Have you ever been on a photowalk?

I first heard someone talking about one during a tech conference …. a bunch of photography enthusiasts who were also conference attendees went out exploring as a group for an hour or two, usually in the morning or evening for best light.

The walk was at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, so the eye candy was all around.

In Los Angeles, the tourism office knows how important visuals are to the LA visitor experience, and their Los Angeles Photo of the Day blog is hugely popular. They also periodically host photowalks with local photographers.

One event used the standard hop-on, hop-off LA tourist bus tour – a great way to visit a lot of iconic, interesting places in a short period of time.

Enjoy the video below (direct link on YouTube) and see if your own local tourism office would like to host a photowalk.

They’ll probably want participants to sign over rights to the photos taken – so they can use them in marketing your town – but if you’re OK with that, it should be a fun experience.

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This Texas town has a serious sense of humor.

The URL MargaritasForChristmas.com goes to the holiday video below, plus a list of happenings around the ATX (as we call it) during December.

Singer/songwriter Shelley King‘s “Christmas in Austin” song plus many others are on a holiday benefit album for HAAM (Health Alliance for Austin Musicians) – one more reason why Austin rocks.

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Sometimes it’s hard to peer through the “vlog” (volcano fog) and the eye becomes numb after seeing miles of the same endless black lava, but there is still something strikingly beautiful about walking across some of the newest earth on Earth in Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawai’i.

I was going to post about 23 seconds of video that demonstrates the weird sound you hear when walking across a lava field;  the crackling, crunchy sound of cinder-like hardened magma blobs that were born miles below your feet.  There were a couple of photos that had to get thrown in there, though, and a bit of music seemed appropriate, but the video below is still only about a minute.

It’s otherworldly, this new world being created as we watch it….but never remove any of the lava rocks, or goddess of fire Madame Pele will be very angry….

Direct link to the lava video on YouTube.

(Disclosure: I was on the Big Island courtesy of a Hawai’i Tourism Authority press trip. The guide they provided our group was Warren Costa of Native Guide Hawai’i – he was a treasure trove of history and stories.)

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Held this year at Vancouver’s  stylish waterfront Convention Center, the annual two day TBEX Travel Bloggers Conference provided travel bloggers from around the world the chance to gather, to discuss, to network, and learn ways to expand as travel bloggers and writers.

There were plenty of workshops and panels to choose from, led by various well known travel bloggers, travel writers, and travel industry folks who happily share their expertise on everything from non-narrative and narrative travel writing to the realities of making money from blogging.

And as you can imagine, there was a lot of talking going on.

Everyone, it seems, had a story to tell.

Travel bloggers, after all,  are an enthusiastic and passionate lot when it comes to travel, blogging, and social networking.

But they are also a generous group interested in giving back to the world which they love to travel around.

Which is why, a few years ago, the Passports with Purpose initiative was set up by four Seattle based travel bloggers.

At the fun, cupcake filled  pre-TBEX meetup hosted by three of the four PwP founders, a small gathering learned exactly what we, as a travel blogging community, have managed to create, and to be encouraged to participate in the next PwP fundraiser that will be held towards the end of the year.

As a pre-TBEX event, the Passports with Purpose presentation was only seen by a few dozen bloggers.

Maybe next year, when TBEX heads to Keystone, Colorado, the Passports with Purpose team will be given time on stage to reach the larger audience.

(Disclaimer: The video was shot by the writer, using a hand held Flip Video camera)

Have you ever wondered how big the individual blades are on those giant white wind turbines that are spinning around the world from mountains to plains to Dutch dikes on the North Sea?

While visiting the American Wind Power windmill museum in Lubbock, Texas, I saw one laid out on the ground and marveled at its size. My business partner Becky McCray was with me, and she suggested that I walk down the length of it with my video camera to give a visual feeling to the dimensions.

You know, the old writer’s advice – show, don’t tell.

So, I did.

It takes me 90 seconds to show you how long that blade is (complete with blowing West Texas wind for sound effects.)

Here’s the direct link to the video on YouTube if you can’t see the box below.

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