Ever since I began traveling solo at age 19, I’ve been told the same thing over and over: traveling alone as a woman is dangerous.

Many people speak as if I’m inviting violence upon myself, as if it would be my fault if something happened, as if we live in a world that is populated only by creeps and muggers.

I always explain that danger is a fact of everyday life wherever we live, and that an autonomous woman is safer than one who depends on others for protection, because she is self-assured.

Traveling has given me a take-charge attitude that makes anyone with bad intentions less likely to mess with me. Furthermore, it has enriched me, taught me how to support myself in difficult situations and cope with things on my own.

Traveling solo I suppose, is one of the ultimate challenges for a woman, and that is part of the reason why I enjoy it so much.

A Dose Of Inspiration

Growing up, some of my greatest role models were fictional traveling men. I became a traveler in spirit during the days of The Littlest Hobo, a movie and TV show about a traveling dog. When my grade six teacher read us Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, I was surprised to learn that there were not just traveling canines, but traveling people as well.

While I did not experience any latent colonial longings, I wanted to ride an elephant, not just My Little Pony. I loved Indiana Jones movies, and as a teenager, Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation inspired a yearning within me that could not be stifled by one read through On the Road.

Then Easyrider arrived, with all its hippie kitsch – that movie was my inspiration to go to New Orleans, although sadly I didn’t travel by motorcycle.

It was a while before I learned about women who traveled, because in my conservative town in Canada, I didn’t know any.

Women Travel Too?

People in my neighborhood took trips because they had money and could afford a cruise, not because they were hungry for a big adventure. Recently, I read about Dar Robertson, in 2006’s The Best Travel Writing: True Stories From Around the World, and she has since become my hero.

In her story, “Sahara Unveiled”, she recounts her trip to Morocco and Algeria in which, dressed as a man, on her fifth week of solo backpacking across Africa, she drives illegally across the border into Algeria, gets caught in a sandstorm, and is later saved by strangers, a group of gentle Tuareg men.

She recounts her story with the voice of a woman in touch with her instincts, moved by the thrill of discovery and the kindness of her fellow human beings. She writes, “I was here…I was not afraid…I was ready for the next challenge”.

While some people might think what Robertson did was foolish (and it’s true she took risks), she is a role model for traveling women everywhere, simply because she had faith in her own instincts and capabilities.

Instinct is our center. It functions as a personal alarm system that tells us when we are safe, and when we are in danger. Women are so used to being told what to do, and being led around, that they sometimes forget it’s their own voice that counts. Women with a taste for adventure do themselves well to get in touch with that inner instinct.

While our fears of being hurt, raped or even killed are real, we are never safe all the time, anywhere in the world. A woman who stays in her house with all the lights on might cut her risk of violence on the street, but as well, she will block herself off from the great fountain of experiences that awaits her.

Staying Safe

How can women stay safe when traveling abroad?

Firstly, I believe we should do what our parents and the Lonely Planet both advise. We all know that it’s a bad idea to walk alone at night, to flash our jewelry and large sums of money, to show off our underwear in conservative countries (or even North America, with the exception of New Orleans), or reach for more than a couple of bottles of beer, especially when we’re hanging out with “strange boys”, as my mother likes to call them.

While doing any of these things would never justify a mugging, rape or worse, a murder, it’s plain to see that using common sense is no different from wearing sunscreen – if you don’t want to get burned, take basic precautions. Just remember that it’s a lot more fun to take a small risk than it is to stay at home.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, we should simply do what we want.

With our heads up and our eyes wide open, grounding ourselves in our natural ability to make decisions and lead ourselves, we will become wiser, stronger, and better able to protect ourselves as we navigate the globe.

The potential for violence that surrounds us will begin to disappear when we nurture our own independence in the same way we care for our families and loved ones. By staying true to ourselves, we will find adventure on the road and get home safe and sound.

While women who choose not to travel deserve their own applause, so do the courageous women who reach out for the grand and sometimes uncertain joys of travel. The world is our oyster, and we deserve support and encouragement for taking the bold steps we do.

What are your most memorable experiences as a female solo traveler? Share your thoughts below!

