Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Travel blogger line?

I have a question for any travel bloggers that may have randomly stumbled upon my (very) little read travel blog: To what extent is it acceptable to "borrow" ideas you find on other sources and make them your own? And, if you borrow an idea, should you always link to the original source(s)?

I recently stumbled upon an article called "8 Quirky Towns and Villages Worth A Visit" on the website All Women Stalk. (I absolutely LOVE that website, by the way!) I thought the article was really cool - little towns all over the world that were fun and different - and started researching the towns listed in the article. 

When I got to VlkolĂ­nec, Ruzomberok (in Slovakia), I stumbled upon another, very similar article as the one that had gotten me started: Frommer's "10 Towns that Do Things Their Own Way." 

And I realized the AWS article is comprised of 8 of the 10 small, quaint towns listed in the Frommer's article. 

It made me think, and wonder. Seriously, though. Is this a common practice? Is it appropriate? I really don't know what the boundaries for travel blogging are!

I guess if it had been me, I would have tried to gain inspiration from the Frommer's article, and then create something of my own. Or, I'd have gathered a few articles on unique places to visit, and then done my own research on the ones that jumped out. 

Maybe it just bothers me because they're the exact towns, in nearly the exact same order. Or because I commented on the AWS linking to the Frommer's article, and the comment was deleted. 

But if any other travel bloggers out there read this - please tell me what you think! Is this crossing some travel blogging line? Or am I just a product of my high school English teachers pounding the "reference your sources" line into us?

Friday, May 4, 2012

New York: Dylan's Candy Bar


Where do I start? 

This place is quite possibly the best candy store I've been to in my life! Three floors of deliciousness, and so much variety you barely know where to start! By the bulk, by the bar, by the chunk, it was a wonderland of childhood dreams. 

Let's go by floor, shall we? 

The entry level floor was like a Sweet Factory on crack. Cases and cases of candy - sour candy, chocolate candy, chewy candy. The best part? You could buy gummy bears BY. THE. FLAVOR. Yep, that's correct. I got an entire bag of pineapple gummy bears, and enjoyed every single one of them.

Color wheel of chocolate - each color was a different flavor! I ended up grabbing a pack of bars to bring back as souvenirs! 

Thursday, May 3, 2012

New York: By Night!

Since M spent a good portion of the trip working, we did a lot of our wandering and sightseeing at night. Which actually worked out really well for us, because New York by night is really awesome. For some reason, most nights we ended up eating dinner on the Upper East side, so we walked back down to Chelsea to our hotel more than once, and got lots of chances to check out the sights by night!

FAO Schwarz!  Kind of bummed we were never there when it was open to check out all the toys!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

New York: Central Park

I knew from the moment I booked my trip that I would be spending an extensive amount of time in Central Park. I had a huge list of things I wanted to see there, and actually made it to most of them! 

I made two rounds around Central Park on my trip - one with X after a Sunday brunch, and one with M when she was finally off work on Monday... and both trips were awesome and different. 

Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon Imagine mosaic - it was ridiculously crowded and took me a good 5 minutes to get a shot of just the mosaic without any weirdo tourists sitting on it. Why do you need a photo WITH the mosaic??