To finish off Adventure Week (and celebrating the fact that we came back mostly intact) we decided to enjoy a day at the beach! Specifically, we went to Coney Island, where New Yorkers can lay out and relax in the sun and on the sand after taking a subway ride from nearly anywhere in the city.
The Gear
Parrot ANAFI
How You Can Do It
I would recommend heading to your local beach, but if you want to experience all New York City has to offer you are going to have to take a subway ride down to Coney Island. Cost: $
As fun as Adventure Week has been, it has also been exhausting. Swimming with sharks, camping, sailing, and running an adult obstacle race takes a lot out of you. That is why our final "adventure" involves heading to Coney Island and relaxing. For capturing the moments, we would recommend carrying a tough camera around, something that can take a bit of a beating and won't let sand or water keep you from using it. Otherwise, just make sure you bring a towel and plenty of sunscreen. Unfortunately, though this was our most laid-back trip, we couldn't wholly relax since we had to test the Parrot ANAFI, which you can read about here!
The rest of you, I'm sure, want to go to Coney Island and have fun or take in the sights. First, you should head over to the beach and dip your toes in the water. The water is a bit cool this far north, but super refreshing during this heat wave. Too cold? Just hang out on the sand and get a nice tan. Or you can stroll over to the boardwalk and go for a nice promenade, checking out the various shops and restaurants down the strip. Looking for something a bit more action-oriented? Ride the Cyclone, Thunderbolt, or enjoy any number of rides available in the amusement park right near the beach.
Plenty of famous food spots are around, as well, though perhaps none more so than Nathan's Famous. Buy a hot dog and cheese fries and, for the less squeamish, be sure to check back around next year's Fourth of July for the classic hot-dog-eating competition. Sports fans can find something to do here too, since the local Brooklyn Cyclones minor league team gets their games on right here. And for animal lovers, hit up the New York Aquarium, where now you can come face-to-face with sharks without descending into the water.
Speaking of sharks, we really did go face-to-face with sharks near Montauk, New York, for Day One of Adventure Week. Our goal was to test the latest GoPro action cams and, hopefully, come back with all our fingers and toes. The GoPros delivered some solid footage, which is to be expected. What wasn't expected was how bad the rough seas would affect our team. Check out the article and accompanying video to find out more.
After that we went camping in Ithaca, New York, specifically at Robert H. Treman State Park, since there are plenty of waterfalls, hiking paths, and—oh yeah—gorges. This is a classic choice for landscape photography and a good place to demonstrate some more advanced techniques. The two main ones we used were long exposures and time lapses. Long exposures helped us capture smooth, silky water and explained the benefits of ND filters on bright days. Time-lapse photography is a whole other thing, blending video techniques with still to create stunning imagery. Learn more about how to accomplish this technique yourselves by reading the article and watching the video.
For Wednesday, we were hoping there are a lot of Wes Anderson fans out in the audience for our odd little sailing trip on the Long Island Sound. Heading out with Skipper Todd Vorenkamp and optics expert Christopher Witt, Brett and I enjoyed some sailing and launched drones. The DJI Inspire 2 was most certainly the highlight, capturing epic scenes, while the PowerVision PowerRay let us explore the depths without even getting wet. This was a good deal of fun and we highly recommend a boat trip to anyone who hasn't experienced it yet. You can read all about it here.
Our toughest challenge of the week was the mud run. Four miles of running, sliding, and crawling take a lot out of you. And "helping" us were the Apple Watch and Fitbit Versa, basically telling us we need to get in better shape before we try this again. It was impressive to see how well the devices tracked and if they could hold up to being dunked in water and mud. Find out how we did and how the watches held up, in our article and video.
Now, we are finally getting to kick back and relax and start planning next year's Adventure Week. You can help us out—do you have any ideas for adventures or trips you want us to take? What about gear you'd like to see put to the test? Bigger is better, so let your imaginations run wild and let us know what you think in the Comments section, below!
