Hotel Elqui Domos

Today we will talk about a curious hotel located in Chile. Its name is Elqui Domos and its principal feature is the fact that is designed to see the stars. The particular clime of the zone benefits for a clear sky and makes easy to see the stars at night. The hotel is concretely located in the Elqui’s Valley between two large cliffs on the slopes of the Andes.

Since long time, a lot of people came to this valley to see the stars, so someone saw in this valley a good place to build a hotel that takes profit of all of that. His idea was to build a hotel where the rooms are individually located along the valley and made it with a translucent cloth so the people could saw the stars and enhance the astronomic experience of the clients.

After having informed about all the aspects of the Elqui Domos I would leave you a SWOT analysis that I made to see where are the strengths and the weaknesses of the hotel:

Strengths: It’s a unique hotel that offers a unique experience. It’s made it with woods, which means that it’s very close to the nature and that may like so much to that people interested in nature tourism.

Weaknesses: It is very little known by the people and the facilities of the hotel aren’t very big so can’t accommodate a lot of people at the same time. The fact that is so different from the rest of the hotels can make that many people won’t like to come.

Opportunities: The hotels could offer so many things apart from the astrology, they have a big valley where they can arrange tours or do extreme sports.

Threats: They are too dependent on the climate of the area and that can turns against him.

That was all, we hope you enjoyed.

Be curious!

Taj Mahal

Located in India, is one of the most important human heritage and designate as one of the new seven wonders . It was built from 1631 till 1654 in Agra by emperor Shah Jahan, from the Mongol Dynasty. This stunning temple was a love prove to their wife, Arjuman Bano Begum, but everyone knows her as Mumtaz Mahal.

In fact, the name of this temple means ‘’the crown of Mahal’’ so it was build just to demonstrate the love for his wife. Is considerate the most beautiful building of the Mongol architecture, but in this case , Taj Mahal mixed Persian , Islamic and Indian architecture but is not just one building is an integrated set of buildings but the dome, the most significant was built with marble but there were used more material like jade, turquoise, chrysotile, agates, amethysts, malachite, sapphires, amber, quartz and coral.

20000 labourers were working on this temple, and the emperor take the most brilliant architects to design the temple but when them finish their job, the emperor ordered maul their hands, the reason is because the emperor didn’t want that this architects could repeat another building that Taj Mahal.

The temple is perfectly symmetrical and the tomb of Mahal is located in the centre of the building. This symmetry is just broken by the tomb of the emperor next of his wife.

Is the most important touristic attraction in India, for this reason exist a lot of companies who offers tours inside Taj Mahal around 110 rupees.

The Valley of the Desolation

Normally when you think to travel to the Caribbean you automatically see yourself sunbathing in the beach and drinking an exotic alcoholic drink with wonderful views everywhere. And, surely, you will think in expensive resorts and hotels. But today we will talk about a curious place located in a Caribbean island named Dominica where you can do cheaper holidays.

First of all you have to know that until be an island more economic than the others that doesn’t mean that the island hasn’t have beautiful views, it is just the opposite, in Dominica you will surely find more wonderful places to see than the others because has been less exploited for mass tourism. One of the mains features of this island is its volcanic activity. This volcanic activity has caused a high number of hot springs.

But what I want to talk you is the Valley of the Desolation. Some day in the past this place surely has a lot of vegetation and animals but the high number of geysers, boiling water ponds and fumaroles originated by the volcanic activity of the zone has transformed the place in an incredible view of desolation. But don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to see, because as you could see in the images of this post the place became in a take breathing view. Lot of people wants to see the views and think about their lives and the desolation of the world.

As you can saw in our blog exists a lot of incredible and curious places in the world to take advantage and made a tourism business. Not everything is reduced to sunbathe, visit monuments and stay in the hotels, there’s a lot of more in all the world.

Atlas Obscura

Hey again friends, today I will talk you about a web guide called Atlas Obscura, but firstly let me ask you something, are you bored to travel and see the typical monuments and do the typical things? Are you a lover of those strange and esoteric things, mysterious places? Atlas Obscura is your webpage, this site brings you the possibility to see a lot of information about strange and mysterious places around the world.

