In Episode 07 of The Gamer Traveler we visit Amsterdam, capital city of the Netherlands. We explore the city from the ground, checking out various locations across the central section of the city, and look at various ways to incorporate the city into games, from the Golden Age during the Renaissance, all the way to modern times.

See the full show notes and links here.

I’ve just finished recording what will be the last episode of Season 1 of The Gamer Traveler, Episode 7 - Amsterdam. For various personal reasons, I am choosing to close the season now, instead of going for the full 10 episodes as I had originally intended. Once I get back from Gen Con (I’ll be posting a schuedule of places/times where you can find me) I’ll start Season 2 on a monthly schedule, with the ocassional extra episode in a month here and there.

Episode 7 will go out into the feed next Wednesday (earlier if I get some information I am waiting for by this weekend) and it’s a long one as well: the rough cut right now is at 40 minutes, and I still need to record some closing thoughts and info; that will be to make up for the extended wait since the last episode.

Since I am closing Season 1, that also brings our Gaming & Travel Stories contest to a close; a winner has been chosen (by someone else who read the stories and picked the best one) and they will be announced on the next episode, as well as getting an email from me with their 30$ Gift Certificate to Geeklabel.com. Thanks a lot to the Geeklabel.com crew for their support.

My interview for the Amateur Traveler podcast has just gone out on the feed! Follow the link below and check out the interview I did for Chris Christensen about my trip to the Benelux region.

Amateur Traveler Podcast #98:
The Netherlands and Belgium
Chris did a really good job of taking out my Ums and Ahs and making me sound really sure of the information I give out.  I had a lot of fun doing the interview, actually, and I think fans of my show will get a kick out of it. Go get it now.

I just finished doing an interview for The Amateur Traveler podcast, hosted by Chris Christensen. We had a very nice conversation for like 25-30 minutes on my trip to the Benelux last year. We talked about Brussels, Amsterdam, Brugge and Delft, as well as a little bit about visiting the Dutch countryside, which mirrors very well the shows I’ve been doing on the same area on my show. It was weird being interviewed, if only because at first, you are very much aware that you are being recorded. A few minutes into it, I totally forgot about it and was just chatting about travel. It was a good preparation for when I do my own interviews.

I’ll let you know when that episode gets posted to the Amateur Traveler feed; I’m thinking it will be a couple of weeks.

Thanks, Chris, for the opportunity. 

In Episode 06 of The Gamer Traveler we visit the quaint city of Delft, once a seat of kings and hub of one of the greatests economic empires of the Renaissance, home to inventors and master artists, and source of the world-renowned Delftware pottery. After Delft, we take a trip to the beautiful Dutch countryside and see windmills, flower fields and a living history museum.

See the full show notes and links here.

Folks, the iTunes listing for The Gamer Traveler has been experiencing problems for some time now (actually, since Episode 02), showing that there has been no updates or new episodes since back in March. For a while, if you subscribed, you would still get the new episodes as they were posted, but now I’ve gotten reports that even that is failing.

I have been given a couple of possible solutions to the problem which I am going to try in the next week or so. One of them involves significantly shorter show notes attached to the media file, as opposed to the lengthy links-fests I tend to do now. I will still provide the longer show notes as extra info here on the site, and provide a link to “More Info” on the shorter, concise show notes that go out with an episode. Hopefully that will take care of the problem.

My apologies for these issues, I hope to have them resolved very soon.

I also hope to get a moment to finish Episode 06 in the next week or so; I’ve been swamped with other projects, but it’s been too long and I itch to talk Travel again.

This past Memorial Day weekend (May 25-28) my wife and I spent a very nice mini-break at the United States’ oldest city. No, not Jamestown, but St. Augustine, Florida. We had a chance to visit the old Spanish castle, the Colonial Spanish quarter, Henry Flagler’s amazing luxury hotels, and even take a ghost tour accompanied by Scott (aka. Lord Z in the forums), a listener of the show who also works as a ghost tour guide.

My wife and I will be recording an episode on St. Augustine sometime soon, and we may also have Scott via Skype, so we can talk about this Spanish settlement in the US, the fantastic place it is to visit, and the great setting it makes for a variety of games, especially when considering all the ghost stories.

Due to the mini-break, however, the next regular episode will be delayed until next week. Fret not, however, for the trip to the Dutch countryside and the city of Delft will be well worth the wait!

In Episode 05 of The Gamer Traveler we visit the medieval gem of Flanders, the city of Brugge. Once a mighty economic and political power, Brugge suffered a reversal of fortunes that left it mothballed for centuries, and in pristine shape for tourists centuries later. We also explore using Brugge as a campaign setting for games set in medieval times.

You can see the full show notes and links here.

Three of the hosts of A Fist Full of Comics (and Games) Podcast–namely Peacekeeper, Tangent and Knight Ranger–are currently enjoying a 2-week European vacation (April 27 to May 13), going from Ireland, to England and then to Spain.You can check out the blog of the FFoCaG: The European Tour 2007, and share in the adventures of three American geeks in the Old World. Suffice to say that in the first two days they have suffered from missed transatlantic flights, delayed flights, and missing luggage, forcing Tangent to desperate measures (right).

I have also reminded the guys that they are now gamer travelers, and asked them to keep an eye out for interesting stuff from their travels that we can later talk about in a special interview show, to which they have all agreed. I look forward to sharing their trip (and boy, are they having an eventful trip so far!) and talking to them upon their return. 

In Episode 04 of The Gamer Traveler we visit Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. This is a very international city with a long history stretching back to early medieval days, and a distinguished pedigree to this day, still serving as home to one of the branches of the European Union. As a city of merchants and guilds, we use Brussels as a starting point to discuss running games with merchant player characters or gaming in mercantile-driven campaigns.

See the full show notes and links here.