Bonita at Base Camp: Trekking Up Everest

Submitted By: Jude Limburn Turner

In April 2010, every commuter in London knew the face of Bonita Norris after she made the papers by becoming the youngest woman to summit Mount Manaslu. Later that month, with her sights on the British Everest youth record, she began a series of training climbs from Everest Base Camp. Trekking progressively higher up the world's highest mountain, Bonita dreamt of trekking her way into the history books.
Mount Everest (8,848 m) played host to two record-breaking summit attempts in the first climbing season of 2010. There was thirteen-year-old Jordan Romero, accompanied by his family, and Bonita Norris from Berkshire, Great Britain. Both brought a buzz with them to Everest Base Camp, because they were each among the youngest climbers ever to attempt the summit.
Young Mountaineers
Although Jordan and Bonita were both in the running to break an Everest youth record, the mountaineering pedigree of the two young Everest trekkers at Base Camp couldn't be more different. Despite his tender age, Jordan is the more experienced, having climbed major peaks since the age of nine, and having already climbed the highest mountain in five of the world's seven continents as part of the Seven Summits challenge. In contrast, at 23, Bonita was described by the papers as ‘a novice’. She was aiming to be the youngest Briton to summit Everest, but has only been climbing since 2008. She woke up one morning determined to climb Everest and break records, and was true to her word.
After declaring her mountaineering intentions, Bonita soon began preparing herself for her visit to Everest Base Camp, trekking in Snowdon in wintery conditions, learning to climb with ropes and tackling progressively more challenging mountains. This education culminated in an attempt on Mount Manaslu (8,163m) in Nepal, a formidable 'eight-thousander' that has claimed the lives of a number of adventurers since it was first assessed as 'climbable' in the 1950s. In 1974, Manaslu was the setting for the first all-female climbing expedition to conquer an 8,000 metre peak. Now, Bonita has left her own mark on Manaslu, becoming the youngest woman to climb the world's eighth-highest mountain.
Plotting Her Progress
During her preparations for Everest, Bonita recorded her experiences in her blog, where she describes her training, the mountains she has seen, and her efforts to raise sponsorship for her summit bid. She writes about the training climbs she does with her team as they approach her ultimate destination, and the acclimatisation exercises they do along the course of the Everest base camp trekking route, which runs from Lukla airport to the foot of the Khumbu glacier.
When the team got to Everest after two weeks in Nepal, they settled in for the training climbs ahead. Finding a weather window, and conditioning for a summit bid is a gradual process. With each climb up Mount Everest, they carried equipment up to the higher camps to use later on.
From Camp 2, Bonita used a satellite phone to relay messages for her blog, before returning to the safety of Everest Base Camp – trekking back down to "where the air is thick", as she called it.
Not According to Plan
Bonita was fortunate to have an Everest veteran, Kenton Cool, on her Everest trekking team, but things did not go exactly to plan. With the training runs, they discovered that one of Bonita's co-climbers, David, was unable to sleep sufficiently at altitude. Without being able to rest-up at the higher camps on Everest, exhaustion was inevitable. As a result, he had to “hang up his climbing boots”, and Bonita accompanied him as he departed Everest Base Camp, trekking back down to Gorak Shep where Bonita updated her blog.
A complication like David's is just one of a number of elements against you when you're going for a summit bid of Everest. If she reaches the summit in April or May 2010, Bonita Norris will replace Victoria James (who was 25) as the youngest British woman to climb Mount Everest.

