The world is full of awesome things to do. The Blue Marble Badge celebrates cool, weird and fun activities from all corners of the globe. Check out the posts below and get updating that bucket list of yours. More added each week so check back often.
If you have something awesome you did/do that you’d like to share, check out our Submissions Section or add your stories, videos and photos to our Facebook page.
Fighting climate change in awesome new ways, Our Horizon launches its #16yearsleft campaign and needs your help. Yowzers! Has it been this long since I last posted?? Shameful, I know. In my defense it’s been an insanely busy couple of months here in snowy Waterloo, Ontario. Throw a nasty bout of strep throat into the [...]
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I think some people thought me strange to drive 9 hours to spend a week in Winchester, Virginia on a “writing retreat.” After all, I work from home. Couldn’t I get the same work done there? Maybe. But I feel there are many advantages to getting away from your daily routine and surroundings. Virginia proved [...]
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As the Baby Boomer generation gets older, more and more attention is being paid to “senior-friendly” activities. Your mind may automatically go to things like Bridge, shuffleboard or knitting (or Guerrilla Knitting if you’re super cool). But a rather unconventional activity is picking up steam in Japan: blow darting. . The Japanese blowguns featured in [...]
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The world is full of awesome things to see. But oftentimes, how you see something matters just as much as what you see. This week’s Blue Marble Badge of Awesome goes to Jon Chilton, for sharing his bicycling experience around temples in Cambodia. Here’s Jon describing his experience: “One of, if not the most, amazing [...]
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Growing up in Canada, tobogganing factored big in my childhood. Each winter the hills around Port Albert, Ontario became the grounds for epic battles with my siblings and cousins. I often felt bad that people living in warmer climates were missing out on this awesome activity. But then Ashraf Dean submitted this photo of him [...]
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Working overseas has many advantages. It looks great on a résumé. It lets you really immerse yourself in the day-to-day life of another country and culture. It’s a great way to make overseas travel affordable. It gets you out of your comfort zone and helps you grow as a person. It broadens your perspective and [...]
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I’ve never had much of a fashion sense. Most of my clothes are unfit for a blind hobo. Despite this complete ineptitude and disinterest in anything to do with fashion, I knew the moment I laid eyes on that old fashioned bathing suit in the display case at the Canadian Rockies Hot Springs in Alberta, [...]
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Tina Coghlan submitted this photo into the “That’s Awesome” Photo Contest of the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand. I thought they were so cool they deserved their own Badge of Awesome post. More than 50 of these unusual boulders can be found on Koekohe Beach on New Zealand’s Otago coast. They are very large spherical [...]
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Prost. Schnitzel. Lederhosen. Oompah. Ziggy zaggy ziggy zaggy, oy oy oy. If these words confuse you, odds are you’ve never been to Oktoberfest. As a resident of the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Ontario for many years, I’ve attended my fair share of Oktoberfest events. If you do go, prepare to have your fill of sausage, sauerkraut, [...]
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I spent a lot of time this past summer watching the London 2012 Olympics on TV. And while England put on a good show, there’s one sport I was disappointed didn’t get any coverage at all. A sport from their own backyard no less: Cheese-rolling. . As you probably gathered from the video, the rules [...]
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If you blink you could very well miss Port Albert. You’ll find this tiny speck on the map on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario. Home to such famous landmarks as the Port Albert General Store, the Inn at the Port and a fish ladder at the “old bridge,” you won’t find much [...]
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I’ve slept in a lot of different places in my day. Couches, tents, floors, laundry rooms. At the foot of a volcano, in a village on stilts, on a beach, on a mountain, in a farmer’s field. Train stations, bus stations, airports. But I’ve never slept in a cave. And after seeing photos like this [...]
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Tubing through rapids at the Elora Gorge is awesome. Located within the Elora Gorge Conservation Area, about a half hour drive from Waterloo or Guelph, Ontario (an hour or so from Toronto), this activity offers visitors a chance to travel down the Grand River in a very cool way. As scenic as it is exhilarating, [...]
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Luxury camping, zip-lining, star-gazing, mountain-biking, hiking and more make Long Point Eco-Adventures a Mecca for outdoor awesomeness. Glamping Growing up, my idea of camping involved tossing a sleeping bag on the hard-packed earth and getting a terrible night’s sleep. If we really wanted to get fancy, we would sometimes drag old mattresses out from our [...]
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Games like “Call of Duty” let you shoot your friends in a video game setting. Sure, it’s fun. But shooting your friends in real life with paintballs, and getting to hear them cry out in pain, is better. Way better. Welcome to Flag Raiders Paintball, soldier. I’m hit! Fear and adrenaline pump through my veins [...]
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Ah, love. The heady surge of endorphins. The joy. The companionship. The matching tattoos. The disgustingly sweet pet names that make your friends want to punch you in the throat. But of course, love and break-ups go hand-in-hand. The pain. The binge eating. The binge drinking. The sweatpants. The Sarah McLaughlin purchases on iTunes. The [...]
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Is it a problem that so many of my memorable travel experiences involve alcohol? I’ve already told you about the gin I shared with a chief in Africa, and the shot of whiskey I had in the Yukon that contained a human toe. For this week’s Blue Marble Badge, we head to the jungles of [...]
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It may not be as hardcore as hiring a ship in the Louisiana bayou to catch your own dinner. But still, the shrimp pool restaurants in Taiwan are pretty awesome. I can’t remember the name of the one I went to, (and likely couldn’t spell it if I did remember) but you’ll find these unique [...]
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There are 3 items on my ultimate bucket list. Joining Captain Dick’s World Famous Sour Toe Cocktail Club is one of them and is this week’s Blue Marble Badge recipient. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this… unusual… drinking tradition, Sour Toe cocktails are found exclusively at the Downtown Hotel bar in Dawson [...]
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My Dad built a kick-ass swing set in our backyard when we were kids. It was pretty awesome. Awesome as it was, however, it still pales in comparison to this week’s Blue Marble Badge recipient: the Shotover Canyon Swing in New Zealand. 109 metres (that’s 360 feet) above the Shotover River in New Zealand, this [...]
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Waterslides aren’t always awesome. Take for instance the “waterslides” I used to play on as a kid: a length of cheap plastic stretched across our gently sloping lawn and a garden hose. Common hazards included: Attempting to slide along the plastic when it wasn’t wet enough. This typically involved one of us running as fast [...]
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I’ve woken up in my fair share of strange places after a night of drinking. But looking out my window at 6 am and seeing this has got to be one of the strangest. And, incidentally, one of the most awesome. Welcome to Nzulezo: a small village situated in the middle of Lake Amansuri [...]
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