It was founded by Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras 5 years ago, 2 young boys who saw a blue ocean in this kind of market for those travellers who prefers explore than follow a guide.

This webpage show you the possibility to search by name those places, read articles about them, organize places by popularity, by ‘’Likes’’, you can see a places randomly or even you can navigate by the Google Map where esoteric and mysterious places are pointed there. But not just places you can find in Atlas Obscura, also strange events around the world are able for you from your home. But it’s not all, if you were visit some strange place that not appears in Atlas Obscura, you can send the place to the Web Managers and they will study your place.

Well, as a strange and mysterious things, I recommend you to do an atypical trip, not the main sightseeing, search information about singular things and try to do, you will enjoy! And if you don’t have enough with this post, I bring you the link of Atlas Obscura www.atlasobscura.com, enjoy it!

The birth of the Eiffel Tower

Everyone knows Eiffel Tower, this monument is one of the most famous around the world, in fact is impossible now to separate from our minds the image of Paris and Eiffel Tower because is nowadays its symbol, but no always was like today. 

The tower, designed by the architect Gustave Eiffel, was a project to being showed in the Universal Expo , firstly, Eiffel show his project to cities like Barcelona but it wasn’t accepted, Paris was accept this project but only during the Expo 1889 becoming in the higher height building in world , the people of Paris was demonstrate against the tower because for them, could be dangerous if the towers falls. It was built in 2 years and was painted in a yellow colour. When Expo ends in 1900, the French army install a radio antenna on the top of tower taking advantage of its high height, for this reason, the tower must remain there. Along decades, Eiffel Tower start to Symbolize Paris city, the publishers made and amazing work relating the tower with terms like the love, they repeat and now, Paris is known like the ‘’City of Love’’ and Eiffel Tower is the main symbol.

In the beginnings, the towers weight 7000tones but now weights 10500because Paris put Restaurants, Coffee’s, Souvenirs Shops in the tower. To increase the benefits of the million of tourist who visits it every year, in fact, Eiffel Tower is the most visited place around the world, 230 million people has visit it.

This is really important to understand why a lot of locals in Paris has their windows oriented to the tower, is the main attraction, and the businessmen knows. This is a case of indirectly exploit of this symbol, all businessmen like restaurants, coffee’s or hotels take advantage of the views to push up the prices, to attract more customers or to increase their benefits.

Cappadocia

Today we will go to Turkey to talk about Cappadocia. Probably you should know about Cappadocia or at least have heard about that but today you will know more about this beautiful place and how the tourism in the zone starts.  

First of all you have to know that Cappadocia is an historical place located in Central Anatolia and its main feature is its geological formation, which it’s unique in the entire world, as well as its cultural and historical heritage.

In 1930 and 1940, when the Europeans have noticed about this incredible place, thanks of the dissemination of the French priest Guillaume de Jerphanion with his studies about the churches in Cappadocia –very common-, they started to travel to Turkey to see Cappadocia and its beauties. Was then when the tourism started to growth until arrived to a growth so large that they have to start to build a lot of infrastructure to keep the tourists and comply their demands.

In the 70s the tourism had reached such high numbers of tourists that its twenty hotels in the zone were not enough, so if they wanted to keep the tourists they had to think what to do to solve this problematic. The solution was to start to rent rooms of their houses and transform their homes to receive the tourists; meanwhile they were building new hotels and infrastructures.

Thanks to that, nowadays, the zone has undergone an economic revitalization that helped not only the tourism but the small business like ceramic, textiles and crafts and its one of the favorites places to do natural tourism.

Salar de Uyuni

Could you imagine 12000 km2 of salt? In Bolivia exists an incredible desert of salt and the Bolivians have known how to take profit of this. The name of this desert is Salar de Uyuni and it is specifically located in the Potosí department in the southwest of Bolivia. Uyuni is one of the biggest reservations of lithium in the world, and there are great quantities of magnesium, potassium and boron.

