Been, Seen. Travel by Design. A difference where and how we travel. Travel from a creative and visually artistic point of

To display the best Been-Seen. Travel by Design this page may require refreshing. Please give time for all the page to display.

Day Trippin' in Sintra

Ahhh, the day trip. The day trip can be so many different things. A rejuvenating escape. A necessary respite from routine. The trip within a trip. Flirtatious mini-vacation. A daydream. While a few rank high in my personal pantheon, one day trip in particular stands out as the most memorable of all - Sintra. Nestled high in the Serra da Sintra around 31 km or 45 minutes from Lisbon, Sintra has been attracting visitors for centuries. According to legend the Roman goddess Diana the Huntress used the mountains as her retreat. It is from Diana -- also known to the Romans as Cynthia -- that Sintra derives its name. Conquering Romans and Mo...

Isola d'Ischia

In the last year, I've been told again and again by various people about this amazing place in Italy called Isola d'Ischia (Ischia Island). If you've seen the movie The Talented Mr Ripley, you've visited Ischia - at least in spirit. If you'd like to see it for real, there are some pretty glamorous hotels to choose from. Let's start with the Albergo San Montano.    Ischia was born out of an extinct volcano, and sits elegantly in the Bay of Naples alongside Capri. The San Montano takes advantage of this with a stunning location. These pictures say it all, really. Jawdropping 360-degree views of Naples, Mounts Vesuvius and Epomeo, the Sorrentine peninsula, and the island of Ventotene. The hotel's interior is decorated with a subtle nautical theme and has been describe...

Bottled Information

Most people don't realize that everything that we ingest into our bodies will eventually end up in our tap water. And I mean everything: from birth control, to anti-depressants, to that red bull you chugged in order to meet your article deadline (not that I would know), these pharmaceuticals get recycled by back into the water we drink. In London, one artist-designer has started a project to categorize how and what the citizens of London ingest affects the various regions' tap water: London Biotopes. Originally conceived as a project by Tuur Van Balen, a graduate of Design Interactions at the RCA, London Biotopes categorizes tap water according to what was ingested by inhabitants of each region of London. For example, according to research mapping city dwellers'...

Solarlab's Solar Rickshaw

Most people associate rickshaws with images of third-world poverty, or fleeting tourist novelty: how quaint, to have someone else peddle you around! However, the new solar-powered rickshaw by Solarlab is about to change the image of the rickshaw to something decidedly more twenty-first century.  According to Solarlab, 75% of the total power needed to drive the vehicle will come from the photovoltaic solar generator on the roof, while the remaining 25% will be provided by the driver'...

Bathed in light

On the island of Jersey, between England and France you'll find the Hotel de France - a 19th-century palace brought sharply into the 21st century by German designers Licht 01. Licht 01 designed the hotel's new spa, created in natural stone, with glowing orbs for light, infinity pools, hot and cold plunge pools, hydrotherapy pools and a large jet pool. By day the spa is lit by abundant natural light; by night it makes use of ambient colored lighting. The hotel itself has 284 contemporary rooms, many of which overlook St Helier and the English Channel. Proof, if any was ever neede...

Toy Train, Strawberry Train

When someone comes up with a really original idea, it can really make you realize how unadventurous we often are. Eiji Mitooka is a well-known designer in Japan who has done a lot of work on the country'...

Gimme gimme

One day you'll be able to make movies using a camera attached to your fingertip, but until then we'll have to make do the unfeasibly nifty Sony HDR-TG1 Handycam. It's a camcorder that shoots in high def and slips into your pocket. It weighs in at ten ounces, and measures 1.3-inches wide by 4.7-inches tall by 2.5-inches deep. But it can record 1920 x 1080 HD video and 4-megapixel digital photos directly to Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo or PRO Duo Mark2 media cards. Specs aside (and there are many cool features like face recognition, noise reduction, Dolby surround sound and Carl Zeiss optical zoom lens), we love its cigarette-case titanium body. And it'...

We All Scream for Ice Cream

The sounds of summer. Closing one's eyes - or opening the ears - evokes a typically nostalgiac set of cadences. Children's laughter, the call of seagulls, and the crashing of waves along a seashore. Yet, summer's street symphony could never be complete without another of its ubiquitous melodies - the songs of the ice cream truck. The ice cream truck is as an iconic American symbol of summer as any. From coast t...

Tree House Restaurant

Any little kid will tell you that treehouses are rad. And any big kid will tell you that so is high-quality, delicious Asian and Indian food. So now, for the little kid and the big kid in all of us, behold the Nahu Harbor Diner restaurant in Okinawa Japan: a restaurant that is up in a tree. Although, sadly, not an ACTUAL tree, this restaurant gives the illusion of being built in a Gajumaru tree about twenty feet off the ground. The stunning, large Gajumaru trees are...

An Ocean of Rubbish

Out in middle of the Northern Pacific Ocean where one would expect to see little more than the endless pristine expanse of ocean and sky and its complementing hues of blue and perhaps the occasional poetic albatross floats an environmental disaster so disgraceful that all humanity should turn red from shame - the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of a mind-numbing amount of flotsam and jetsam that equals an area often cited as being around the size of Texas. Also known as the Eastern...

Basic Legal Guide        RSS Feed for Been-Seen. Travel by Design

If you are unable to find Been-Seen. Travel by Design on this page you may wish to use a different search, (Search help for Nar You), or try the Compare Bargains website.