Boarding Pass - Jamie Diersing

Boarding Pass is a weekly column exploring the creative ways people travel and how they record their memories.

Not everyone can manage to make a dirt collection cool and beautiful, but creative director and co-founder of Egg2Cake, Jamie Diersing has me left wanting to take a pocket full of dirt from the next place I go. I love all of her stunning landscapes from around the globe, and it makes me want to spice up the way I travel for a bit more outdoor adventure (well, maybe when it warms up). Thanks so much, Jamie!

Last trip taken:
Glacier National Park in Montana and the Canadian Rockies (Banff, Yoho and Jasper National Parks)

Next trip on deck:
Nothing is planned at the moment but I actually dream about going back to our last destination: Emerald Lake in Alberta, Canada. Picture the turquoise water of the South Pacific surrounded by glacial mountains, forests and wildflowers. Completely surreal.
One place you would go back to again and again:
Canada: The scenery continues to blow me away, so much so that we took two trips there in back-to-back years. British Columbia is amazing, especially Vancouver Island and Vancouver. And the Canadian Rockies in Alberta is phenomenal in scenery and wildlife.Places you’d most likely recommend a friend go visit:
most amazing water: Tahiti (where an overwater bungalow is a must-do on your life's bucket list)
best view from room: Ladera Resort, up close view of the Pitons on St. Lucia in the Caribbean
best snorkeling: Great Barrier Reef and Tahiti
wildlife: Canadian Rockies (grizzly and black bear, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, cougar)
sealife: Great Barrier Reef (sea turtles, sharks, sting rays, fish)
wildflowers: California Poppy Reserve, Anza Borrego State Park, Death Valley National Park; Mt. Rainier, Canadian Rockies
mountains: Rainier, Hood, Tetons, Whitney/Sierra Nevada, Rockies, Canadian Rockies
desert: Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Anza Borrego, the southwest
coast: the entire Pacific
camping: Sequoia National Forest, Anza Borrego and Joshua Tree in southern California, Gold Bluffs Beach in Northern California, Arches National Park in Utah
most relaxing: Hawaii (for that tropical, exotic feeling without the typical stresses of international travel; also not too difficult with babies or young children)

preferred method of transportation:
Car. There’s nothing like a roadtrip (especially cross country) for the transitions in your life. It’s a great opportunity to step out of a rut and clear your mind. You can also ease into the destinations you arrive at, as opposed to airline travel, which abruptly drops you into different time zones, climates and cultures.
Places you’ve never been but dying to go:
"Edge of the Earth” places: Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, Patagonia (Torres del Paine National Park), Easter Island, Iceland, Mt. Everest base camp (being a place that inspires and pushes people).

Place you’d never go back:
The main island of Bora Bora. Tahiti, in general, is simply stunning, but after staying at resorts perched on small, surrounding motus, it was a real shock and horror to visit the main island and see homeless, emaciated and crippled dogs everywhere. Being in “paradise”, the situation caught me off guard and was extremely upsetting to an animal lover. I think I cried for the rest of the day.

Most memorable trip in 2 sentences or less:
Honeymoon in Australia and New Zealand. The longest we’ve been away and the furthest we’ve traveled. The friendliest people anywhere, spectacular scenery.
How do you prepare for a trip?
Research and planning months in advance! This phase is as enjoyable to me as the actual trip. I think I must have been a travel agent in a previous life... the details come naturally and I love coordinating trips for groups of friends, such as our backpacking trip to the top of Mt. Whitney and multiple running relays that involve a huge amount of logistics. Once I arrive at a destination, I like to leave no stone unturned since I never know when I’ll be back.

How do you record your travels when you’re traveling? / What’s in your “designer travel kit” ?
Digital SLR camera to capture the sights and a small journal to record the events of the trip and anything else that I want to capture. I’m a big listmaker so I’ll also write about new foods I tried, funny phrases and packaging from another country or how many methods of transportation we took to get to a remote spot. The iPhone also takes great snapshots and video. Something that I’ve only started doing in the past couple years is capturing sound clips on an iPhone recorder app. You’d think video would potentially be the best of all worlds and knock out photos and recordings but I love having the “memory sources” isolated... it really provides a unique focus. Some of my favorite recordings: the nightly orchestra of tree frogs in St. Lucia, the cacophony of African birds at a wildlife sanctuary, the cheers and background music at the start of a relay race, my daughter’s voice as a toddler and my nephew in his first hours after birth.