As you must imagine this is a big economic source as there are a lot of tones of salt with they can trade as well as with the lithium and the other components already said. But the economic source it is not finished with the traffic of salt there also exist the tourism attraction. A lot of people came every year to see the awesome view of a desert of salt because the desert is transparent and it’s seems like you are walking over a mirror.

But to gain more tourists they thought to build a hotel with blocks of salt in the middle of the desert. It’s a small hotel but soon became a very popular tourist destination. This is the second hotel that it is build in the desert, the first was smaller and it’s had 12 double rooms, a common bathroom, and no shower. In the current hotel they had included a dry sauna and a steam room, a saltwater pool and whirlpool baths.

Another very popular attraction is the train cemetery. This cemetery contains the old trains that distribute the salt of the desert to the Pacific Ocean ports. In the 40s the mineral industry collapsed for the mineral depletion so many of trains were abandoned and they became a train cemetery. Someone saw in this trains a tourism source and convert this in an attraction for the tourists.

Wadi Rum

Today we want to talk about another fantastic destination created by nature. There are so many places in our world that seems to pertain to another planet like the one who I would talk now: Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum is a valley of sandstone and granite rock located between the southern of Jordan and the east of Aqaba. Wadi is an Arabic term to refer to a valley and Rum probably comes from an Aramic root meaning “high” or “elevated”. This valley it’s not only important for its views and beauties but it’s because has been inhabited by many human cultures since prehistoric times, and these civilizations has leaving their marks in paintings on the rocks, graffitis and temples.

Wadi Rum it’s also known too for been the place where T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) based his operations during the Arab Revolt of 1917-1918.

People have taken advantage of this place like Zalabia Bedouin who, working with climbers and trekkers, had developed eco-adventure tourism in the zone and in the actuality is their main source of income. The valley is now one of the most important destinations in Jordan and attracts a lot of tourists every year, especially climbers and trekkers. It’s also popular for doing activities like camping under the stars in the desert, riding horses, hiking and rock-climbing among the massive rock formations.

To end this post we reported that exists an annual marathon in the region called Jabal Ishrin, you dare to participate?

See you in another post.

Be curious!

Loch Ness

Last week I was doing my final English class project for this year, it consisted in an organized trip around Scotland, when I was doing it, I has to book a room in Inverness, a town pretty close from Ness Lake ( or Loch Ness like Scottish people named ) and I saw that exist a lot and a lot of tours around the Loch Ness, obviously because presumably Nessie, the mythological animal that lives inside them, is still diving in those cold water. In fact, this is the main case that how a curiosity can become a business.

Nessie history start in the typical Scottish tavern, anybody know where, maybe in a town next to the loch, or in Inverness, maybe in a Britain city, the important is that the fishermen who use to fish in this lake explains to the others that they saw a giant animal diving around them, along decades, a lot of people told that they saw the monster as well. The legend was growing when a photo, in 1934 showing Nessie’s head and neck, alarms the people becoming Nessie in a superstar, everyone wanted to see it and start to travel to Inverness, the biggest city close from the Lake.

In this moment, some businessman has the vision, they had to build hostels, hotels, make tours around the lake. This kind of business still working nowadays even that everyone knows that the picture made in 1934 is a big fake, even studies who prove that Nessie or their offal doesn’t exist. Exist a lot of tours, for different prices, for different hours of duration, for different kinds of ship, there are tours for 1 hour to 6 hours, from 10euros to 60, with a boat or with cruise the offer is really huge. Nessie is famous, it was made a lot of merchandising around this animal, were doing films and cartoon series, they introduce in our minds as a real phenomenon.

Anyway, the Loch Ness is a magic place, not for Nessie, is located in the amazing Britain highlands, is the second one bigger lake in Scotland, and has more water than all England and Wales lakes at once. With impressive landscapes, mix of colours, a medieval mid-ruins castle just in the coast of them, and with the characteristically Scottish weather. Loch Ness suggests us that we are in the medieval age, and for me, this is the main attractive about the lake.

Bunker's business

Last week, I was reading newspaper when I saw an amazing advertisement in relation to a bunker selling.

