Jaunted

Live Earth

Live Earth Post-Mortem: Who Performed Where

July 9, 2007 at 9:01 AM | 0 Comments

Live Earth coverage dominated the airwaves on 7/7/07 (Saturday). Keeping with the date's theme, 24-hour concerts took place in seven cities -- New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Hamburg.

Star spectacle and earth loving abounded. While Kanye West joined Sting and the Police at the show at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., it was the concert in Rio that drew the most attendees -- an estimated 400,000. Lenny Kravitz, along with a host of Latin American pop stars performed. At the same time in London, Madonna sang (we use that word loosely) to a crowd of 70,000.

Cold weather and general apathy toward the environment caused a disappointing turnout in Johannesburg. Planners anticipated 10,000 people, and 6,000 showed up. To their credit, UB40 headlined the show. We thought they were playing casinos in Iowa, not Live Earth. From the Police and Madonna to UB40? Red Red Wine was catchy in '94, but come on. South Africa got the shaft on this one.

Related Stories:
· Where to Stay in London [HotelChatter]
· Disappointing Attendance in Johannesburg [News24]

[Photo: Jason Rosenberg]

Movie Set Travel

Movie Set Travel: Turistas

November 10, 2006 at 9:23 AM | 0 Comments

Opening December 1st is the horror movie, Turistas, starring Josh Duhamel and Melissa George.

At first glance, this movie looks like Hostel, Part II but instead of tourists being tortured in the basement of a hostel, this group of backpackers/surfers get lost in a Brazilian jungle near Rio de Janeiro, which just happens to be holding an ominous secret like an organ thieving blackmarket or something.

Instead of focusing on the gnarly parts of the movie like someone waking up in a tub of ice with suspicious scars around their kidneys, we'll tell you where to go in Rio and stay alive.

Where to Stay:
Seeing as this movie may turn you off about backpacking, why not check out the Rio Internacional Hotel which is ranked #1 on TripAdvisor. The place has great service, an English-speaking staff and supreme views of the beach. But it is a costly trip at around $250 a night.

Where to Surf:
There are a bunch of good places to surf in Rio. Who knew the place was akin to California and Hawaii when it comes to hanging ten. Sidestep has the list of beaches worth checking out. May we suggest surfing at Arpoador Beach in Ipanema which is closest to the main part of Rio?

Where to Avoid:
According to Fodor's Travel Wire, they particularly recommend  avoiding the downtown area, especially Saara, after dark because it's deserted.

Walking on the beach at night is probably not a good idea, and although many tourists like to wander off the beaten path when they're traveling this isn't always a good idea in Rio---stick to the well-populated areas.

If you can't get enough, then visit the Turistas MySpace page where you can look at pictures of a shirtless Josh, read his character Alex's lame-o blog and predict which backpackers will die first.

Related Stories:
· Rio Internacional reviews [TripAdvisor]