In Defense of Lifestyle Algorithms

So I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I just discovered StumbleUpon.com while trying to dig up some meaty 11th and 12th readings for work.

For the twelve people in the world who haven't encountered this website yet (perhaps one of which is among the three people who will ever look at this blog), it's kind of like playing craps, but with websites and blogs. And you don't lose money. And there's no guy with one of those cool sticks to scoop your life's savings away. And so you see, it's actually nothing like craps at all.

What it is, though, is a site where you put in your interests--say, cooking and science, or travel and nature--you can put in as many as you want--and it strategically generates a little magazine page for you based on these interests. Then you click on whatever among those, let's call them, say, "interest nuggets," that look most interesting to you, et voila! Fun is born!

Within minutes StumbleUpon enticed me to another fairly awesome website, The Cool Hunter, which, as its name perhaps suggests, hunts up all the cool so that you don't have to. And from among those categories of cool, I chose to check out "Amazing Places," a 5-part series featuring gobsmackingly beautiful pictures of spots that you should visit before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Like the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival pictured above.

And this ice cavern in Skaftafell, Iceland:

And the Petra in Jordan, seen here at night:

And the city of Riomaggiore in Italy, part of the Cinque Terre (full disclosure--I'm pretty sure I've been here, but them's was heady times, so it's a little fuzzy):

And last but not least, the ultimate in in-cave dining experiences, the restaurant in the Sanyou cave in Yichang, China:

For all my talk of loving to travel, I've not spent much time outside the US. Which is a shame, because there's a vast, wide and beautiful world out there to explore. These places--hell, every place on this "Amazing Places" list--can and should serve as inspiration to put on those traveling shoes and figure out what all this world has to offer. 

Make it happen.