If those pod hotels we all hear about in Japan aren’t very enticing, here’s one better: wine casks turned into hotel rooms.

Even though I despise the whole “got milk” campaign for its degradation of the English language, here goes: Got Wine? Got Wheels? Yup.

Despite that historically the term barrel or cask seems to connote the ability to be moved by hand, these hotel rooms in Stavoren are built out of 14,500-liter wine casks, they sleep 2, and are situated nicely along some local bike paths. (But, then again, in the Netherlands what isn’t situated on a bike path!) When you are feeling claustrophobic from the completely air-tight seal of the “rooms,” the proprietors will rent you a bike.

More photos over here. Cheers.

Adventurer Joff Summerfield has completed a 22,000 mile trip around the world on a penny farthing.

He pedalled his hand-made replica of the Victorian bicycle into Greenwich Market, where his journey began two and a half years ago.

Mr Summerfield, 40, visited 23 countries in four continents after setting off from 0 degrees longitude at the Greenwich Observatory.

Around the world at 11mph: Adventurer takes a wheely long ride on a penny farthing | Mail Online

Although more a list than an informative essay, TravelHacker (it appears they are all one word) has just posted on the top 25 vacations for “wine geeks.” I’ll say I have to admit that there are far more “computer geeks” than “wine geeks”, the latter prefer a more subtle nomenclature — say, something Latinate, romantic, and smooth sounding: connoisseur, aficionado, or even simply taster (after all, they are the mass of [hu]men[s] who use the word quaffable). But “geek”, no no no.

Contrary to Mike Doughty’s song, “Laundrytown” from the great album Rockity Roll, most people don’t “[want] to get fat and live above a laundromat.” Rismedia, importing content from MSN, who imported the content from Sherman’s Travel, has a list of the top 10 destinations and packages for getting in shape while on vacation.

Most of the time, here at WineandWheels, we have to get in shape to go on vacation, so we’re quite pleased with their top choice: the Tour des Vins:

1. Alsace Looking for your inner Lance but not quite ready for the Tour de France? No sweat (just yet): Pack up your bicyclette (or rent one there) and head to France’s Alsace region, near the Swiss and German borders. With designated bike routes throughout the area, it’s a pure delight to pedal beside the beautiful Vosges mountains, through charming villages, and past the fantastic vineyards that lie along the 170km-long Route des Vins (wine route) where crisp Rieslings and Gewurztraminers are born—after all, you can’t go all the way to France and not indulge at least a little.

Check out the rest of their list over here, and for credit where credit is due — that great farm tribute image is from Anduze-Traveller’s photostream.

Motorola presents a docking station that is attached to a bike. The docking station can charge a cell phone while users ride on the bike.

We’re curious about this over here at Wine and Wheels. It’s not water proof, wind proof, rain proof, Gatorade-spill-proof, or crash proof. The photos show it attached to a cruiser. One would need this on a long ride, where the above elements will prevail. A short ride? No need to charge the phone.

Developing countries? Probably the best venue for this sort of technology.

Gimmicky or not?

As it currently stands, for the US, this is … drum roll … gimmicky

Well, at least United Airlines gets something right. No one wants broken wine glasses when they’re traveling. No one I know, anyway.

An article from Monday’s Toronto Star begins with the words, “Be worried,” and concludes with, “isn’t that wonderful?” In between these dramatic brackets it discusses the rising automobile sales in China, the world’s most populous country.

China, or Zhong Guo in Mandarin (middle kingdom), has long seen itself as the center of the world. Also long-running has been their content with the bicycle as primary means of transportation. All that is changing, according to Henry Gold:

If you have given even a moment’s thought to climate warming and its potential impact on our planet, be very worried. China, a nation of 1.3 billion people, has abandoned the bicycle as a principal mode of transportation and is now moving at a frightening pace to a car-based economy.

Gold continues:

Recently I was in Korla, a fast-growing city in Xinjiang province in western China where I was at the tail end of my mission, to scout the Chinese portion of the famed Silk Route for a bicycle tour that my company is planning for the summer of 2007. The route will take about 45 cyclists from Istanbul to Beijing in 108 days, covering 10,000 km. Part of our mandate is to promote bicycles as sustainable transportation in a world that seems to be hurtling toward major ecological disaster.

A good friend of mine from China by way of Norway bicycled the Old Silk Route a few years ago. I’d be curious to compare then and now, as things are moving in China at an alarming rate, bicycle or automobile, everything is speeding along.

I don’t know if anyone out there hates staying in motels that smell like cigarette smoke as much as we do, but the folks over at FreshStay.com have that one figured out.

They’ve designed a simple page in which you click around to search your region for accommodation with fresh air. That’s it. While you’re letting your fingers do the walking to find a nice, smoke-free hotel, you might also want to stop on by Farecast.com and have them tell you either, “buy now fares will rise” or “wait, fares will drop.” Neat. Take a look at FreshStay and Farecast.