Top Geek Vacations
What makes a great geek vacation? Well, high-speed access from even
the most obscure locale is a given.
Melissa Riofrio, Pete Babb and Steve Fox, InfoWorld
Tuesday, July 03, 2007 5:00 PM PDT
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,133914/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
What makes a great geek vacation? Well, high-speed access from even
the most obscure locale is a given. Then throw in some activities to
stimulate the brain cells, maybe a dose of electronic entertainment,
possibly a bit of techie history, and you're most of the way there. Of
course, it also helps if your chosen location is frequented by
similarly techie folks and has some out-of-the-mainstream cred,
meaning it would make your non-alpha geek friends roll their eyes. Our
readers weighed in with their choices, and here's what InfoWorld
editors came up with as the favorites.
Bangalore, India
Why should Thomas Friedman have all the fun? Bangalore readily appeals
to geeks with exotic tastes, given its dual status as both the Garden
City and the Silicon Valley of India. While you couldn't actually
visit the local offices of tech giants such as Intel, Sun, or HP, you
could explore the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum,
with its exhibition halls that cover engineering, biotech, space
travel, and the like. Check out the view from the southern hemisphere
at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. Internet cafes and Wi-Fi hotspots
are everywhere; get your fix between visits to the 240-acre Lalbagh
botanical gardens or the 300-acre Cubbon Park. Ulsoor Lake offers boat
rides among its many small islands. Tipu Sultan's palace and the Raj-
era Bangalore palace offer a dose of lush architecture. Hindu
monuments abound: The Bull Temple is dominated by a massive,
monolithic sculpture of said beast. Another bull figures prominently
in the main event at the Sri Gavi Gangadhareswara Temple: Every Jan.
14, a ray of sun****ne aims through the horns of a bull statue to
illuminate another statue, of ****va Linga. Buy a gadget or a sari on
Brigade Road or Commercial Street, and your South-Asian geek
experience is complete.
Dinosaur Dig
Digging up dinosaur fossils: It's not just for stuffy paleontologists
anymore! If you've ever been awed by dino-skeletons at a museum,
wanted to reconnect with a youthful (or not-so-youthful) love of
dinosaurs, or just wanted to see if that whole Jurassic Park thing
could work for real, then are you ever in luck. You can, in fact, get
right down into a real dig site. And it isn't some sort of fantasy
camp-style interpretation of digging where all the hard work is done
for you and the fossils are teed up for you to "discover," either --
these camps are the real deal. You get to do the actual dirty work
yourself, side by side with scientists and experienced diggers. Who
knows -- you might be a part of the next major fossil discovery! There
are dig vacations of all sorts of durations across the United States
and all over the world. A sizable list of options can be found here.
CeBIT, Hanover, Germany; and Munich, Bavaria
Mark your calendars: March 2008 will see the next incarnation of the
world's largest computer-technology show. If you manage to tear
yourself away from the exhibits, the Laatzen Museum of Aviation offers
a less crowded dose of technology. The History of Energy Museum blasts
you back to a past of radio, lightbulbs, and other electrical devices.
But the real technical center of Germany is in Munich, Bavaria, home
to Siemens, Infineon, and the European outposts of many American high-
tech firms. It's also a city that knows how to have fun. Where else
could you quaff a liter of beer at HofBraeuHaus, then walk (please
don't drive) to the Deutsches Museum, where you could spend several
days among its exhibits of mining, electronics, engineering, flight,
and more? Another huge outpost of the museum houses autos, trains, and
more. With an advance reservation, you can take the BMW Factory Tour
and see (but not buy) more beer, available in vending machines on the
shop floor. Check out the tem****ary BMW Museum in nearby Olympic Park,
or wait for the grand opening of the renovated museum in spring of
2008. Don your lederhosen and come during Oktoberfest to see all of
Bavaria dancing on tables.
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