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"Polarsteps is a popular travel planning, tracking, and sharing app that automatically plots your route on an interactive world map using your phone's GPS. It f
by Markoff 2mo ago
"Polarsteps is a popular travel planning, tracking, and sharing app that automatically plots your route on an interactive world map using your phone's GPS. It functions as a digital travel diary where you can add photos, videos, and stories, letting family and friends follow your journeys in real time."
for people like me who dunno about this secret, seems basically like Travelblog.org with few extra features
> article about how traveling nowadays needs to be documented and is about experience as much as your feeds... I... felt old.
this has nothing to do with nowadays really, people were documenting their travelling and sharing it with family/friends since invention of camera, personally I take photos to serve as my memory, not really to share them, I may share them through whatsapp private chats with my parents and maybe 1-2 friends who could find them interesting, in past I've had travel blog/diary as well, but certainly didn't visit any place or take any photo for my readers
> I often saw hordes of Chinese tourists (but there are of course simply a lot of Chinese people) take turns in front of a waterfall (on flip flop or even heels), have some pics taken and go back to the bus.
Japanese were doing this decades ago before Chinese, it's just that Chinese now have money (unlike Japanese who can less and less aford to travel abroad) and there is lot of them, so they just replaced Japanese doing this superfast photo tours (at least in Europe)
> I also visited food-markets and saw food stalls with large lines of people, where as some had hardly any people waiting, I ask: Why this stall? "It's popular on Chinese social media"... One by one they snapped a pic as the cook made their meal, and waited for >30 mins to do so.
again, nothing new, Lonely Planet guidebooks had same effect in past and for me they were pretty good list of places to avoid for accommodation/food
> Wow 5 weeks in Malaysia, you could have done Thailand, Vietnam, etc, etc as well!" Well yeah but I like to take some days to explore and not rush and get to know a nice restaurant and eat there again and rent a scooter or bike and drive around a bit.
5 weeks for mainland Malaysia is really a bit much, KL needs few days to city sightseeing and enjoy food, cameron highlands few days to do hiking, penang again few days to enjoy food, history and hiking, perhentian islands few days to snorkell and enjoy beach and you cover pretty much everything without repeating same stuff, <2 weeks in very very laidback pace for these 4 locations considering Malaysia is compact and there are cheap/fast air tickets/buses, I also don't like to rush, but not everyone has months long vacation or gap year to travel so people wanna see as many places as possible, so I can understand them, I spent travelling around SEA around year, but still can't imagine spending 5 weeks in row in Malaysia or basically any other country besides China (not in SEA, but neighbor), I would get bored
- teekert 2mo agoWe visited Borneo (10 days) as well. But still we didn't even do mainland east coast yet, nor south islands, so getting bored while hopping around a country for 5 weeks makes me question what you do when you're not traveling... (Btw, the trip was: KL -> Kuala Kubu Bahru -> Taman Negara -> Cameron Highlands -> Penang (GeorgeTown and then the west of the island) -> south Borneo - Kuching (stayed at 2 national parks, Permai and Bako) -> North Borneo - near Sandakan (see Uran Utangs/Sunbears) -> Kinibatagan River -> Jungle near Seremban -> via KL to Pankhor island -> back to KL. For some parts we rented a car and had many nice experiences along the road. Bored? Not so much. I want to go back for the things we skipped and other travelers were enthusiastic about.)
- Markoff 2mo agoseem you missed my point: "and you cover pretty much everything without repeating same stuff" you can see only so many "different" (as they say in TH SSBD) temples/mosques, beaches, jungles within same country especially if you are on tight time schedule, that's why I understand someone picking one beach destination, one food destination, one historical destination, one hiking/jungle destination and rather try each of these in two different countries rather than trying 3 of each within same country, if someone has limited time btw. if by Pankhor you mean Pangkor island it's pretty bad quality by Malayisan standards (been there to my disapointment while having too much time and visiting less touristy places in MY), east coast has far superior quality, there is reason why people never heard about Pangkor rather than Perhentian islands or Langkawi or Tioman and I forgot in my main MY destinations Melaka, I've been obviously to more (forgetable) Malaysian places which is why I understand why someone choose only few, same as I've been to some islands most of the people visiting Thailand never heard of (e.g. Ko Jum, Ko Chang (west coast)), but there is usually good reason why people never heard of them
- teekert 2mo agoIf by Pankgor you mean Pangkor ;) then we only picked it because it was a drive away from KL. Indeed we got the impression that east coast + perhentian islands were something we missed. Ah well there are constraints in every journey, and you learn while traveling (another argument for going longer, or coming back ;)). Overall Thailand is still my fav (with pearls like Koh Samet and Koh Phi Phi, we also had a wonderful time in Khoa Sok national park. But back then we skipped the entire north, and still felt like 1 month was too little), Vietnam had filthy beaches and generally a less good vibe, but we skipped the north there as well, that was probably a mistake. But I loved the food and people of Malaysia, most relaxed trip so far, just the kindest of people everywhere.