• Bicycle around Angkor Wat: Cambodia

    Bicycle around Angkor Wat: Cambodia

    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.

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  • Shoot Blow Darts in Japan

    Shoot Blow Darts in Japan

    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.

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  • Go on a Retreat: Washington meets WiFi in Virginia, USA

    Go on a Retreat: Washington meets WiFi in Virginia, USA

    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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  • Sandboard the Dunes: Peru, New Zealand, Namibia and more

    Sandboard the Dunes: Peru, New Zealand, Namibia and more

    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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  • Work abroad

    Work abroad

    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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  • Play Tri-Pong

    Rainy days are the mothers of invention. While visiting my friend Rob’s cottage, he taught us how to play a simple, yet exhausting version of ping pong. This is Tri-Pong. A big difference from your average ping pong game is that the players are working together, not against each other. Another big difference is that…

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  • Take a soak in the Banff Hot Springs, Alberta, Canada

    Take a soak in the Banff Hot Springs, Alberta, Canada

    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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  • Go Geocaching

    Ever wanted to be a pirate and search for buried treasure? Is your favourite part about Easter the egg hunt? Do you pride yourself in your ability to find lost car keys? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then geocaching just may be for you. I’ve wanted to go geocaching for years…

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  • Visit the Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand

    Visit the Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand

    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.

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  • Play Spoons (with vigour)

    Spoons was a very popular card game in the Martin household growing up. I’ve played a few variations of it over the years but the general idea remains the same. Click here for the full rules. Some people play that when you get a set of four, you don’t actually yell out SPOONS! This adds…

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  • Have a beer at Oktoberfest, Germany

    Have a beer at Oktoberfest, Germany

    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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  • Chase some cheese: Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling, Gloucestershire England

    Chase some cheese: Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling, Gloucestershire England

    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.

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  • Pipe down the sun: Port Albert, Ontario

    Pipe down the sun: Port Albert, Ontario

    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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  • Sleep in a cave: Cappadocia, Turkey

    Sleep in a cave: Cappadocia, Turkey

    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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  • Go tubing through the Elora Gorge, Ontario

    Go tubing through the Elora Gorge, Ontario

    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.

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  • Play Extreme Croquet

    Croquet: The Gentleman’s Game? Not where I come from. Growing up, my brothers and sisters used to play this backyard game in very un-gentlemanly ways. We’d send our opponents’ balls flying into the bush, down our long driveway and into the little creek that ran next to our house. Out-of-bounds was for babies, and sending…

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  • Go “Glamping”: Long Point Eco-Adventures, Ontario, Canada

    Go “Glamping”: Long Point Eco-Adventures, Ontario, Canada

    Luxury camping, zip-lining, star-gazing, mountain-biking, hiking and more make Long Point Eco-Adventures a Mecca for outdoor awesomeness.

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  • [Blog] 20 awesome activities involving 1 item or less

    [Blog] 20 awesome activities involving 1 item or less

    Editor’s note: This post was originally published on my Josh Martin Ink blog. In an age of iPads, Xboxes and $200 shoes, our sources of entertainment and activity require increasingly sophisticated technology, equipment and infrastructure. But there’s something to be said for the simpler activities. Activities that nurture creativity, ingenuity and imagination. In 2005 the…

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  • Play Desert Island Dream Team

    Who would you want with you if you were stranded on a desert island? How useless would you or your friends be in a post-apocalyptic world? Desert Island Dream Team is a great game that aims to answer these questions. Here’s how it works: Some qualities you might want to look for when building your…

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  • Shoot a friend: Flag Raiders Paintball, Kitchener, Ontario

    Shoot a friend: Flag Raiders Paintball, Kitchener, Ontario

    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.

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  • Visit the museum of broken relationships: Zagreb, Croatia

    Visit the museum of broken relationships: Zagreb, Croatia

    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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