What is your favorite thing to photograph in a new place?
Landscapes, without a question! Also: wildlife and unusual or humorous signs.
On an average, how many pictures to you take on a trip?
300-500

What do you do after a trip? how long after a trip does this happen?
I’m pretty obsessive about getting pictures into a photo album as soon as I unpack, because it’s the best way to preserve that vacation feeling. And now I contribute to the Egg2Cake blog as well. I am also a National Park fanatic and I've had this idea for years of having a big map on the wall on which I put a pin for every new park I visit but I have yet to accomplish this. I even have a lifetime competition going with a good friend to see who has been to more parks, although parenthood has temporarily slowed us both down a bit.
Favorite souvenir/thing to bring back?
I’m a compulsive collector of found objects in nature. I joke with family and friends that I’m cheap and easy to buy for, just grab some dirt from your next trip! I have a collection of sand bottles (93 currently) from around the world that I started over 15 years ago on a my first visit to Death Valley. On that trip alone, I collected four different colors and textures in sand and dirt, even green and purple. Two samples that always raise eyebrows: the bottle of water (from the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada) and the empty bottle from the Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii. I don’t consider myself to be superstitious, but after reading some letters from visitors that took lava rock home and the awful luck that found them, I decided to demonstrate some unusual restraint in lining my pockets. My husband lives secretly in fear that we’ll be arrested going through airport security with my finds and my father says that there’s no predicting the explosion that will occur at my home if the bottles fall from the wall and the worldly contents mix.
I also have a collection of other natural finds throughout my house, including twigs, stones, dried flowers, seed pods, etc. Let’s just say all these tiny, loose objects make for infrequent dusting! I could put them all in a display but I don’t like that they’d become inaccessible to spontaneous scrutiny.
How do you keep the big picture in mind?
I continually update an adventure resume which allows me to see at a moment’s glance how fortunate I’ve been to experience so many great things. The intention behind it: To treat play with as much respect as work. Life is all about balance. I love seeing adults engage in opportunities to play and accomplish a challenge as a group. I firmly believe being curious and playful supports an inspired and creative life. And I love combining a physical challenge amidst spectacular scenery. Some of the highlights: Olympic Torch Relay, LA marathon, running across the Golden Gate Bridge in the San Francisco relay marathon, a moonlight bike ride through White Sands National Monument, ziplining in Vancouver, summiting Mt. Whitney (tallest peak in the 48), snorkeling in Tahiti and the Great Barrier Reef, a GPS scavenger hunt in Oregon’s high desert and various running relays throughout the west.
LINKS

• egg2cake.com
• jamiediersing.com
• egg2cake blog
• egg2cake shop

Check out the other half of Egg2Cake with Kate Rivinis Blackman on Boarding Pass.

Study Abroad

Whenever I meet young people, my piece of advice to them is to study abroad. I cannot imagine my life had I not ventured to a foreign land. I did double duty with a semester in Paris (where my love affair with this city began), followed by a 10 country voyage around the world during that spring semester. I would not be who I am today without these experiences, and I wouldn't have met my best friend, or the amazing friends and people along the way. And I think anyone who has studied abroad would say the same.

As soon as Lindsey of Lost In Cheeseland linked to a EF Language school video, I was immediately enthralled in how they use video, typography and language to capture the spirit, charm and mood of studying abroad (and was quickly reminded how much easier it is to be a study abroad student than to actually live abroad long term!). With videos for Paris, London, Barcelona and Beijing, each uses the same format to tell a different story. The videos were produced by Camp David Films based out of Stockholm (even more international, ay?). Gustav Johansson directed the films, with Niklas Johansson as the Director of Photography, and gorgeous typography by Albin Holmqvist. I can't stop watching them!!

Social Media Week

I often take for granted my connectivity and the way I use my blog, Twitter and email to connect with people from around the world. Then I talk to people not online or who want to bring their businesses online, and I realize that I'm pretty deep in it all and know what I'm talking about, as something I not only do, but also study. So the inner geek in me got really excited when I saw all the free talks happening around Paris - and the world - the week of February 7-11 for Social Media Week. Also known as SMW, it's designed to be a global platform for conversation, collaboration and learning, which happens twice a year (February and September). I'm particularly interested in the Hotel, Travel & Social Media panel on February 11th, and curious if I agree with what they have to say. There are also round tables on food, education, revolutions and more. You can find the full Paris schedule here, and find out what's happening elsewhere here.

{Un}Glamorous Paris: Les Toilettes

Week after week through my {Un}Glamorous Paris series, I think I've come up with the most unglamorous side of Paris. But then I remembered: les toilettes.

