Lonely Planet Blue List

Lonely Planet had this competition where readers submitted their "Blue-Lists"...and what's a blue list? Well, basically it's a list (duh) of things, travel related, that...heck, just read for yourself.

So, I created this list and worked on it for a few days, fine tuning it, deleting sentences, changing the order, you know, the usual stuff, and finally got ready to submit it. I was excited.
So, I go to the blue-list page and see that the "competition is over" which wasn't that big a deal, but I did want to be included in the "competition".
Ok, broken-hearted, I proceeded to enter my list into their form, following directions closely and I kept getting kicked out of the system.
"Too many characters" said the template. So I looked around and checked a lot of other lists and realized that my list was actually (and literally) shorter than some others, so I was quite perplexed. I re-started my computer, changed browsers from Safari to Firefox and nothing worked. I even sent an email to Lonely Planet, but nothing has worked so far.
So, for your reading pleasure, I humbly submit my blue list here:


Not Your Standard Vacation Photos
(or “what did we see on the way to the Louvre?”)

1) Food
“What did we have at that little café in the alley? Oh, yeah, that onion soup…wasn’t it great? Let me see that picture…Wow, Remember those tablecloths! I started making stupid jokes about the pattern and the waiter thought we were laughing at him. I had totally forgotten about that!”
I’ve been taking pictures of the meals, restaurants (inside and out) and menus for our last 3 major trips. The photos of the food bring back the smells, sights, tastes and feelings of the whole dining experience…good and bad.


2) Hotel
Sure, many of them are generic, have views of the pool or a parking lot, feature no lobby and rooms with so little character that you could be in Topeka or Cape Town, but…you spend as much time in your room as you do seeing the sights.
So open those curtains and take a picture of the mini-mall across the street or the Eiffel Tower off in the distance. Pictures of the room itself also help bring back many memories. (Remember that ugly carpet?)

3) Locals
Your vacation experiences are the results of many people going about their daily lives, so take a picture of them and add it to your memories.
The lady at the chocolate shop in Paris? Here’s a picture.
The couple in Singapore that sold us the silk? Here they are.
Our tour guide for the ruins at Monte Alban? Here he is.
Remember the guy and girl who drove us to Stonehenge? Here we are with them.
Here’s a group of schoolchildren on a field trip. They were all so polite!

4) Animals/Pets
I’m talking about the old man walking his dog (if he says ok), the ducks in the pond, the pigeons at the park, the cats pretty much everywhere, and the sheep grazing in the grass. These are the pictures you’ll take on the way to the Louvre, or as you walk through Hyde Park on your way to see Kensington Palace.
(or Avebury, as in the case of the sheep)

5) Quiet streets
Go off of the beaten path and find where the locals live and shop.
Take a picture of the streets just off Chinatown, where the shops end and it’s just small houses, apartments and no tourists. Take shots of the “Marina-Style” houses with the big bay windows, or the dirt road just off the Zocalo, in Oaxaca, where all the homes have rebar sticking out, just in case they decide to add to the house.


We all take pictures of the big things, the stuff that we like to stand in front of and say “I was here” but it’s the smaller things, the things I’ve pointed out above, that can turn your destination from a collection of tourists sights, into a living, breathing place.