Emily Hansen is a travel writer and teacher based in Shimla, India, where she is working on a book about her experiences as an expat. Her native land is Canada, and she has traveled to over 30 countries, and has lived in six, including Germany, China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and now, India.

You’ve just finished a shoot of an incredibly colourful festival in Bangladesh, or you’ve been busy taking pictures of your family with your new digital SLR.

What do you do with the 200-plus frames you’ve taken at the end of day? Without editing and choosing your best photos, you will never evaluate what worked and what didn’t, and that makes it much harder to improve your photography.

The good news is that Mac OS X’s bundled iPhoto program makes this process easier and faster, but most people don’t know how to use the program effectively. Once you take a few preliminary steps, you’ll be more ready to show and broadcast your best work to the world.

1) iPhoto Library Manager: a must-have tool for iPhoto

The newer and more affordable digital SLR cameras have created a new photographic explosion-quality photography has never before been in the reach of so many people.

The flip side is that the file sizes of the resulting photographs can clog up your Mac’s resources worse than a Dhaka traffic jam. Furthermore, when iPhoto crashes, libraries have a tendency to corrupt as well, resulting in lost or damaged pictures.

That’s why you should break up your libraries according to location or event by using the iPhoto Library Manager, a free tool that allows you to create multiple photo libraries and keep track of their size and back them up more easily.

2) Ratings: a process for getting to your best photos

During the shoot, cull as many photos as possible, keeping your post-shoot workflow more efficient. Remember that all those extra frames require a lot of extra processor requirements, so if you can delete on the fly you’ll save yourself time afterwards.

After importing, view the photos as a slideshow to evaluate their quality and turn off the Ken Burns effect because it is distracting. Instead, turn on the ratings so you can evaluate the frames as you go. Rate the best frames with four or five stars. Delete as many frames as possible in the first pass.

The key here is to look through the frames quickly and see which ones stand out and which don’t-bear in mind that any extra photos will continue to soak up computer resources and bloat your libraries.

3) Keywords: catalogue by topic or place

As you import photos, you should also put keywords on them: namely the location of the shoot or its theme.

Create keywords in the preference menu first. Then, as you import the photos, tag them with your chosen keywords. You can then view smaller sets of photos in your library by simply viewing by keyword.

Keywords help you retrieve a set of pictures in your library more quickly-and are much more powerful than simple albums. Keywords help you show select photographs to a friend or an editor more quickly and help you keep that ever-increasing collection of photographs organized.

4) Smart Albums: getting to the best pictures in your collections

Now here’s the best part. Once you’ve added keywords and rated your photos, you can start using iPhoto’s Smart Albums feature to retrieve the best of the best. When you create a Smart Album, it pulls photos from your library based on factors you define: namely the ratings and keywords you decided on earlier.

Let’s use an example to make this whole process clear.

In my collection, I have thousands of photographs from several destinations around Bangladesh. After I’ve tagged each photo with keywords-namely the cities I shot the photos in-I make sure each of those photos is also rated from none to five stars.

Then I create a Smart Album that pulls all photos that have a rating of four or more stars. Immediately, I can see the best of my work in the entire library. If I want to look at just the best photos from Dhaka, I can create another Smart Album that pulls all photos with four or more stars and the keyword “Dhaka” out from the library.

5) How to share it: plugins for Flickr

What good is all this editing work if you don’t even share your pictures with others? Another reason I use iPhoto is because I know many other people do and thus plug-ins for the program are not hard to find.

When it comes to sharing on Flickr, the keywords I added earlier now function like tags. Used in conjunction with Connected Flow’s Flickr iPhoto plugin, your keywords will be automatically uploaded as tags, which makes them searchable by other people and saves you from having to add tags later.

The plug-in can also resizes the photographs, which saves you uploading time especially if you have crappy internet connections on the road like I do in Bangladesh.

Armed with some of these tips, you should be able to start seeing more quickly what works in your photography and what doesn’t.

Do you have your own iPhoto tips? Please share them below!

Mikey Leung is an Asia-based adventure travel journalist, specializing in feature photography and travel writing. He is just starting work on a new travel guidebook to Bangladesh with Bradt Travel Guides. News regarding the guidebook project is at www.joybangla.info.