Starting close to home is the best way to set the stage here. The older I get, not only do my apartments get smaller, but the toilet is no larger part of my actual living space. Yes, while "normal" people typically have to go down the hall to use the bathroom in their own homes, I do the same. I just share it with 5 other people. I also have the added "benefit" of a "fresh" toilette experience, as our shared hallway toilet is not heated and quite freezing in the small, unglamorous tiled room whose lock is shoddy, and multiple times a day I fear being locked in there forever. The other "perk" is that I have the privilege of bringing my own toilet paper with me each time I go, so I know no one is using mine. Talk about glam! But the good news is most of my student friends in Paris are in the same boat. Oddly, we are becoming French and realizing, c'est normale!

Despite being a shared toilet, the cleanliness isn't really an issue (I have good neighbors, except for the one who decided to have a party from 1:30- 6:30am last Tuesday "night"). It's just a toilet. Then I come back into my apartment to wash my hands. A sink with the toilet would be a nice perk, but alas, non.

But this isn't just me in mon petit appartement. Many apartments in France have a separate "toilet room" and then you have to find where you are supposed to go to wash your hands. Usually there is another room for this, but I usually just opt for the kitchen because you are insured to have water and soap available. The other trick you must understand about French apartments is that the French are very private people. They like to keep all doors closed. So it's a bit of a guessing game as to where to find les toilettes. Hence, it is also a mission to find where the sink is. I'm telling you, when in doubt, just go to the kitchen!

One of my favorite things in Paris is to wander the city for hours on end. It's a great activity that falls nicely into my budget. The only catch is finding a bathroom. So here are a few tips: McDonald's besides having the best free Wi-Fi in the city is always sure to have a bathroom, Le Starbuck - also bathrooms, and les grands magasins [the big department stores]. Note: sometimes you need a code printed on your receipt to get into the door - because of people like me - but just wait for someone to come out, or politely ask someone to give you the code (I've been asked before and happy to share my knowledge). If you're not a complete cheapskate like me, you can go to the local brasserie, and order un café while standing at the bar (the cheapest way to get a beverage in a cafe) and take advantage of their facilities.

When you're out and about in the city, the other option are the free, public, gray "les toilettes" all around the city that look a bit more like a spacecraft than a bathroom. I was terrified of these for the longest time. But then one day I was desperate, and I realized it was something on my checklist of "must do Paris," and I bit the bullet, sent a text to a friend if I got trapped, and went inside the capsule. Much to my surprise, it was quite a pleasant experience, clean, it talked to me, I could was my hands, and when I left the door closed again for its "self-cleaning" function. Now I must admit, that not all WC [water closet] "capsules" are equal. If you're going for the experience, go to some obscure neighborhood and try it (less popular there). Don't go to the one near Parc Buttes-Chaumont - that one is definitely gross always a small flood. But, desperate times come for desperate measures. Then of course, men have the option of just peeing on the side of any wall or object [see video], and you can expect that quite regularly.

My final word of warning, is that despite being a developed country, squat toilets do exist in this city. In fact, one of my favorite haunts, Au Petit Fer à Cheval, is an upstanding and reputable restaurant/bar, so it may come as quite the surprise to some that their toilet is essentially a hole in the ground. But it's all part of the experience...

Les toilettes in Paris are such an experience in Paris, I'm surprised they don't bottle the fragrance. Madeleine and Republique metros most commonly emit the odor - it wouldn't be real Paris without a tinge of urine in the metro air.

When asking where the bathroom is:
- Où sont les toilettes?
- Où est le W.C.?


{Un}Glamorous Paris is a regular column exploring the less-than-perfect sides of Paris with a sense of humor, and helpful information. More in the series:
- Chest X-Rays
- Paperwork
- Finding an Apartment
- Working in France
- Swimming Pools

Le Flâneur

Ever since posting about Mike Matas's journey through Morocco & Spain, I've been fascinated by the use of still photography to create a voyage through a place. Now I'm in complete awe of American University of Paris student Luke Shepard who has created a breathtaking look at Paris with Le Flâneur. I love the lack of people in it, and the mood it creates. Just watch.

