Have you had a chance to read the great articles that won the Solas Best Travel Article Contest and the Intrepid Travel Writing Contest?

If not, I’d recommend you take some time and check them out. But be prepared, they will all just add to that constant urge to travel that you are already feeling.

And for those who are looking for even more great travel reads, check out the latest edition of the Perceptive Travel magazine. As always, editor Tim Leffel has done a great job rounding up three new articles for our reading pleasure. 

Darrin DuFord goes varmint hunting in New Orleans in  Showdown at the West Esplanade Canal .

Luke Armstrong takes to the bike and finds out that strong rum and stronger patience can eventually work out most problems in Cuba’s Port of Hope, on Hopeless Machinery .

Chris Epting goes in search of some of the lesser known places in the United States where important things  first came into being in  Born in the USA: an Apple, a Taco, and a Doctor’s Soda Syrup.

Tim Leffel gives his take on some new travel books  ( Quest For the Kasbah and Drink, Play,F@#k: One Man’s Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand). Plus Laurence Mitchell gives his take on the newest World Music albums. 

That’s a whole lot of great weekend reading for you to relax with.

But wait, there’s more. 

Want to find out more about one of your favorite Perceptive Travel bloggers? 

Then check out this great interview with our Sheila over at Austin Woman magazine.

And if you’re going to be in Austin, Texas this coming week, why not head on over to the travel blogging  seminar called Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer that Sheila (along with Pam Mandel from Nerd’s Eye View) will be holding at the SXSW ’09 on March 14th between 3.30- 4.30pm.

Would love to see you there but unfortunately, it’s a little to far away from New Zealand for me . Maybe next year…

Liz’s post about a Wild Food Festival in New Zealand made me hungry for something outside of the local fare here in upstate New York. I’m certainly not drooling to try a bit of worm sushi and grasshoppers, but I’ve been a little homesick for Russia recently, and realized part of what I’m missing is indeed that country’s wild food.

To be specific, pickled things and mushrooms. Any good traveler knows that some of your best cultural experiences are found in local markets — food markets for the locals, not knickknack markets for tourists. Russia’s no exception. St. Petersburg and Moscow are both dotted, on un-touristy side-streets, with massive open-air food halls. The picture above shows a stand of various pickles, an array tucked in a warehouse-sized building thronged with fresh produce from Azerbaijan, boar heads hanging above piles of meat waiting to be butchered, and carp gasping rather heart-rendingly on their piles of ice. Mostly I’m anxious for some of those pickles, with the cucumbers ranging from very salty to very sour, and the pickled wild garlic hard to find even in Russia.

And I’d bring sacks of that stuff — pickles, tomatoes, even a carp if I could bring myself to buy it — back home to eat with a selection of fresh and preserved mushrooms gathered by my family every summer in the far north of Russia. Russians, like hobbits, are mushroom addicts, but the funghi fall in the category of ‘wild food,’ which you have to find and gather for yourself.

As the world becomes homogenized, food like that is one of the last, and best, indicators or culture and tradition.

I do like to find inexpensive travel souvenirs when I’m roaming the world, but work demands and the economy have put a pretty good crimp in my wanderings lately.

This does not mean that I can’t still find wonderful items from across the globe (and I don’t even have to schlep them onto the plane/into the car.)

Here are three online sites that focus on handmade or unique items from many different countries – it’s a digital whiff of the souk!

• Novica.com – In association with National Geographic, Novica has tons of home decor, jewelry, crafts and original art. You can explore their products by region or use their gift finder. They even have fair trade corporate gifts for those suited types who may not want, er, some patchouli candle thingy.
• Ten Thousand Villages – This company supports fair trade and worldwide craftspeople – it’s a nonprofit program of the Mennonites. There are brick-and-mortar stores (I stopped by the one in Austin, Texas yesterday) in addition to online offerings. They do festival sales which often incorporate local speakers and musicians/performers relating to the products on sale.
• Etsy – This site is huge amongst craft enthusiasts and style watchers like Heather Armstrong, and no wonder; it is an amazon.com-worthy selection of sellers from around the world and has drooly photos of their compelling items.  As discussed in Fast Company and Wired, the company is a fascinating combination of high-tech, Web 2.0 community focus and support for old-school  handmade delights.   One section of the site combines discussions of crafts and community activism – called craftivism, of course.

It’s not the same as picking up fun doo-dads in a Paris flea market or strolling the aisle of a Thai drugstore to find Prickly Heat Powder, but I’ll take it.

Do any of you have favorite sources for world crafts and gifts? Please tell us in the comments below.

With the US’s economy firmly in the tank and everyone keeping fingers furled tightly over hard-won income, Perceptive Travel editor Tim Leffel’s book The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune couldn’t have popped out a 3rd edition at a better time.

It’s not just that Tim swings right into the heart of what travelers all over are facing now — lack of ready cash — it’s that he gives a little heart back to all of us. Optimism, a sense of possibility, qualities the entire world is in dire need of this year. And best of all, a sense of excitement about traveling again.

Tim Leffel also has a talent for getting straight to the point (unlike those less accessible writers who meander and wander in their words, and insert lots of parenthetical statements, ahem). From Argentina to Romania, with stops in Jordan and Vietnam and 17 other mouth-watering destinations, Tim sums up the attractions, the beauties, and what you can expect to spend if you go to, say, Bucharest rather than the Prague.

“The criteria” for choosing countries for this book, as, are for the last two editions, “simple. It had to be cheap, there had to be at least some semblance of a tourist infrastructure, and it had to be a place that attracted more than a handful of travelers — or had the potential to very soon.” So Turkey yes, anywhere in a war zone not so much (“tourist infrastructure” doesn’t include a bombed-out bunker). This is a practical guide, for those who love to travel but think their buying power right now is too pinched to go anywhere.

Most of all, The World’s Cheapest Destinations is a bit like the spring thaw that is moving over my snowbound home next week: it’s an uplift, a bit of sunshine and promise and practical solutions in an economic reality that seems pretty bleak. Just think, Tim points out, “many of the world’s most awe-inspiring sights are located in the world’s cheapest countries.” You might not be able to afford Paris or Patagonia right now, but wouldn’t you rather see The Taj Mahal or the Great Pyramids anyway?

You can find more information about traveling on the cheap by visiting Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations travel blog.

Time for some self back-patting. Three stories from the Perceptive Travel webzine just won prizes in the Solas best travel writing contest sponsored by Travelers’ Tales publishing. Here are the champs, announced over the weekend:

Chris Epting scored a gold for Let’s Spend the Night Together.

Marie Javins won a silver for her Antarctica story Bragging Rights.

Darrin DuFord also got a silver for his Nicaragua piece Subdued by Street Vendors.

Plus Camille Cusumano got an honorable mention for Missing in Patagonia.

Congrats folks!