A good mate of mine is a travel snob. I don’t mean he only flies first class and only stays in five star hotels – quite the opposite. His snobbery is rooted in the fact that he would NEVER do those things.

He looks down his nose (or should that be up) at people who only travel for a week at a time, and stay in all-inclusive resorts in Fiji or Mexico. To him, travel must be difficult, dirty, possibly dangerous, but most importantly – cheap.

Now don’t get me wrong, pretty much all of the travel I have ever done has been difficult, dirty, dangerous and cheap – but now that I’m getting older (and wiser), I start to wonder if there is merit in the easy, organized, pre-booked sort of travel.

How does one make the transition from traveler to tourist? As I make the shift myself, I’ve compiled a short ‘to do’ list:

1. Ditch The Backpack

Yes it’s probably just a symbolic gesture, but the crappy old backpack that’s been around the world with me a few times will have to go. I’ll miss the vaguely spicy scent of clothes that haven’t been washed for two weeks, but I’ll get used to it.

I’ll start shopping around for a smart little bag that rolls on wheels. After all, I’m not going to be climbing up waterfalls in some remote village in Morocco anymore.

2. Find A Travel Partner

My fiance will be very happy with this suggestion. While backpacking travelers often vagabond solo, few ‘tourists’ go it alone. For a start, the luxury hotels in which I’ll stay would charge me extra for a single supplement.

Plus, since I’ll be visiting notoriously dangerous cities like Singapore, Vancouver and Cabo San Lucas, there will be safety in numbers.

3. Hotels – Not Hostels

No more sleeping next to 15 other dirty scabby backpackers farting and snoring their way through a cheap-rum induced sleep in some dorm somewhere.

From now on I’ll stay in real hotels with double rooms, no sleeping bags, no bed bugs and – best of all – no Japanese girls rustling plastic shopping bags while they pack their bags at 4 am!

(What is it about plastic shopping bags inside people’s backpacks? I think they should be banned from all hostels – not that it matters to ME anymore…)

4. Find Some Extra $$$

Since I’ll no longer stay at places like the hostel in Chichicastenango that charged me .80 cents (US) for the night, I’m going to need more cash – lots of it. When you add in the private transfers from the airport to the hotel, mini-bar costs, tips to private tour guides and so on, it really starts to add up.

5. Go Easy On The Gut

No more wondering which member of the rodent family my “beef steak” came from, no more buying bottled water with broken plastic seals, and no more “authentic local delicacies” in the streets of Asia, inevitably followed by five days of agony in “authentic local bathrooms”.

From now on my meals will be served, on plates – white plates – with knives and forks and everything.

Will I miss anything from my hobo-traveler days?

No… I will be deliriously happy reclining by my massive pool, in my massive hotel complex, sipping ridiculously expensive cocktails served to me by my massively underpaid and exploited waitress. I won’t ever need to think about what’s going on outside the fortified walls.

It will never occur to me how fortunate I really am to live in a country where I take things like civil liberties, personal security and the availability of affordable fresh food and clean drinking water for granted.

Big pool, hot sun, a new issue of Vogue…how about another Pina Colada?

So there you have it. Just five easy steps and I will easily transform myself from traveler to tourist.

My mate has it all wrong doesn’t he? He can have his impromptu dance lessons with local folk in underground clubs. Who wants to spend a whole day exploring a new city on foot, with no itinerary? Why bother learning to speak another language by haggling in markets for fresh fruit?

I’ll take the massive swimming pool and cocktails.

Wouldn’t you?

Nicholas Bowditch spent eight years away from his beloved Australia in a quest to find the world’s most deserted beach, best dive site and cheapest beer. He is still on the lookout. He is an Independent Travel Broker and the editor of independent travel resource Aussie Escape.

What do you think of the tourist/traveler distinction? Share your thoughts in the comments!

I’m typing in a cozy armchair in front of the fireplace in my Uncle’s house in Connecticut, recovering from Thanksgiving dinner and the traditional family football game.

By the time you read this roundup, though, I’ll be in Buenos Aires, struggling with Spanish and taking in a whole new world.

