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Tags: Venice Travel / Green Travel / italy Travel / Souvenirs / → All Tags

When In Venice, Don't Forget To Drink The Water

Nowhere is the saying "In Vino Veritas"—or "there is truth in wine"—more fitting than in Venice. If you aren't sweating buckets while lugging a giant camera around the dank city in the summer heat, then you're left to pondering the murky canals and their plague-ridden history. Best to order wine at dinner then, right?

Wrong. If there's one thing Italians love just as much as wine, it's their Acqua Minerale and Naturale, and since they are one of the top consumers of water in the world (at 40 gallons per person annually), it makes sense to give their own tap a hearty rebranding.

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Tags: Passports / Travel News / Souvenirs / Soviet Travel / Liechtenstein / San Marino / Berlin / → All Tags

Would You Pay For Your Passport Stamps?

Is it illegal or is it good, clean fun? The stamping of passports for souvenir value seems as old a tradition as buying those horrific gift spoons, and this rampant passport defamation continues today, except now they're charging for it.

In our travels, we've run across the three biggest profiters from this racket: Liechtenstein, San Marino, and Berlin, although the latter is by far the worst of them.

In the picture above, the passport pages bear four fake stamps from the old Allied and Soviet sides of Berlin, stamps which could possibly invalidate the passport. There's even a discussion thread over at Lonely Planet regarding the legality of this tourist stamping, with particular attention to the prevalance of it around Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie. For 2€ each, you have your pick of the stamps, ranging from 4 different US sector versions to 2 Soviet designs, and even a few French thrown in for good measure.

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Tags: Souvenirs / Architecture Travel / Frank Lloyd Wright / → All Tags

Legos Are Back, And They Are Cloning Tourist Attractions

Move over postcards and sno globes; souvenir shops of some specific major landmarks will soon be getting welcome new additions to their stock. LEGO has just announced a very neat partnership wtih an architect, whereby some famous buildings are being turned into building block sets, a la Puzz-3D. We think this is just another excuse for staycatiioners, but anything that allows us to sit the Sears Tower on our desk is good by us.

In the "Lego Architecture" line, people will be able to buy sets for building Empire State Building, Chicago's John Hancock Building and Sears Tower, and the Seattle Space Needle. Perhaps the most exciting release are the two Frank Lloyd buildings, Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum.

To further crank up your wanderlust once you've completed the structure, each box contains a book of facts, notes on its architectural significance, and points of interest in the city. Although they aren't quite yet for sale behind the glass of your local gift shop, they can be pre-ordered in sets here. Do we sense a perfect Father's Day gift from this?

Related Stories:
· New LEGO Architecture Series by Adam Reed Tucker [If It's Hip, It's Here]
· Architecture Travel Coverage [Jaunted]

[Images: If It's Hip, It's Here]

Tags: Travel Snapshot / Tourist Traps / Tourist Swag / Souvenirs / Animals / → All Tags

Dogs Make Great Souvenir T-Shirt Salesmen

Dear owners of souvenir gift shops across the world,

Are you having trouble moving inventory of pink babydoll t-shirts with your city's name written across the front? Are sales for ballcaps, sweatshirts, bumper stickers, pens, pencils, snowglobes, souvenir shot glasses and the like slowing down? Here's a Jaunted approved suggestion: hire a cute pug to sit behind the cash register and watch your sales instantly skyrocket!*

We found this doggie perched on a shelf at a gift shop in Carmel, California, one of the most dog-friendly cities in the world. We stumbled into this store out of boredom but the pug convinced us to buy two shirts that were on sale for $5 a piece. Hopefully, he got a cut of that sale in Milkbones.

Have your own travel snapshots to share? Drop them in the Jaunted Flickr Pool.

*This statement has not been approved by anyone, anywhere. But you know, you could always give it a try.

Tags: Hong Kong Field Trip / Shopping / Malls / Asia Travel / Souvenirs / → All Tags

Hong Kong, Pearl of the Orient and...Mall Rat Paradise?

Culture shock has never been a problem for us; we're cool with whatever is the norm in a new destination and most of the time join in with gusto. But this week in Hong Kong, we've faced a huge challenge in embracing something so dear to the locals: the ubiquity of shopping malls.

In the main districts, you have something like a 95% chance of having to at least stroll through a mall to get where you are going. If you aren't inside of a mall, then you are on top of one, next to one, underneath one, or even using one as a landmark for orienting yourself in the city.

We've unwittingly hit a higher number of malls than days we've been in Hong Kong, and it doesn't look like the barrage of consumerism will be letting up soon. Since we hail from a Midwestern city that of course loves their Auntie Anne's pretzels and Abercrombie, we were at first unfazed by the shopping glut in HK.

After our fifth megaplex in two days, however, our patience with escalators and perfume counters began to wear thin and we stepped back to observe the scene.

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Tags: Souvenirs / → All Tags

Favorite Souvenirs: Pereja Turkish Lemon Cologne

On a long bus ride from Istanbul to Damascus about 15 years ago I encountered a very pleasant ritual. Whenever the bus was about to depart from a station or rest area, the driver would walk up and down the aisle offering spritzes of lemon cologne from a tall glass bottle. You'd put out both your hands and he would give the bottle a couple of shakes and you'd wipe the cologne on your face and neck. The whiff and tingle of the astringent alcohol concoction was always an eye-opener, and the pleasant lemon flower scent lingered just long enough for you to forget about the cloud of cigarette smoke enveloping everybody. Purchasing a bottle of Pereja Lemon Cologne as a souvenir, I soon discovered that splashing it on your face after shaving can result in a near-religious experience. Don't leave Turkey without buying a bottle or two. Alternately, you can order it online.

[Photo: Victor Ozols]

Related Stories:
· Pereja Lemon Cologne [akmarket.com]
· Souvenir Coverage [Jaunted]