Published At: Isnare.com

Florida Tourist Attractions: Northwest Florida Gems You Must See

Submitted By: Greg Schnoor

Santa Rosa County in Florida provides some of the most breathtaking getaway and adventures spots, plus fun activities for visitors of all ages. Here is just a sampling of the Florida tourist attractions in this county that you must add to your trip:
1. Navarre Beach
One of Florida’s treasured barrier islands, Navarre Beach is located on Santa Rosa Island and has pristine beaches that are ranked among the top beaches in the country every year. Visitors often compare crossing Navarre Bridge to transcending paradise.
This Florida tourist attraction is surrounded by super clear emerald waters and the beaches feature clean, powdery white sand that squeak under your tours. The Gulf Islands National Seashore between Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach is an eight-mile stretch of undeveloped shoreline and a magnet for nature lovers.
Navarre Beach offers visitors endless activities to choose from, including beach volleyball, tennis and biking. Water activities include the usual favorites such as surfing, boarding, wakeboarding, jet skiing, sailing, SCUBA diving and snorkeling. Also, the warm Gulf waters are a haven for a wide variety of fish, making the area one of the best for fishing.
2. Blackwater River State Forest
One of the largest forests in the state, this idyllic Florida tourist attraction is named for the Blackwater River, which begins in Alabama and flows through the forest into Blackwater Bay located near Milton in Santa Rosa County.
The forest is a favorite for eco lovers who marvel at the river’s shifting sand bottom streams — among the few you will find in the country. The forest is also host to a longleaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem, which, when combine with the Conecuh National Forest in the north and Eglin Air Force Base in the south, make up the largest adjoining ecological community of this type in the world.
Visitors can camp in the forest, go horseback riding, canoe or kayak along the river, and take in the hundreds of different plant and animal species.
3. Golfing
Santa Rosa County’s golf courses are bona fide Florida tourist attractions and favorites with the pros. They’ll soon become your favorites too. Lush, emerald-colored greens overlook mesmerizing blue bays and lakes and provide year-round golf for players at all skill levels.
You can choose from over seven courses conveniently located within the area. Hidden Creek Golf Club in Navarre is an 18-hole championship golf club and has been rated “the finest golf facility in Northwest Florida” and given 4½ stars by Golf Digest.
Tanglewood Golf and Country Club in Milton is an 18-hole regulation length public golf course with picturesque fairways and water features. They’ve teamed up with Stonebrook Golf Club in nearby Pace to provide great golfing at affordable prices.
Tiger Point Golf Club in Gulf Breeze offers golfers one of the most scenic layouts with amazing waterfront views and soaring southern pines. It boasts a recently redesigned Scottish-style East Course, and was voted best course overall in 2007 by the Pensacola News Journal for their “Best of the Bay” awards.
4. Shopping
No vacation is complete without indulging in a shopping spree or two. Navarre, Gulf Breeze, and Historic Milton in Santa Rosa County, as well as the surrounding area, is home to some of the most versatile shopping you’ll find anywhere. They’re sure to have something to please any visitor.
Craft and antique hunters won’t be disappointed with the selection available in the area, either. Find the perfect item for your home or souvenirs in any of the many antique and arts and crafts shops in Gulf Breeze, Pace, Milton or Navarre. For a one-stop antique hunt, Annais Antique Mall in Gulf Breeze is a 12,000 square foot area with over 88 antique dealers and is open seven days a week.
A major attraction is Cordova Mall in nearby Pensacola. It is the largest and most upscale shopping mall in the area. It features more than 125 specialty stores with every brand name you can think of. Shopaholics are sure to find favorite department and brand name stores, as well as enticing specialty stores.

Published At: Isnare.com

How to Make Money on Ebay While You Travel

Submitted By: John Beede & Tyson Hale

Have you ever thought about making a steady online income... while traveling? eBay provides a fantastic platform for doing this and it's not very difficult or time consuming. You can travel overseas for a LONG time by holding just a few online auctions per week if you set things up properly.
Most people dismiss eBay as a viable travel business because they think you've got to have a physical inventory present... and while traveling, that would clearly be limited by the size of your luggage.
There's good news and more good news. The first piece of good news is that you definitely DON'T need to have a physical item or inventory to sell. You can easily sell a digitally delivered product or inexpensively hire a fulfillment house to ship your stuff for you. Here's the 'more' good news: because most people dismiss eBay for making a travel income the market is left wide open for this type of marketing!
The other big reason entrepreneurs dismiss eBay is because they think it's for selling old junk lying around the house. They take a 'garage sale' mentality about eBay (sell your extra stuff lying around the house). This is great for some people, but wrong for business!
So, Here is your basic model for traveling and making money with online auctions:
1) Find a product to sell. This is easy. You can sell a digital E-book if you don't want to carry an inventory, or you can resell items from wholesalers at a markup. Simply get on the lists of a few dozen wholesalers and start watching their wholesale product listings.
2) Based on those products, narrow it down to what people WANT. This is the biggest pitfall would-be auction sellers make... They sell a product they think people need instead of what people actually BUY. You've got to find where the highway traffic is flowing and stand in front of it with a big money net.
3) Study Your Competition. You should steal what other competitors are doing that is working! Watch for the sellers who consistently sell products in the market you've chosen, and see what they are doing. They're on eBay because what they're doing is working! By the way, don't get scared off by competition. Competition means there's a market of buyers!
4) Get your feet wet. Jump in there and make a listing! Start the bidding price low so that people get emotionally invested in your product. Show lots of pictures. Consider utilizing an auction listing template to make things look nice... but remember, it's the STORY that people get drawn into more than a pretty website, so make them feel like they already own the product and show them the benefits of owning your product, not the features.
5) Scale Bigger. After you've experienced some success with a few auctions, you can now make more sales and bigger sales.
So how do you travel and sell on eBay? Easy. There are internet café's all over the world that you can login to for as little as $0.10 cents per hour! Most will be around $1-$2 dollars per hour, and you'll get a surprisingly high-tech computer to access the web with.
You can modify your listings from abroad and have your fulfillment house (or your little brother!) handle shipments. If you like, you can even have a customer service center answering buyer questions.