One of the glorious things about travel is the shift in perspective that accompanies a change in place. Seeing the world from a different angle is a revelatory experience that adds depth and wisdom to our lives. Ideally, the effects of this experience linger long beyond the trip itself, informing and contextualizing our idea of “home”.

To reproduce T.S. Eliot’s oft-quoted phrase, “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

The best travel writing often takes the form of a journey home, a “there and back again” tale that comes full circle – but arrives at a very different place.

Enjoy the stories!

1. “The Insufferable Gaucho” by Roberto Bolano, The New Yorker

This epic story will take your breath away. A work of fiction, it is nonetheless a classic travel narrative – one that taught me more about Argentina in only a few pages than a whole bookshelf of guidebooks.

Although Bolano’s creation is rooted in a specific time and place, it grapples with universal human themes of family and loss, tradition and independence. If you only read one story all year long, this would be a good choice.

2. “A Game Journey” by Jason Wilson, The Smart Set

I’ve always thought of Jason Wilson as the editor of The Best American Travel Writing anthology, but it turns out Mr. Wilson is also an excellent writer himself. “A Game Journey,” which describes a boar hunt in France, is a fun, revealing read, complete with guns, hard liquor, red meat and snobbery.

3. “A Goat And Global Feminisms” by Sarah Burgess, Sarah in Cameroon

Here’s a short blog post by an American college student studying in Cameroon, who manages to sum up the central problem of well-intentioned foreign aid in a fun little story about a runaway goat.

4. “No Direction Home” by Matt Gross, World Hum

The good people of Worldhum.com have celebrated Thanksgiving by putting together a series of reflections about home that feature a couple of professional vagabonds – Rolf Potts and Matt Gross. Matt’s story is heart-felt, personal and true, a window into the travails of a successful travel writer. Also make sure to check out the audio slide show narrated by Matt and Rolf.

5. “Tales Of A Luggage-Less Traveler” by Jonathan Yevin, Budget Travel

I just got off the phone with Jonathan Yevin, a travel writer who, like me, will be working next month on the Fodor’s Guide to Patagonia. We talked about the tone we’re trying to hit with the guidebook and what we’re planning to pack – when I told Jonathan I’m bringing a tent, he laughed and said: “Dude, go light. I once traveled from Ecuador to Mexico with no luggage at all.”

Unbelievably, Jonathan’s story checks out – he even wrote up the experience for Budget Travel. Some travelers try to carry home with them on the road – others, it seems, are comfortable treating the world as their home.

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

Photo by Mark Hochstetler

Read a great travel story lately? Leave a link below!

Churches, temples, mosques, synagogues – whatever faith they belong to, and wherever they are in the world, these holy places almost always make it onto the tourist’s itinerary.

We come out of curiosity about another country’s religious traditions, or to see the incredible artistic and architectural creations, or simply to soak in that solemn, reverential vibe so strikingly absent from almost all other aspects of modern life.

And therein lies the dilemma: if enough of us stampede into holy places, won’t it be destroyed by our chit-chatting, camera-clicking presence? Well, not necessarily. Or at least, not entirely.

Here are a few reminders to help you minimize your impact – to reduce your tourist footprint – while you travel to the holy places of the world.

Before You Go

If you’re heading to a predominantly Hindu country, why not brush up on the basic tenets of the religion? I’m not suggesting that you memorize all the various deities involved, or learn to recite the Ramayana, but some basic background shouldn’t be hard to acquire.

Knowing what’s going on around you will not only enhance your experience; it will make you much less likely to spoil someone else’s visit, or worse, offend a local worshiper. And it will save you the embarrassment of showing up in Prague’s historic Jewish district on a Saturday, because you’ll already know that the synagogues are closed to the public then.

This applies not only to those “exotic” eastern religions like Daoism or Buddhism, but also to those that may be more familiar to you. Isn’t it about time you found out why the Eastern Orthodox churches broke with Rome almost a millennium ago? Or brushed up on the major points of disagreement between the Church of England and Scottish Presbyterianism?

Religious history, all too often, is not much different from political history, and it’s worth knowing a bit about it before you start your trip.

