick as...
Best Barrier Reef Resorts - Elite Traveler
Australia’s aquatic wonderland, The Great Barrier Reef, stretches 1600 miles and encompasses 900 islands, only a few of which are inhabited. With several iconic resorts—and one impressive newcomer—the region deserves its blosoming reputation as a top shelf luxury escape, with amenities and services to rival the world’s best.
BEDARRA ISLAND Beloved by honeymooners and...
Prefab With a View
London-based First Penthouse is developing a new real estate market—the tops of other buildings.
When Swedish businessman Peo Lindholm and his wife Anne-Marie wanted a brand-spanking-new London penthouse, all they could find were draughty, old, dark boxes with leaky roofs and rattly plumbing. When they discovered a company prefabricating modern penthouses off-site and lifting them into...
Come Up Trumps - Men's Health
How to improve your odds when genetics deals you a dud hand.
So you think you’re healthy yet you’re still prone to injury, high cholesterol or worse. Don’t be hard on yourself, there’s someone else to blame: your parents for starters — and their parents and their parents and so on.
The genes passed down from generation to generation determine many things from...
Girl Grease Lightning - Sunday Magazine
They feel the need, the need for speed - and their gender’s not going to stop them. Sure they could be out shopping but they’d rather be out racing with the boys. Adam McCulloch goes along for the ride.
Firstly, let’s get the jokes out of the way. Women don’t motor-race because: they can’t navigate their way to the track; there’s no vanity mirrors;...
Go North - Sunday Magazine
Most people go on holidays to get away from it all and relax. The North Pole is about as far away as it gets, but during Louise Allard’s Arctic Circle break, relaxation was never an option.
Louise Allard didn’t intend to be the first Australian woman to make it to the North Pole. She was just after a nice holiday to remember her 40th birthday by. It wasn’t until four days...
Task Force - Men's Health
What makes a man a man? Try these ten skills for starters.
It used to be that every problem-solving tool a guy needed could be hung on a tool belt. Nowadays sensitive new age gents are expected to bake the ideal airy soufflé, throw the perfect dinner party and (ye Gods) actually be capable of holding a conversation. All this chin-wagging means there’s no time left to practice the arts...
The Water Boy - Sunday Magazine
Born in Germany, living in Sydney and working in Beijing, architect of the moment Chris Bosse is making waves with his revolutionary bubble-based designs.
It’s rather fitting that Sydney architect Chris Bosse says he’s “riding the crest of a wave”. Water, bubbles and all manner of aquatic motifs have become recurring themes in his work and personal life. The 34-year-old...
Pillow Talk - Sunday Magazine
Thread counts, memory foam and $200 pillows make buying bedding a shopper’s nightmare. Does all this choice guarantee a good night’s sleep, asks Adam McCulloch.
The dream goes like this: you walk into your local bedding store to replace a pillow so old that it’s starting to resemble the shroud of Turin. Confronted with a stadium full of fluffy white options you stray deeper...
Budgie Snugglers - Sunday Magazine
Some associate the humble budgerigar with whiskery nannas, but these beauties can be worth up to $10,000 a pair. Adam McCulloch takes a stick beak at one of the world most popular pets.
On the eve of the last U.S. election I contacted the Pentagon with a trivial research question. Within minutes I was talking to a head of staff. By way of contrast, while researching this story on budgerigars...
World's Messiest Festivals - Lonely Planet
Street fairs can be unruly events. But when the whole purpose of the gathering is to create as much muck as possible, they move into a league of their own.
Food fights are surprisingly common festival activities the world over, and more often than not the weapon of choice is the humble tomato. Each year, on the last Wednesday in August, as many as 30,000 people descend on the small village of...
Subterranean Splash! Mexicos Underground Rivers -...
The Mayan Riviera on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula may look like your typical beachside holiday destination but for spelunkers, cave divers and anyone with a spirit of adventure, its beauty is more than skin deep.
Behind the beachfront resorts, the tropical jungle is home to the longest underground river on earth – all 95 miles (153 kilometers) of it. In places the earth has collapsed into the...
Billionaire Beach Cabanas - Lonely Planet
The beach cabana has become prime holiday real estate.
For the price of the average honeymoon suite, some hotels are providing beach and poolside cabanas with an endless list of high life amenities: butlers, TVs, Evian spritzers…even sunglasses cleaning.
While on the surface it might seem like a private cabana would imply a desire for seclusion, in fact these fabulous follies are all about...
Secret Men's Business - Men's Health
Whether it’s brewing your own beer, collecting stamps or outsmarting a crafty trout, there are solid health reasons for having a hobbby.
The humble shed has always been a symbol of a physical and (more importantly) mental sanctuary for men. Once inside a man was free to pursuit a hobby of any description — no matter how esoteric. Nowadays, with the demands of work, family and...