Boarding Pass - Kate Rivinus Blackman

A few weeks ago I got a peek into Kate Rivinus Blackman's home in a sneak peek I ran on Design*Sponge. We got talking and today it's a look into how she travels. Kate falls under the category of traveler who does her homework before a trip, but comes up with some really interesting finds because of that. Stay tuned next week for a feature on the other half of the Egg2Cake creative team on Boarding Pass. Thanks, Kate!
last trip taken:
Lake Tahoe, California

next trip on deck:
Israel and Morocco
one place you would go back to again and again:
Rome, specifically to the Hotel de Russie
place you'd most likely recommend a friend go visit:
- Le Tahaa, a private island in Tahiti
- Amsterdam
- Yellowstone Park and surrounding Snake River wilderness outside Cody, Wyoming
preferred method of transportation:
Taxi Cab (taxi drivers can be best tour guides)
place you've never been but dying to go:
Israel
place you'd never go back:
Cabo San Lucas

most memorable trip in 2 sentences or less:
Exploring the Umbrian countryside between Christmas and New Year's.
how do you prepare for a trip?
I love to research. I’ve saved a lot of clippings and we have friends and family who get around and give us ideas. Because of my husband’s antique and furniture business, we travel to a lot of urban destinations. We like to find less-trafficked spots like artisan studios, smaller museums and foodie haunts. One of our favorite days was spent exploring Queens, New York. We started the day at The Noguchi Museum and ended taking a tour of the Louis Armstrong House Museum where you could still see his office as if he had just left. Other unique spots include Le Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie on the outskirts of Paris and Georgia O'Keeffe's home and studio in Abiquiu, New Mexico.

how do you record your travels when you're traveling?
Camera.
what is your favorite thing to photograph in a new place?
Anything that inspires me — a culinary find, store display, weather pattern, cool graffiti. I seem to photograph a lot of graves — they can be so poetic and beautiful. My husband also shoots videos from the driver's vantage whenever we venture through new territory. Most recently on the back of snowmobile in Tahoe.
on an average, how many pictures to you take on a trip?
It really changes every trip.

what's in your "designer travel kit" ?
My iPhone, but my brother just showed me a new little Canon travel camera, which will be my next travel purchase. Sometimes I carry a pocket journal. I still like to write notes the old-fashioned way!
what do you do after a trip? how long after a trip does this happen?
I create inspiration files (digital and the old-fashioned kind) — whether a photo I’ve taken or something picked up along the way. I also post pictures to share with my large, extended family. Now with Egg2Cake's new blog, I am also starting to write about our trips, especially anything related to food.
favorite souvenir/thing to bring back?
We always find some collectible whether it is a modern glass vase found in a London antique shop or a pair of wings from a 19th century ecclesiastic figure found in a random Italian flea market. Lately, I’m searching for vintage cookbooks and kitchen tools.
favorite food discovery?
- A national holiday celebration dinner on the island of Hydra in Greece. It was a feast of traditionally-prepared foods, including fresh-caught fish, grilled calamari and stuffed tomatoes and peppers. It was outdoors under this amazing blanket of stars and included a fireworks display. I’m a sucker for fireworks.
- The brick oven roasted "chicken for two" at the Zuni Café in San Francisco
- A friend's food tour of Paris, which included the best street crêpe, the foie gras at Chez l'Ami Louis, the most amazing beef carpaccio at a restaurant that I WISH I could remember and the softest, most buttery croissants I've ever eaten.

_______

links:
website: egg2cake.com
blog: egg2cake.com/blog
shop
twitter: @egg2cake

Click here for more past editions of Boarding Pass, or check out the names in the right-hand column!

Transparency & Creativity

Altitude Design Summit is happening this week in Salt Lake City. Most of these big blog conferences aren't my style, but this one is right up my alley. It's been fascinating following the coverage on Twitter thanks to the hashtag #altsummit. One of the panels yesterday was on advertising and giveaways and based on tweets there seems to be a split between seeing it as good/bad, or rather how it is used to drive revenue. While none of us are going to say we love advertising on blogs, I realize it's often a necessary evil. What I do mind is when every post seems like a paid advertisement and so over the top it's a turn off (and believe it or not, many bloggers charge companies to do giveaways on their site). This all brings about the issue of transparency in blogging...

When I saw this My Little Paris "street style" video, I like how it feels more like a collaboration than a commercial. Yes, it's promoting a product, but they've found a way to integrate the product into the style of the project/site, and it actually makes sense how it's being used. I also like the video because the project is a call for people to take street style photos (à la Garance Doré and The Sartorialist) with your iPhone. But I think I really like it because I think the girl in the red cape may just be my doppleganger. Watch the video here, it's quite charming. (You can submit pictures via your phone until February 3rd).

Have you seen any other creative marketing these days?