What To Wear, What Not To Wear

One thing every major religion has in common is an aversion to scantily-clad mortals in its houses of worship. For guys, shorts are almost always a no-no, and for girls, short skirts and cleavage are equally taboo.

Visible shoulders and under-arms are often frowned upon also, so regardless of your gender, always travel with at least one pair of long pants (or a long, loose-fitting skirt) and a shirt that covers at least your upper arms.

Beyond those general rules, each religion has its own strictures, whether it be a ban on leather in a Jain temple, or a woman’s hair being covered in a mosque. These specifics are normally clearly signed, and most places that require extra covering (such as a headscarf) will provide them.

Even if there is no one physically enforcing the dress code, always observe it. You are visiting by choice; if you have a personal or philosophical objection to clothing restrictions you are more than welcome to boycott the institution in question.

The Big Issue: Photography

Of course, as tourists we always want to take photos. (What’s the point of visiting a famous landmark if you can’t take a million photos to post on Facebook later, right?) Often, though, the caretakers of the church or temple you are visiting will have decided that clicking, flashing cameras – and the contortions involved in getting that perfect shot – are not suitable for a holy building.

Most often, the places that allow photography are the same places that charge admission, while those that do not allow photography allow anyone to visit for free.

Photography, along with ticket booths, can detract from the spiritual nature of a place, so in these latter cases, the caretakers are attempting to preserve the original purpose of the building even at the expense of some lost revenue. Respect their decision by treating the building as what it is – a spiritual haven for many people – and not as a made-for-tourists hotspot.

If there is no sign, don’t assume photography is allowed – ask someone. Even if it is allowed, they will appreciate your concern.

Additional charges for photography, in places that already charge for admission, may seem like a money grab. But I’ve seen these additional charges in the poorer areas of Asia or Eastern Europe – which means they add up to a few extra pennies for the average visitor. Pay up. After all, how much support do you think the government of India can really afford to give its thousands (or millions) of temples?

Leave Your Politics At Home, But Pack Your Common Sense

Got a beef with the Catholic Church because of their stance on condom use in an HIV-positive era? Fine. Write a letter, attend a rally, post a video on YouTube, but don’t take your anger out on your fellow visitors to St. Peters or the Vatican Museums.

There is a time and a place for political gestures – and frankly, just by paying admission you’re undermining any point you may be trying to make once you’re inside. Dress codes vary, photography rules come and go, but the bottom line when you are visiting these holy places is to remember that they are very, very important to some of your fellow human beings.

You may not share their faith, you may even disagree with it strongly, but if you are going to visit a house of worship the least you can do is show respect. That means not hopping the barrier to strike a faux-pious pose next to the altar. It means turning your cell phone off, and keeping your voice down while you’re admiring the artwork. It means staying in your seat if you’ve decided to save a few dollars by attending a service instead of visiting as a tourist.

Most of all, it means opening your eyes, reading the signs, asking questions, and doing your best to make your visit as unobtrusive as possible.

Eva Holland is a historical researcher and freelance writer based in Ottawa, Canada. She is a blogger for World Hum and for Rolf Potts’ Vagablogging, and her travel writing has appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, The Edmonton Journal, and Matador Travel.

Were these tips helpful? Leave a comment below!

It’s time now to round-up our favourite links from the week.

What does denial have to do with forgiveness? Quite a lot, says the NY times article “Denial Makes the World Go Round”

With films like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘Sicko’ we seem to be living in the golden age of documentaries. Learn how activists and filmmakers are teaming up to change the world.

“Plausible and even courageous in the mouth of a patient who knows he’s going to die, the sentiment fits equally well in the heart of a citizen-ry that believes it is already dead.” Quoted from the must-read article “Specific Suggestion: General Strike” in Harper’s.

Savour that dog-eared paperback in your hands while on the road. The future of reading is coming.

Religion is back…with a vengeance, so says “The New Wars of Religion.”

Finally, for the travel photographers, here’s 10 Ways to Add Variety to Your Digital Photos.

Enjoy the weekend!

A laptop can be a handy tool to have on the road, especially if you’re blogging about your adventures or attempting to become an LIP (Location Independent Professional).

