50 Years of Travel Tips/Women-written recs/LibriVox

Recomendo - issue #450

My best travel tips

I took everything I have learned from a half century of serious travel and put all my travel tips into one document for easy reading and sharing. Let me know what I missed in 50 Years of Travel Tips. — KK

Women-written recs

I enjoy discovering and subscribing to new recommendation newsletters, especially those written by women. Here’s a list of what’s currently in my inbox. — CD

• What I Loved This Week by technology worker Sarah H., a newsletter featuring book and entertainment recommendations, along with curated links and rabbit holes.

• A thing or two with Claire and Erica, which delivers the 10 finds they’re most excited about—from recipes to books to beauty products—that are destined to make your Mondays better.

• The iivy by Kelsey Wheeler, a weekly newsletter supporting a community of women who share the best tips, products, routines, and advice to help you become the best version of yourself.

• Sam’s Seven, a weekly list of 7 things that art director and stylist Sam Kidd Shelton is eyeing, buying, reading, and recommending.

Best free audiobook resource: LibriVox

LibriVox.org is an amazing resource offering 40 thousand free public domain audiobooks read by volunteers. The audio quality and reader performance varies but is usually quite good. Some classics, like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, have multiple versions to choose from, so listen to short snippets and choose your favorite. The LibriVox app makes it easy to download and listen on your phone. All recordings are public domain, so you can freely share and remix them. The volunteer-powered nature of the project means it keeps growing, with new audiobooks added regularly. I recommend Wired Love — an 1879 novel about telegraph operators falling in love before they meet that feels surprisingly modern in the age of texting and online dating. — MF

Best can opener

Over the years we have accumulated a variety of can openers. The one we always reach for is the Oxo Good Grip Smooth Edge Can Opener. It has a fat easy-to-grasp handle. It is one of those can openers that slices off the top of the lid from the outside, rather than from inside of the top of the lid. This way when you lift the lid off, there are no sharp edges. It is also the easiest can opener to use, taking the least effort to spin. However, it is now hard to find because Oxo discontinued it. The Kuhn Rikon Safety Can Opener is a decent alternative with a similar approach. It is not quite as ergonomic, but still better than the traditional style. — KK

Practices for deep curiosity

This article offers advice on "How to see the humanity in anyone" by replacing certainty about what we think we know about other people with curiosity about what we don’t yet know. The author, Scott Shigeoka, suggests using techniques like individuating people by focusing on their unique preferences rather than group identities, which he calls the “Garden Salad” effect. I found that the most crucial advice for cultivating deep curiosity is to value the dignity of every person, which simply means acknowledging their inherent worth and choosing connection over judgment. Definitely worth a read, but if you prefer video, here’s a link to his TED talk: "Can curiosity heal division?" — CD

Art detective in your photo app

I was in Segovia, Spain recently and used my iPhone to take a photo of a painting at the cathedral that interested me. There was no signage next to the painting. Later, when browsing through my shots, I noticed an unfamiliar option when I tapped the "info" button — "Look Up Artwork." One tap and I had the painting's name, artist, date, current location, and link to Wikipedia. This feature works retroactively on all art photos in my library. — MF

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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others. Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper and Book Freak.

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