Paris Observed {galette des rois}

My formative years were spent in Kansas City, otherwise known as "Hallmark country" - the headquarters for the mega giant known for their greeting cards. I've always been convinced they've played a large role in the commercialization (for good or bad) of the holidays in the US. This is in part evidenced by the way that holiday good start showing up in stores earlier and earlier each year in a way that sometimes it feels like Christmas is year round.
The whole American phenomenon of sending holiday cards (especially the mass produced holiday letter greeting) is something foreign to the French. When my friend Zoe married a Frenchman in Austin, TX over the holidays last year, all of their French friends were in complete awe of the strings of cards hanging in her parents' home as part of the holiday decorations. Simple holiday cards were something that truly amazed them and was foreign to them.
While "Hallmark holidays" may not exist in France, I've come to the conclusion that their galette des rois, or king's cake is their replacement for the ever present holiday - but just in the form of food. While the almond paste filled cakes (Mmmm!) are to celebrate Epiphany (Jan 6), it is now the third week in January and the galette des rois are still going strong at boulangeries and Monoprixs everywhere. Just like "American" king's cakes (that was another amusing moment when I got to witness Zoe showing two French friends what a Louisana-style kings cake looks like), the galette des rois contains une fève, or prize inside. At Zoe's dinner this year I was lucky enough to get the piece with the fève (a really creepy looking M&M knock off in my case) and have the honor wearing the crown and being king for the rest of the day (which wasn't very long, as most dinners in France end around 11pm!). Yes, it seems like the boulangeries are the ones who run the holidays in France...

If you want to learn more about the galette des rois in France, Clothilde has a great post on the subject.

The Social {Travel} Network

Last week on the Budget Travel blog there was a post about the best social networks for travel. There are countless blogs and sites out there these days, and the number is growing daily. While there are some interesting concepts in their post, I find that a lot of the clout of these social networks is due to the size of the network itself. Quite frankly, for a lot of reasons, these sites are not really my style. For me, I'm just as interested in content (most of the time what is not mainstream) and design (both of the site and graphically). I also admit I'm lucky to have my blog as my own form of social network.

As I'm tying up my thesis on tourism, digital media and Morocco, I find myself hyper-aware of the various kind of communications that exist for the travel industry, and what direction the industry is heading (or rather, the direction I want it to head). Below are a few of my favorite community style sites these days showcasing my style of travel.

1. Hejorama is a travel community with a great sense of design with the motto "travel as you are." Besides their fresh look, fun integration of illustration, interesting content, and strong stance on travel (read their manifesto here), they're also based out of Paris, and offer most content in both French and English. You can find them on Twitter, and they just started a new #mondaymaps hash tag. (My Paris swimming pool piece even got picked up by their weekly Web-O-Rama piece last Friday).
2. Trourist is a sign-in style social network with the tagline "keep traveling real." Their goal is to connect like-minded people to share experiences in order to help you plan your trip and create new experiences. Later this winter I will be participating in their "Each Traveller Has a Story" project, where 3 Moleskine notebooks are traveling around the world to various travel bloggers.
3. The Bold Italic is less of a travel site, and more of a local site that "equips you with unique local intel, backstories and adventures that define San Francisco." This collaborative site goes off the beaten track of SF, with an interesting set of contributors who keep the content fresh, engaging and unexpected. On top of it, each "backstory" is accompanied by is accompanied by an eye-catching graphic that screams good design.
4. This past week I learned about a new project called Baltimore: Open City where students of the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS) exploring urban planning, development and renewal in the city. While this isn't necessarily a "travel site" I appreciate the sense of digging deeper into the local, which benefits both residents and visitors. I love the idea of getting students involved, especially with design, in order to help create platforms for discussion and social change. There is also an accompanying public lecture series for the project, and soon there will be a call for entries for local artists, which will culminate with an exhibition. Currently the site is being used to generate ideas. Read more about the project in the Baltimore City Paper. Create Baltimore is another site to keep an eye on for creative projects happening in the city.
5. Grantourismo!, my final pick is less of a collaborative project, but shows how a community can be formed around a travel blog. Lara Dunston and Terence Carter exhaust me regularly thinking about their non-stop lifestyle as travel writers. What I love most about their blog as that while their posts are place specific (they're almost complete with their 12 month around the world adventure), their ideas of travel and how to experience a place like a local are themes that are meant to be carried with you anywhere you go.
Note: I've already posted about them, but I also think Iceland and Norway are doing cool things for travel, tourism and online media.

{my Paris photo above translates to "the direction of travel"}