In previous articles I’ve given advice about what to look for in a perfect travel laptop, essential items to have in your pack to go with it, and how to keep it from getting lost, stolen or broken along the way.

But do you even need to bring it in the first place? Here are 3 questions to consider when you’re unsure of packing your laptop.

1. What, specifically, do you plan on doing with your laptop?

If you cannot answer this question with anything other than, “because it might be helpful,” or, “I might want to use it,” then perhaps you don’t need it. Increased responsibility can be a real bummer when you’re traveling, so if you don’t need something, why bring it along?

Write down a list of the specific ways you intend to use it. Typical travelers may come up with something like this:

• Internet, email, Skype
• Back up, edit, and manage photos
• Maintain a travel blog or website

A laptop will handle all of these with ease, along with the added bonus of saving you money on Internet fees in cafes. Plus, you can find free wireless at airports, hotels, and cafes, and watch the odd DVD movie. But you still haven’t convinced yourself you need your laptop yet.

Taking your list from above, answer the following question:

2. Can you do any of that without the laptop?

Chances are the answer is yes. Thanks to the abundance of Internet cafes in areas frequented by travelers, you are usually never far away from a connection. As well, plenty of computers at cafes today have Skype installed with headsets.

Many cafes will also be more than happy to burn your digital photos from a memory card to a CD (for a small fee, of course). If you get CDs burned and upload your photos to a photo sharing site like Flickr, you don’t have to worry about losing any of your amazing travel shots.

With a special adapter you can even download your digital pictures to your iPod and store them there, or back them up on a USB thumb drive. And most blogging platforms have easy to use interfaces that don’t require any special software.

One excellent laptop alternative is an iPod or USB storage device loaded up with portable apps. They are applications that can run without being installed on the computer you use them on, so you never have to worry about what programs are installed on the Internet café machines.

The range of applications available is pretty amazing: everything from Firefox to Thunderbird, FTP and photo editing programs. The best part is they’re free. And if you’re worried about online security, using Portable Firefox keeps sensitive data stored on your iPod or USB drive, not the computer you use it on.

If you still have some tasks that can’t be achieved without your own computer, such as video and intensive photo editing, special software for business, or anything else, then you have a compelling reason to bring your laptop.

But hang on: there’s just one final question to ask yourself before you go:

3. Do you really need to be doing that stuff while you’re traveling?

I’m not one to talk; I brought my laptop, video camera, audio recording equipment, and everything that goes along with it on my journey around the world. It was worth it, but at times I questioned my decision to have a travelogue with so many multimedia trimmings.

To keep you from regretting your decision, just make sure you can confidently answer these three questions before setting off.

Of course once you are out there with your laptop, you can enjoy the benefits of having it with you: working on your photos and emails in your hostel (or at a street café) sipping a cold beer is much more enjoyable than a busy Internet café on an ancient computer.

To sum it all up, packing a laptop can be a great idea if done for the right reasons. Just keep in mind that unless you have very specific or heavy use requirements, you might want to leave it at home.

Between Internet cafes and portable apps, you could get by without the extra responsibility and liability that comes with the decision to bring your laptop traveling with you.

Kevin Allgood and his girlfriend Valerie Marhsall are currently traveling around the world and blogging about it via Big Trip Blog. Their site also features some great vodcasts, travel tips and more.

As humans, we have basic needs for food, shelter, medicine, and a few durable goods like clothing, tools and cooking implements.

The quality of our food, our shelter and our medicines all go to promote our health. To be healthy means to be free of disease and sickness, to be strong and energetic, and to live a long life. Beyond this, we pretty much just want to have a good time.

We’re a social species; we need community – to form bonds of friendship, respect and love. Being part of a community helps with having a good time. It’s more fun to grow food or build a house with the help of others; the quality of the product is usually better, too.

We have large brains, and although the evolutionary jury is still out on whether these are adaptive or mal-adaptive organs, we have a need to use them for various types of stimulation and self-expression. Intellectual and creative development are essential ingredients of human happiness.

So – food, shelter, medicine, a few essential goods, community, and intellectual development and creative self-expression – what else is there? How about security. Having a degree of security in the attainment of well-being is also important.