Published At: Isnare.com

Take a Break With Family and Friends in Costa Rica

Submitted By: Manuel Rivers

Do you enjoy taking a break from scorching heat and spending some quality time with your family and friends? We all deserve break from the kind of hectic personal and professional life that we live and therefore it is very necessary that we spend some time with our loved ones. Spending a holiday with your friends and family might be easy but it is not easy when it comes to deciding where you should spend your next holiday. People normally prefer European tours when they think of spending some quality time with their family but there are few that are always on the move and always look for a better holiday destination that would keep them occupied and entertained throughout.
Costa Rica is one of the upcoming destinations that will soon become one of the favorites for people who are constantly hungry for new locations, new entertainment and new hotels that would provide world class service. Costa Rica is located in Central America and since it is covered by oceans on both the sides you will find plenty of white sandy beaches here that are inviting and where you can have a break from the scorching summer.
Though, Costa Rica has a tropical climate you will never find excess heat over there because of the natural environment around it. If you have nothing to do for the day than you can take a nice walk and enjoy the cool breeze that blows from the ocean and enjoy the clean blue water right in front of you. No matter wherever you are in Costa Rica you are never too far from the ocean because most of the Costa Rica cities and tourist locations are situated near coastal areas where you can find some good accommodations and hotels that are truly Costa Rican.
If you prefer places where you can find more activities than Costa Rica is the place to be because you can try your skills in various water sports activities like kayaking, rafting, snorkeling, scuba diving and boogie boarding. You can either contact some of the agencies that provide special tours for such water sports or you can ask the hotel personnel so that they can arrange it for you. There are also various national parks which are truly worth watching and therefore every wildlife fan will find Costa Rica nothing less than paradise.
Costa Rica also has various other adventures that you can try like rock climbing, mountain bicycling, trekking and walking through the deep forests of Costa Rica. Most of these activities are done under careful supervision because you need to know the routes that would lead you back to your hotel. Costa Rica also has various cities like San Jose and Liberia where you can enjoy the urban life and enjoy your dinner and spend some time moving your body to the groovy Central American music. You can even go for shopping and have some of the best Central American coffee and snacks in some of the best Costa Rica restaurants and cafes.

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Planning a Holiday in Costa Rica

Submitted By: Manuel Rivers

Are you recently planning to go on a holiday? Holidays are really important and exciting not only for kids but also for adults because we work hard to earn income for our family and friends and therefore we should give ourselves a little bit of relaxation through holidays that are really rejuvenating and where we can find peace that is important for our mind and soul. Of course finding a place where there is fewer crowds is a tough task because all top tourist destinations are always packed with international and local people who would like to enjoy their holidays or business trips.
However, there are some places which are equally good but not all people are aware about the true potentials of that place and Costa Rica is such a place. Costa Rica lies in the Central American region and is quickly becoming the most popular tourist destination in the world. As per the survey done by various international tourism organizations it has been found that the growth rate of Costa Rica is better than any European country which means more and more people are knowing about the true potentials of Costa Rica and therefore Costa Rica is getting more international visitors every year. Many international hotels and chain of restaurants and cafes are now trying to invest in Costa Rica because they believe that Costa Rica does have all the necessary elements of becoming the top tourist destination in the world.
There are many things apart from the beaches that make Costa Rica a place where you can enjoy holidays in a better way. Costa Rica is not a big country but it still has the best marine biodiversity in the world and if you are a wildlife lover than you will simply fall in love with this place. Costa Rica is 166 times smaller than Brazil but still has 234 different plant species and therefore it clearly outbeats Brazil when it comes to various plant and bird species available in thousand square kilometers of Costa Rica. You can even enjoy the biggest rainforest in Costa Rica where you will different and new species of plants and animals. The La Amistad International Park is around 200,000 hectares and can isolate you from the rest of Costa Rica if you are not sure about the route.
Costa Rica is also famous for its volcanoes and therefore if you are in Costa Rica than do not miss out Arenal Volcano which is one of the ten active volcanoes in the world. Apart from that there are 112 different small craters and eruption locations where you can checkout the volcanic smokes and bubbling red hot lava that is oozing out of the surface.
Divers will never feel like going back home because Costa Rica is an underwater paradise. Costa Rica has been named as the number one place on earth if you love scuba diving and many magazines clearly have admitted this in their publications. Costa Rica oceans have more than 6000 different aquatic species that attracts divers from all over the world.

