Ever think to yourself, “If I go to one more film festival where I have to listen to Redford ramble on about how scared he was to jump off that cliff in Sundance, I’m going to jump out of a chairlift!” Then this is for you.

This June 19, 2011, Brooklyn — that humble little borough in New York where indie bands make songs for hipster car commercials — will play host to the first ever Nomading Film Fest, a festival for the travel video-making set.

Travel films — up to 15 minutes long — will be voted on by the audience in each of five categories including:

1) The trip I wish I was on
2) The trip I’m glad I wasn’t on
3) The nomad(s) I want to travel with
4) The most enlightening trip
5) Simply put, that trip makes me want to travel, now!

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Given the recently released statistics from the U.S. State Department, I updated one of The Expeditioner’s most popular posts from 2010 that asked the question: How Many Americans Have a Passport? According to the recent numbers, the answer is about 37%. Click through to read more.

As any traveler to Québec knows, there’s one delicacy that stands out from the rest when describing the culinary scene in the French-speaking part of Canada: poutine. Okay, that’s kind of like describing pizza in New York as a delicacy, but the two do share in the common trait of representing, perhaps more than any other dish, what visitors will remember most about eating there.

For the uninitiated, poutine consists of french fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy. Like pizza, this is only a traditional framework, and poutine comes in all sorts of varieties — including Italian, Greek, and even Mexican takes on the dish. It’s popularity has been spreading over the past few years, and you can even find it in outposts in New York City now (although the sole Poutine shop in New York closed recently — sometimes great ideas go unappreciated).

And as GoMad Nomad recently explored, there’s plenty of poutine to be found in the rest of Canada, including Ottawa where author Jett Thomason wandered the city with camera in tow recording the various outposts where those in dire need of a quick heart-clogging snack can stop in to fulfill their fix. (more…)

If I were to look back upon some of the places I’ve traveled to recently — Colombia, Argentina, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique — as recently as even a decade ago, people would’ve thought I was crazy to travel to some of those countries. So is the prospect that travel to Afghanistan really that far-fetched of an idea? Don’t forget, Afghanistan — as part of the so-called “Hippie Trail” of the ’60s and ’70s — was once well on the “beaten track.”

Outside Magazine recently decided to check out what travel was like these days in the war-torn country. For a mere $3,700 it seems intrepid travelers can sign up with Hinterland Travel — a U.K.-based travel company — for a whirlwind tour of some of the country’s best ruins, spectacular Central Asian vistas, and, oh yeah, probably a few encounters with members of both the Taliban and the United States military forces. (more…)

It never ceases to amaze us when two people are on the same page, let alone 8 million. We learned from our December photo contest at our Flickr group, that this is exactly the case every December in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Our Christmas-themed contest winner comes from AMASC and is titled “Balloon Gazing.” She is the one that schooled us on the city’s Christmas custom:

During December, Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon (call it what you will), is home to the largest collection of people wearing Santa hats in the world. Everyone does it, taxi drivers, waiters, random adults, school kids but especially children. From the beginning of December the Christmas decorations go up and the main occupation of this city of 8 million is to dress your child like Santa and grab a few hundred images of them in front of the decorations, the hawkers and the other little Santas.

We really gravitated to this photo because, to us, it really grabs the essence of traveling during the holidays. Matt agrees: “I think nothing is cooler when traveling than seeing those incongruous images, like Christmas decorations in a hot climate in Southeast Asia.”

For more images from SE Asia, holiday oriented or not, head over to her photostream or blog full of spectacular shots. It may just plant a seed in your mind to spend next year’s holiday void of snow. I know I’m considering it. Chúc Mừng Giáng Sinh everyone - Merry Christmas.

With all this winter stuff going on, we thought we’d take a little break from it all and dream of those island getaways, bungalows, drinks served with umbrellas and inside some kind of fruit you’ve never seen before. January’s theme is “Island Vibes.”So relive those beachside massages all over again while you upload your island getaway shots to our contest thread.

By Grashina Gabelmann

Warhol: the glasses-wearing, shiny silver haired artist who invented and perfected pop art and rightly predicted everyone is to have their 15 minutes of fame. His art, books, movies and legacy are rooted deeply in our culture and if you find yourself in New York City you can discover where he partied, ate and created. Step back into New York’s grimy 70s scene where Warhol ruled the night turning girls into superstars and bars into “hipster hot spots”.

1) Head over to Serendipity 3 Diner (225 East 60th Street), famous for its outrageously delicious sundaes. Warhol satisfied his sweet tooth here way before his Factory days. He used to pay his food in drawings.

I had to wait ages to get a table, but once I was sitting in a booth surrounded by colorful chandeliers, tastefully tacky ceramic, glass and crystal decorations sipping my Frozen Hot Chocolate (a secret blend of 14 types of cocoa, topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings), I was feeling pretty all right.

2) Check out where infamous Studio 54 used to be (255 West 54th Street) — a club so exclusive that Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton were denied its Wonderland-like pleasures on the opening night.

As I approached the spot I closed my eyes and imagined Warhol strutting past me and the red velvet rope with no effort at all with “it-girl” Edie Sedwick in tow wearing belly button-reaching earrings, a fluffy fur coat and eyelashes so long and thick her eye color remained a mystery. Today, the club is now a Broadway theater, but hey, you can still say you’ve been there. (more…)