That’s pretty much it, isn’t it? Good news! Life is simple!

Obtaining these needs in sufficient quantities seems like it ought to be pretty easy. So why does life seem so complicated and difficult most of the time?

Roots of the Problem

If I had to answer this question with only one word, I would say, “institutions.” To quote Edward Abbey:

“In our institutions the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.”

Many of our institutions are deeply flawed, and it is evident that these flaws are at the root of our discontent, thwarting our efforts to achieve a happy life.

For example, one flaw at the root of our modern economic system is the “grow-or-die” mentality – the mentality of a cancer cell.

It is impossible for the human economy to grow indefinitely on a finite planet Earth, although economists, politicians and the heads of the Great Corporations are hell bent pursuing policies and strategies for as much growth as possible, as quickly as possible.

The symptoms revealing the physical and biological absurdity of this economic foolishness are increasingly apparent in the form of pollution building up in our air, water and soils, the degradation of ecosystems and catastrophic losses in biodiversity, and the disturbance of the climate.

Our media institutions are deeply flawed as well, first and foremost because they have done such a shameful job of informing us about things that are truly important.

In fact, the media is often implicated in our outright deception, as in the lead up to the war in Iraq. Their advertisements are designed to make us feel inferior so we’ll go out and buy crap we don’t need to try and feel better. The media is heavily into the game of deceit and manipulation – what good do we get from this?

The No Spin Zone

But it would be foolish to expect our media to inform us on these matters, since the corporate institutions that own the media are the same that heedlessly and recklessly pursue profits and growth at the expense of our communities and the environment.

Perhaps we might expect to learn about these problems in our educational institutions so that they can be fixed. But there again, the same “special interests” are at work, not informing us about the ecological and social realities of our world, but rather training us to be effective servants of their world – which is organized around profit and growth.

The educational institutions train, for example, the specialized servants of industrial agriculture.

Industrial agriculture uses massive amounts of toxic chemicals, degrades the soil, impoverishes biological and genetic diversity, destroys rural communities and livelihoods, treats animals cruelly, is obscenely wasteful, and is entirely dependent upon huge public subsidies and heavy inputs of non-renewable fossil energy.

How can we be healthy if our food is poisoned and its nutritional value reduced by bad farming methods? How can we be happy knowing animals are suffering for our food, and knowing that our trip to the supermarket makes us complicit in the destruction of the environment?

How can we feel secure knowing our dinner is dependent upon fossil fuels, for which war after war is being fought to secure?

Our flawed educational institutions also induce a helplessness that goes along with the overspecialized training we receive in the service of a bad economic system. To the extent that we are employed as specialists, we have neither the time, nor the skills, nor many of us the inclination, to be generalists, to be able to do a variety of tasks for ourselves.

Back to the Land?

How many of us could, if we had the time, grow our own food, process it, prepare it, preserve it for winter? How many of us could, if we had the time, build our own home and design its landscape, making use of ecological principles for efficiency and aesthetics?

How many of us could plough a field or sustainably log a forest using a team of horses? How many of us could make our own clothing or tools or furniture, if we had the time and inclination to do so?

Very few, because we have not learned to do them. Instead, our educational institutions render us dependent on corporations and other institutions to employ us according to our “profession.”

We sell our labor to one institution for a wage, which we use to buy all the things we need for our lives from other corporate institutions. And thanks to our media, who foster the sensation of unlimited wants through advertising, we can never seem to “get ahead,” or keep up with what is “fashionable.”

How can we be happy if we are always wanting something more? How can we be content when we are constantly made to feel inadequate with what we’ve got right now?

How can we avoid feeling anxious if the level of affluence we hope to achieve is always receding away in front of us, even as we grasp for it more fervently? And how can we avoid feeling depressed at the meaninglessness of this blind consumerism?

It turns out that our medical institutions have their answer to these questions, too – prescribed pharmaceuticals.

Well, bullshit.

I ask you now, as I have asked myself many times, “What are you living for?”

Think Local, Act Local

I am living to be healthy and happy and secure. For this, I simply need adequate food, shelter and medicine, to be part of a community, to be stimulated intellectually and express myself creatively, and to attain a measure of security in the procurement of these elements comprising genuine well-being.