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Festivals to Visit in Helsinki, Finland

Submitted By: Ken Sand

Helsinki, Finland is the capital of the country and also the largest city in the southern part in the Gulf of Finland. The city was founded by Gustavus, I in 1550 of Sweden. It became the capital of the country in 1812. In the present, the city pulls off the ploy for something that has the international metropolis at the same time as it still retains the small town as it feels. The best time to have a vacation in the city is during summer, when the people of the city overcome the cold winter and have a merry making on outdoor bars and enjoy the sun.
The city is the largest city of Finland and is the capital. Gulf of Helsinki, Finland is located in the southern part of the country with the sub urban of Espoo and Kauniainen. Apart from these, you will find an array of farms and forests and the most famous of it is the Nuuksio National Park located at the intersection of Kirkkonummi, Espoo, and Vihti. The city of Helsinki is the center of the south peninsula. You can find the rail station and bus terminal around the city area. You can find shopping centers near the Senate Square situated in the historical area of the city.
Helsinki, Finland is the cosmopolitan city of the country. They are also bilingual, most of them are Finnish speaking and others are Swedish. Most of them can also speak English. There are also many holidays and festivity that the city can offer, like that you will have below.
Helsinki Festivals
•Vappu: this is an original pagan carnival. This is an excused for students to wear bright dresses and for everyone to drink more alcohols. The statue of Havis Amanda in the market square is crowned with students cap. If the weather is good enough mostly up to 70, 000 people are partying outside.
•Helsinki-paiva: the feats of the birthday of Helsinki. This is started with mayors’ morning coffee and celebrated all through the day.
•Juhannus: the mid summer festival is between 19th of June to the 25th of June in the city of Helsinki, Finland. Large bonfire is being lighted in the Seurasaari.
•Tiateiden Yo: is the night of the arts? This is celebrated in the end of August. This is the peak of the multi-week festival of the city and is also called as the little Vappu.
•Joulu: is Christmas. The weeks sooner than Christmas, Aleksanterinkatu is lighting up and the Esplanadi mass an open air market.
The above are just some of the festivals that you can have in the city when you want to spend your vacation in Helsinki. They usually have a lengthy winter that starts from October to April. They only have a brief summer, so they make the best of their summer season for feasts and merry making. Helsinki, Finland is a beautiful capital and is the largest city of Finland. Many people spend their vacation in the city because of their museums, cultural festival and churches. The city is also a safe city, so you need not to worry when it comes to crime and security.

Published At: Isnare.com

Things You Ought to Know About Sevilla

Submitted By: Ken Sand

Sevilla is one of the cities in Spain. It is also known as Seville, but they often called it as Sevilla. The City of Sevilla is more than 2,000 years old, since the Roman Times it was known as Hispalis. From then, the natives of the city are those who live near the Roman city of Italica and the impression of how Hispalis looked in the later Roman era was preserved in the City. You can find many roman features around the City of Seville that witnessed the transformation of the city such as the aqueduct. The city is well known as the passage of various civilizations in the continent; some of the discovered remnants of these early people was discovered and treasured in the city museums.
There are also many histories that came from the city that is why Sevilla was left with so many diverse personalities. Sevilla, Spain is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is nestled in the plain river of Guadalquivir and is also known as the financial capital of southern Spain. People who are living in the city are called Sevillanos or Hispalenses. Sevilla ranked as the fourth biggest cities in Spain as of 2009. The population of Sevilla increased for up to 703, 206 and has an estimated 1, 493, 416 population in metropolitan that includes urban area and satellite towns.
If you are planning to visit Sevilla, Spain, there are many tourist attractions that can surely grab your attention. There are two renowned festivals that make Sevilla stand out among other cities in Spain. They have the Semana Santa that is being celebrated a week before Easter. And for the last week of April they have an event called April Fair. April Fair is one of the traditional festivals in Sevilla with a daily bullfighting contest, a colorful street dance parade that shows the beauty and folklore of the city. Aside from that there are many tourist destinations that you can find in the City of Sevilla that makes the city famous for other countries.
One of the most visited tourist destinations in the city is the Street of the Snakes, which is also known as Calle de las Sierpes. After so many years, lots of businesses arise along the streets like shopping stores, restaurants and cafés. Another tourist’s destination in the city is the Seville Cathedral which is one of the richest and largest Gothic Cathedrals in Christendom. The Cathedral can give you an unsurpassed breath architecture and design. The said cathedral was founded in the year 1402-1506, and it is the urban major mosque.
The native of the City of Sevilla, Spain has a live nightlife too. There are many businesses and establishments that are open and provide services until dawn that will make you enjoy your stay in the area. You can visit some bars and nightclubs that will surely give you unforgettable vacation. These are just some of the attractions that you can find in the city. So, plan your next vacation in Sevilla, Spain and grab the chance to visit this wonderful city.

Published At: Isnare.com