The advertisement explain that this kind of bunkers can resists all type of natural catastrophes where will arrive the Maya’s end of world and atomic bombs as well in case of war. The price starts from 800€ without the furniture necessary to survive inside of them. The surprise is that this bunkers exist in Spain a traditional sceptic country with this kind of things . The people start to go insane and suffer the collective paranoia or maybe the pressure of the media. That’s not end good…

Everybody knows that this prophecy is being taken really seriously for a lot of people , and exist someone who decides to take advantage of this “trend”, and this is a little example.For instance, a lot of people are buying bunkers in USA just in case, and they say that if the prophecy is false, they’ll use in case of war. A large percentage of USA population thinks that the third big war will arrive soon, I care this kind of collective behaviour…but we’ll talk in other occasion.

For me the important is how the people take advantage of the collective paranoia. Firstly, this bunkers don’t guarantee the security of natural disasters or atomic bombs because in some cases, is just a metal box at 2 meters under land. I don’t know if this business is legal, but I’m sure that’s not completely safe. But it’s not important for the sellers or constructors, in fact, they use one of the most important channels nowadays and one of the less controlled as well, Internet. Searching “Buy Bunker” and you’ll  find a lot of offers of bunkers and a lot of advices about how to manage your bunker to being legal.

 Maybe the most incredible story is the GSE2012 ( Spanish Group for Survival 2012 ), this is a pioneer group that is building an a atomic collective bunker. To have place in this big collective bunker you must affiliate to the group for a expensive price to help the construction. It was founded by Jonathan Bosque, who start they own group for survival after work in the group of Patrick Geryl, writer of “World cataclysm 2012”. The first bunker of GSE2012 will have place for 50 people, the 50^th first affiliates to the group, then they plan to build another one, bigger, with place for 400 people. Around the bunker they will build a little eco-town to live a few weeks before the prophecy to check if it’s able to human life. The final price to have a place in this big bunker was 2.400€ for 450 people…1.080.000€!!! The end of this story is more dramatic, after 21th of December, Jonathan Bosque disappeared with all money and no bunker built.

Take care about your security and family security as well but take more care about who is trying to sell your security, because you can being scammed.

See you in our next post!

Yellowstone

Nature has always been a great tourist attraction, especially rare natural phenomena. Today we would like to talk about Yellowstone.

Yellowstone it is known as the oldest natural park in the world and for its wildlife and geothermal features. Each year the park wear more than 2 million tourists who are attracted by geothermal features such as geysers and hot springs, but how becomes this freak of nature in the tourist destination it is today?

In the beginning, Yellowstone had a dreadful communication, which made it very inaccessible to the vast majority of people. It wasn’t until the Northern Pacific Railroad occurred to him the idea of ​​building a train station in Livingstone connected to the Park entrance that the occupation in the park increased. Quickly went from 300 visitors in 1872 to 5000 in 1883. Tourists at that time possessed few roads and services and had to travel on horseback or by stagecoach, that's why them decided to create a second railroad in 1908 to access the west side.

In the fifties park visits increased significantly and because of that it was decided to create a plan for the modernization and extension of facilities throughout the park. The new buildings were designed in a modern style, leaving a portion of the park with the traditional style characteristic of the town.

Nowadays, has a large number of accommodations for tourists and infrastructure. There are over 2,000 seats for camping, a historic circuit area and become the city of Salt Lake City in the largest urban area near the park.

How a curiosity can become a business?

Sometimes, we heard about strange news, some ones of that makes us feel perplexed, other ones tells us fantastic stories, seems magic, or happy and sad emotive news, we heard also catastrophic news which shock us.

But exist people who takes advantage of those news, pioneers who see an amazing business chance from something rare or special, an opportunity to make money, to attract customers and touristic flows, this one become into a business vision man.

Along that blog we’ll show you some examples about how curiosities can becomes into a business and we’ll analyse it. We’ll also see why those curiosities still going successfully. We’ll post once time per week where you’ll can enjoy relaxing and reading them. You’ll can also learn some tips about how manage your business or how to release your own project.

Our work team hopes that you enjoy it and helps us to let still working for all of you.

Let’s start with Curious Planet!