And as we have already seen, meeting these needs and achieving security should be simple; if it is not so, it is because of the interference of flawed institutions.

Therefore, meeting human needs and achieving health, happiness and security should follow naturally from the opting-out of participation in flawed institutions, and pursuing well-being in a more efficient and direct fashion. That many people achieve affluence through obedience to institutions, but lack health, happiness and general well-being also recommends this strategy.

This opt-out requires what I would say, “local self-reliance.”

Local self-reliance involves the creation of a local economy for food and other essential goods. It means relying upon traditional knowledge of medicinal plants, herbs, barks, roots, and ferments in health care.

Local self-reliance calls for the ingenuity and the labor of humans and animals in place of artificially cheap (due to subsidies), polluting, non-renewable forms of energy. Homes are built with locally abundant materials such as mud, stone and straw, and make use of passive solar heating and cooling, rainwater collection, solar water heating, etc.

It involves the local community, of neighborliness, of more face-to-face interactions, and of cooperation instead of competition. It involves the development of place-centered knowledge, its ecosystems, climate, geology, hydrology, and wildlife. It requires us to take responsibility for educating ourselves, which is the only way we truly learn anyway.

Abbey again: “Freedom begins between the ears.”

Local self-reliance involves the promotion of creative self-expression that produces things both useful and beautiful – a rocking chair, a painting or sculpture, a piece of music, a tasty dessert, an efficient wood stove, or a composting toilet. (Yes, even a toilet should be beautiful and well-made). Craftsmanship and care are central to these creative works.

Local self-reliance means that we will have to work. It means we will get sweaty and dirty with some regularity.

But it also means we will have to think. We will have to undertake problem-solving exercises that require the use of our intellect as well as the use of our conscience, our compassion and our intuition – we will have to think ecologically.

Our scientific efforts will not be divorced from our morality and emotions, as the modern paradigm has attempted to enforce, often with disastrous results.

In short, local self-reliance means getting what we need to live long, healthy, happy lives in ways that are direct, efficient, ecologically sustainable, and secure.

Opting Out of the System

As long as we rely upon far-removed institutions that operate according to logic flawed at the deepest fundamental levels, and in fact whose “success” completely depends upon the continued failure of our communities and the destruction of ecosystems, then we only exacerbate our frustration in attaining true well-being.

We must turn our backs on a broken system and begin to do things the right way, for ourselves. We cannot expect institutional support for this work, and nor should we. It’s not needed anyway.

Get over the idea that you need money to do everything. Money is just a symbol – don’t make too much of it. You don’t need money, you need food (so grow it), or a place to stay (so build it or crash with some friends), or a hat (so knit it), or whatever.

In many, many cases, knowledge, creativity and resourcefulness can substitute for money. Not having much money forces you to develop these skills, which anyway are necessary for obtaining true wealth and well-being, instead of the symbolic, insecure, false kind of wealth that money represents.

Travel the world and learn by direct experience as much as possible. Read what you want, when you want – you’ll retain more.

To quote Ed Abbey once again: “What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.”

Context is what imbues information with the qualities that allow for the development of sympathy, deep understanding, love and compassion that turn the storage of mere disembodied facts into wisdom. Context is what you get from experiential learning, as opposed to the mere disembodied facts inculcated by institutional learning.

So if you want the happy, healthy, easy life, and a good measure of security in hanging on to it, then eschew the institutions – educational, corporate, political, economic, and media – and get right down to the work of building a viable local economy and promoting local self-reliance.

Recruit others in this work – you can’t do it alone and you’ll need all the help you can get. And besides, overthrowing the system is way more fun when done with friends.

This essay is turning out to be a regular Abbey-fest, but I’ve got to end with this quote:

“How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.”

Josh Kearns speaks the truth, y’all. Comments are welcome.

Josh Kearns is a bona fide hill-billy who currently runs AqueousSolutions, an NGO devoted to developing and promoting self-reliant forms of water purification. He’s been a researcher in environmental chemistry and ecological economics and is into techniques for high quality self-reliant living like organic farming, natural building, permaculture and bluegrass music.