Fall Foilage a la Carte - Forbes Traveler
No two autumn leaves are the same. Similarly, everyone who loves fall (whether they call themselves a leaf-peeper or not) has their own way of appreciating the most colorful of seasons.
As days shorten and mornings become brisk, it’s time to say one last hurrah to your favorite outdoorsy pursuit before winter sets in. A Sunday afternoon drive may satisfy some, but for others, Fall is...
Moments of Clarity - Surface Magazine
Architects have gone soft with tough fabrics, tranforming the skyline into a softer, cleaner and greener landscape.
The idea isn’t new – think tents, yurts and teepees – but the technology to super-size fabric-clad buildings is. The material most credited with this dramatic change is ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), a perfectly transparent, self-cleaning plastic. It’s an outstanding...
Cape Crusader - Surface Magazine
An architectural gem in Australia gives “eco-friendly” new meaning with a sculptural design which harmonizes with its surroundings in unexpected ways.
It’s impossible to not think of water when you step inside the Cape Schanck House, located on the Mornington Peninsula, an hour outside of Melbourne, Australia. The property’s centerpiece is a teardrop-shaped rainwater tank that...
Take Off, Stay Fit (10 health pitfalls to avoid...
Rich or poor, no one can actually afford to get ill while traveling. Planes, trains, automobiles — and the destinations they service — are full of potential health hazards.
Just answering the boarding call and observing the fasten-seatbelt sign raises the risk of death by deep vein thrombosis or a killer flu. Of course, not all health pitfalls while traveling will buy you a one-way...
Best Volcano Adventures - Forbes Traveler
When volcanoes erupt most people run away as fast as they possibly can. Volcanologist John Seach does the opposite: he runs towards the 2000 degree lava flows.
For Seach, a self confessed “volcano chaser” who owns an adventure tour company, Volcano Live, there’s nothing better than liquid rock, steaming earth and the sulphurous smell of freshly made land. It turns out he’s not...
25 Exceptional (and Criminally Underrated) Indian...
Consider this: all of India receives just the same number of visitors in a year as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.
According to Mr A.R. Ghanashyam, India’s Deputy Consul General based in New York, India receives just five million international tourists per year, most of them making predictable journeys to tourist icons like the Taj Mahal. It’s fair to say that many of the...
Gut Reactions - Surface Magazine
With its vibrant color scheme, labyrinthine layout, the alimentary architecture of Naoki Terada’s Stomach House both provokes and pleases.
“I’m a little bit twisted,” says 39-year-old Japanese designer Naoki Terada. He’s referring to his way of working with clients, but his comment could easily apply to his first architectural commission, “The Stomach House,”...
Best Whale Watching and When - Forbes Traveler
Thar she blows! Nature lovers armed with cameras are searching the seven seas for the ultimate photograph of earth’s largest mammals.
After being hunted to the brink of extinction, some whale populations almost have their head above water. “The blue whale numbers off California have increased dramatically,” says Bernardo Alps, trips coordinator for the American Cetacean...
Travel + Leisure - Strange Sports →
From pumpkin paddling to the Wall of Death, quirky sporting events that get you a ringside seat into local culture.
Read more.
10 Gnarliest Surfing Spots - Forbes Traveler
Surf’s Upscale!
10 Gnarliest Luxury Surfing Spots Adam McCulloch
Surf’s Upscale
When master Hawaiian surfboard shaper John Carper first started surfing 50 years ago, people referred to surfers as beach bums and slackers, and no one thought they’d get a job — let alone spend their hard-earned cash on five-star resorts. “If you wanted to get fancy you had a...
Serial Killer City - City Magazine
Ringed by leafy parks and built on a precise grid, Adelaide’s ordered design may have driven some of its citizens to mass homicide. Native Adam McCulloch reflects on urban design gone murderously wrong and how he made it out alive.
Most visitors wouldn’t notice the sinister side of Adelaide, a small coastal city on the edge of Australia’s vast outback. Roughly the size of Austin Texas, the low...
Rosewood Mayakobá - Cigar Aficionado
Dramatic entrances are par for the course at Rosewood Mayakobá.
This year-old property on Mexico’s Riviera Maya forms part of the Mayakobá luxury enclave, which is rounded out by Fairmont, Viceroy and Banyan Tree resorts. Rosewood guests enter the “lobby”, an open-air pavilion with a sweeping modernist roofline, an arresting star-shaped cascading chandelier, and a waterfall...
Adventure Honeymoons - Forbes Traveler
When newlyweds Dani and Rob Dario considered their honeymoon options, the thought of lying on a beach for a week never crossed their minds.
“It kind of drives me nuts,” says Dani. Like many well traveled couples they wanted to celebrate their wedding with a vacation that stood out from the exotic locales they had already visited.
They decided to tour through Vietnam, Cambodia and...