Thank you, dear readers, for making 2009 a wonderful year for travel on Spot Cool Stuff!
2010 will be further filled with amazing trips, insider tips and unusual travel tidbits. But before planning our next adventure a look back on the travel blog posts of the year past:
You heard it here first: Spot Cool Stuff plans to expand the scope of our design channel over the next year. But before getting to that here’s a look back at some of our favorite articles from 2009:
Question: What’s the single best designed piece of running equipment?
Answer: It’s a pair of gear you already own—your bare feet.
Most running shoes, it turns out, do more harm than good. The problem is that these shoes are designed to “protect” your feet in a way that they weren’t meant to be. When encased in an excessively built-up running shoe the muscles, tendons and ligaments of your lower extremities will atrophy. That’s because your shoes are doing the work that your legs and feet should be doing.
The other problem with running shoes is that they encourage you to run with the wrong form. Your body is designed to run on the ball and forefront of your feet. Try going for a run barefoot and you’ll experience this yourself—your heels will barely touch the ground. In contrast, most running shoes will cause you to land on your heels in a way that won’t only slow you down but will inevitably lead to knee and back pain.
Shoes, of course, do serve a purpose. They keep your feet cleaner and drier than bare feet, not to mention being useful when there’s a sharp rock or nail under foot.
So what’s an athlete to do? Get a pair of running shoes with a design that mimics the advantages of your bare feet. Here are our two favorite:
What does it say that our favorite Spot Cool Stuff unusual museum post over the last year is about what goes on in a human body and our favorite restaurant post is about what comes out of it?
We’ll be pondering that while counting down our top five offbeat museum and restaurant posts:
What you bring on a trip can effect a travel experience almost as much as where you go. So over this past year Spot Cool Stuff has reviewed all manner of travel gear and gadgets from cameras to luggage to clothing. A look back on our favorite travel product review posts from the last 365 days:
Spot Cool Stuff loves the nexus between travel and animals, whether it is traveling to see animals or traveling with animals or traveling to hop into a bath next to an animal. We are such fans that we’ve created an entire animal travel category for our posts.
So what were our favorite animal travel articles of 2009?
Our long weekend of Las Vegas posts is now past. But the reviews of the spots we visited are all still online:
Spot Cool Stuff knows lots of people who take their travel seriously. For them we try to pick out a travel-related gift. Because we take our travel gear seriously.
Here are some gift suggestions for the traveler in your life. Let’s start with our favorite travel gadget of 2008 . . .
For one week at the end of November the travel department of Spot Cool Stuff hung out in the Caribbean posting about cool destinations every day. We are back now to our usual eclectic range of travel reviews.
Here’s a recap of the posts in the Caribbean week that was. They each are best enjoyed while drinking a margarita and/or while listening to Bob Marley:
