Photo: takomabibelot

Here’s a scary statistic: hate groups grew by 40% last year in the United States.

A Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report noted that the number of “militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy” jumped up immensely in 2009, with active Patriot groups increasing a whopping 244%.

Yep, you read that right – two-hundred and forty-four percent.

Seems it has been more than a decade since some of these groups have really seen the light of day, but the social climate suddenly became “ripe” for their re-emergence. According to the SPLC, these Patriot groups:

Define themselves as opposed to the “New World Order,” engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines.

Intelligence Report editor Mark Potok adds:

“The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead.”

Increasing Violence

Maybe even more frightening is the surge in “native extremist groups”, ones that actually harass or are violent toward immigrants and foreigners, with the number of these groups growing from 173 groups in 2008 to 309 in 2009.

Besides the fact that physically threatening people from other countries is bad enough, what does this mean for travelers? It seems to me that in the end these hate groups will, understandably, drum up more anti-American sentiment throughout the world, not to mention give more ammo to terrorist organizations abroad.

Fear-mongering in the States usually equals a backlash in other countries, and unfortunately travelers who are open-minded and wish to connect with other cultures end up receiving the brunt of that anger.

Plus, there is the whole notion that we are supposed to be getting closer as a world, understanding each other more, and trying to connect across land and barriers. This type of news just seems to utterly refute that belief. It’s more than a bit disheartening.

At the same time, I guess it’s not necessarily newsworthy to look at the increase in people who are traveling, connecting, and bridging between different cultures, is it?

What do you think the rise in hate groups in the US means for travelers all over the world? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: mikefats

With the winter Olympics in full swing in Vancouver (why is everyone so obsessed with curling, by the way?), it seems like a lot of people are feeling inspired to flex their own competitive-muscles.

I had a friend say she wished she was as good at any one thing as the athletes of the winter games are in their respective sports. Really, becoming good at something just takes time and practice.

For you travelers out there who want a chance to be, well, the best traveler – along with getting some sweet prizes at the end – here’s your chance.

It’s time for another round of the successful Competitours competition in Europe, based on the unstoppable show, The Amazing Race (yes, they are on Season 16).

Seventeen pairs of teams embark on a nine-day mystery itinerary with certain challenges to accomplish – yep, that means you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing until you’re in the middle of it – that winds its way through large cities, “under-the-radar cool spots,” and some pretty off-the-grid locales. All in all, you’ll hit four European countries.

What To Do?

Photo: pedrosimoes7

Some of the themes include culinary samplings (definitely up my alley) and alpine roller coasters, labyrinths, and indoor skiing (up other people’s alley, like those ones who are into curling).

Each team chooses three to four challenges that they dig the most, and then can only use public transportation to get where they need to go. So leave that cab fare at home, cheaters.

Lucky for some of us (ahem), there are no auditions, and you won’t need a stunt double. The challenges are based more on the team’s savviness and ability to chat up locals more than anything else. Therefore, all ages are welcome.

With a sweet $9,000 worth of prizes, and documentation of the challenges via portable camera for the judges to evaluate and score, you’re bound to leave the trip with some great memories and some bling. Plus, you get together with the other teams at night to share stories about the day’s events over a beer or, you know, four.

For more information, check out the Competitours site.

Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/3

Community Connection

Read Eva Holland’s take on running around Europe without those pesky little cameras in Competitours: The Amazing Race Minus the Cameras. Last summer’s race upped the ante by bringing on Amazing Race Season 9 winner Tyler MacNiven as part of the competition; find out more about it in ‘The Amazing Race’ Winner Takes On Competitours.

Photo: Duncan Rawlinson

And just when you thought we were out of the red alert…or orange alert? Yellow, maybe? I never could keep up. Either way, right as we were beginning to feel a bit safe again, along comes another attempted terrorist attack.

A fantastic way to begin the next decade with a holdover from the last – fear. Fear of that which can’t be seen, fear of those we don’t know, fear of that over which we have no control. But at what cost does this fear come? You and I both know it can be a substantial one.

New York Times columnist Liesl Schillinger opened 2010 penning an article that asked exactly what this cost looks like. Schillinger sums it up like this:

We understand other countries and other peoples best by seeing them; to see them, we must travel; to travel, in any concision of time, we must fly. Last week, one man with a grievance and exploding underpants boarded a plane for Detroit. This week, the nation’s attention and travel plans in the new year are held captive, as the battered American airline industry reels.

For some, this incident stingingly takes them right back to those emotions felt eight years ago, and many other times since then. Maybe it’s worth taking a look at some realities here.

Without a doubt, 9/11 instilled tremendous fear in those of us living in the West, as we had never experienced this type of attack on our soil. People around the world, from the Middle East to parts of South America, have had to deal with the threat of attack or a government being overthrown as a part of daily life, but North Americans had never encountered this home-turf reality. It changed how we looked at the world.

But as Schillinger relates, “nobody can tally the number of flights not taken, adventures not dared, countries not visited, because of the public’s anxieties about air travel.” So the real question is, not only how much adventure have we given up, but how much of truly living life?

The Cost of Fear

Mike Jones relives the possibility of his own death if he had been partying just a year later in Kuta Beach, Bali, when suicide and car bombs struck nightclubs in 2002. Even with this felt sense of mortality, he notes in his piece, Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good Travelers:

Studies done by the National Safety Council show that one is far more likely to perish by drowning in the bath or accidentally suffocating in bed than as a result of travel. And while such statistics are in no way consolation for those who lost friends and family in the Bali bombings, or the Mumbai attacks, they do emphasize the heart of the matter: that risk isn’t restricted solely to the adventurous.

Ian MacKenzie, on the other hand, contemplated our sometimes (often?) over-reactive nature to that which more-than-likely will never effect us vs. that which we are encountering in a slow-but-sure death sentence (i.e. being killed by a terrorist vs. global-warming inevitably compromising the entire human race) in, What You Think Probably Won’t Kill You:

How many people stop themselves from heading out into “unknown” lands for fear of real or imagined threats? For my mom, it was the possibility of a natural disaster. For others, it may be fear of robbery, fear of being shot, fear of being the victim of a terrorist bomb…it’s the unknown that we fear, rather than the reality.

Yet fear of travel is not limited to worrying about a terrorist attacking a plane – some of our fears are of such a nature that it takes deep soul-searching to move past them.

Beyond Terrorism

Photo: h.koppdelaney

After the pilots who were busy “updating their calendars” overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles last year, more than a few people who already had dread around flying threw their hands up in the air.

I recently had a conversation with a guy who refuses to ever go on a plane again, because even though statistically speaking, we are much more likely to do in a car crash than a plane, in his words, “How many car accidents have you been in? And you are still here, talking to me. Plane crash? I would never have known you.” Touche.

Ian MacKenzie looked at this common anxiety-provoking phenomenon in Are You Afraid Of Flying?, pondering the available options if you don’t want to stop traveling (and most of us don’t, right?). Megan Hill recently delved beyond the dread of flying to the distress of finding yourself physically hurt in a different country, and how that experience might impact future travel, in Fear and Loathing: How Risk of Injury Can Inhibit Travel Plans.

So how do we move ahead while all of the very real dangers out there only continue to grow? In many ways, our fears around travel are the same as any fear in life – there is always the possibility of failure, defeat, or harm. But if we don’t take that leap, we aren’t really living, are we? We can only hope that if something bad does happen, we will not only survive, but eventually thrive from the challenge put before us.

Have fears around terrorism or other factors hindered your travel experiences? Share your thoughts below.

Community Connection

Be sure to read Tom Gates’ poignant recounting of his experience in New York City that fateful day in 8:46 am, 9/11 Manhattan.

Shocked at what’s in store / Photo: CarbonNYC

Here we go, just a few days left in this God-forsaken decade. Well, it hasn’t been all bad, but we certainly are in for some changes in the next decade, no doubt (or, so we hope).

The same is true when it comes to travel – there are new fads and traditions already on the horizon. So why not take a little gander at what’s in store?

Thanks, Mark Morford, for your inspiration, as always.

Sexting

Oh, things certainly have changed since my day. To think, I spent five months in Italy in 1999 without sending a single text, much less participating in any kind of sexting (apparently a media term, not what the kids are calling it). I’m not sure the same could be said about the cigarette-chomping, cell-phone jabbering teenage Italians that surrounded me on the trains, if texting existed then.

Nonetheless, if America’s youth tells us anything about the world (and you know it does), probably at least a third of the kids you will encounter in most parts of the world, save certain areas in Asia and the Middle East, are texting a nude photo or video to a “loved” one right as we speak. Watch out in 2010, it’s just going to get hairier.

But before you text that hottie you met in Spain, give it a ponder:

Gay Spiritual Travel

Gay spiritual travel is here to stay, people. Get used to it. But please don’t use this site to book a vacation (introduction to boating?).

Astral Travel

Astral travel, the exiting of the physical body, will be all the rage starting in 2010. Seriously. Actually, it already is – these two words show up at least 4 times a day in my Google alerts. And no, my Google alerts do not include the keywords “astral travel.” At the very least, it certainly is a cheaper and easier way to get to India.

Religion Vs. Science, With a New Twist

Religion vs. science, science vs. religion. Eh. We’ve debated it quite a few different ways here at BNT over the years, so I think 2010 deserves a new way of looking at the subject matter.

Wait! Religion Dispatches is already ahead of the end-of-the-worst-decade-ever curve. Looks like we’ve been viewing things all kinds of wrong for a while now, when all we had to do was look to the WWF (and I’m not talking about the World Wildlife Federation).

Check out Dan Mathewson and Byron R. McCane, who “reveal how the equally toothless performances of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and creationists like Ken Ham share more with the garish world of Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheik than with serious scholarship.” Priceless.

Rasslin’ with Religion & Science from Religion Dispatches on Vimeo.

Now you can feel comfortable debating religion and science with anyone anywhere in the world, from Israel to Kentucky. Maybe.

Being Removed From Flights

When even Ivana Trump is getting kicked off flights, whose next? Babies? Best watch what you do as you board those flights starting in 2010.

What other fantastic travel truths do you see ahead? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: Creativity103

Things don’t look good for those who get caught bringing drugs into the Gaza Strip.

With nearly a third of the 300 prisoners in the main jail in Gaza detained due to drug offenses, a 10-year sentence is apparently not enough of a “deterrent for this lucrative trade,” at least according to Hamas and this article on Haaretz.com.

While Mexico legalized small amounts of pot and other narcotics in the “War on Drugs”, Hamas has decided to impose hard labor and the possibility of the death penalty on those caught smuggling drugs in through tunnel trade. It seems the tunnel trade in and of itself is officially sanctioned by Hamas as a way of defying Israel’s blockade, but it is much harder to control the flow of goods than through a normal customs process.

Recently seized contraband include washing machines full of hash and the Opiate pain-killer Tramadol. Ecstasy is another popular drug with the young, and ends up being sold in high schools.

It seems drug smuggling has surged in the past few months, or “increased alarmingly” to quote the article. Why could this be? Anything to do with the daily warfare and struggle for survival that both the Israelis and Palestinians must face? Hmmm.

Survival Instinct

When you take away people’s ability to live a safe and secure life, they are going to do their best to get to a safe and secure place (or forget where they are altogether). Even the article notes:

Tramadol has been a big seller…among those of the population of 1.5 million who have found solace in drugs from after Israel’s three-week military onslaught last January, launched to stop Hamas firing rockets into Israel.

Though they are also sure to add: “The motivations of some drug-users are also banal: to banish boredom, improve concentration or for sexual enjoyment.” Ok, yes, that’s a given in any culture.

But along with the fact that the need to mentally escape is inevitable, there is also the tiny issue of excruciatingly high rates of unemployment and poverty rates in the Gaza (this article puts them at 50%). Where there is poverty, drugs will be sold, if only for monetary purposes. Really, it’s survival on both the economic and psychological fronts.

So, they’re gonna stop smugglers with the possibility of the death penalty. Good idea. Aren’t most people there facing that on a daily basis anyway?

Do you think taking a harsher approach to drug smuggling will work? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: smokeonit

For me, going abroad – admittedly with a bit of trepidation and fear – my junior year of college was something I decided to do in part because several good friends had already done the same thing. And they loved it.

Tons of wine, endless pasta, bread, and cheese, and gorgeous surroundings in Florence? This did not sound like a problem.

But, as Nomadic Matt recently noted, I find myself in the minority. He questions why Americans still aren’t traveling overseas, a subject he first tackled in a post last year.

Yes, 21% of Americans have their passports now as compared to 15% a few years ago (obviously, still a pathetically low number). But travel off of the North American, and higher areas of the South American, continents has actually decreased. According to Matt, more people have passports because you need them to get to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, where travel has increased.

Less About Money, More About Ignorance

Photo: Capture Queen ™

His reasoning? It’s not so much that people don’t have the money to travel, even in these hard economic times, but it has more to do with cultural ignorance, as in “not knowing about other cultures” and not “Americans are ignorant buffoons.”

Other factors include fear, priorities around work, and lack of awareness – especially politically.

Despite the rise of China, Brazil, and India, our politicians tell us everything in America is the best (yet #38 in healthcare). Countries will always do what we want. America is the leader. We are the city upon a hill. An when you are the best, why go to “godforsaken” countries where they hate you for being American and might rob you?

Last year, Julie Schwietert asked if Americans are afraid of travel after the not-so-excited reaction to Obama’s Middle East and Europe trip in July 2008. She noted, “It’s a trip that should make America proud (particularly given the geographic and diplomatic gaps in the current president’s consciousness), but Americans’ response to Obama’s trip has been curiously tepid.”

And we all know how media loves to stir up our fears of the “other.” As Sarah Menkedick wrote in response to the media shitstorm blaming the three Americans held in Iran, “There are two themes here. One is that travel (outside of the U.S and perhaps Western Europe) is dangerous, reckless, and stupid. The other is that only starry-eyed, pot-smoking hippie backpackers are dumb enough to try it, and they get what they deserve.”

The Flip Side

On the other side of the argument, you have a few people noting that “Americans are still traveling abroad,” despite the economic downturn. Not sure if this Forbes Traveler piece makes a good argument, though; yes, travel only slipped less than 1% from 2007 to 2008, but the 2009 numbers up until May showed a 7.7% decrease compared to the same time last year.

Or, as Katy Steinmetz stated in a piece she wrote last year, Behind the myth that few Americans have passports, not only is the accepted statistic wrong (the number is really more around 30%), but that economics and poverty really are at play. On top of the high cost of passports, taking care of your family, buying food, and paying for that healthcare plan, people are left with few dollars to go anywhere, even with a good deal on Orbitz.

Do you think Americans don’t travel abroad because of ignorance and politics, or does it have more to do with money? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: myguerilla

‘Drug tourism’ is going mainstream. Don’t believe me? Do a quick Google search for “Route 36 La Paz, Bolivia“.

Touted as “the world’s first cocaine bar” this lounge, which has to change locations frequently, serves up lines of blow alongside cocktails.

I’ve seen people doing lines right off the bar in dives up in the remote Andean pueblitos of Peru in 2003, so I assure you, Route 36 is not the first, but perhaps the first to advertise it. Drug bars could be the thing Bolivia needs to jump-start tourism, although, if I walked into Route 36, I think I’d stick to cocktails.

Any gringo who sits comfortably in front of a mirror at a public bar in Bolivia is asking for trouble.

Although Latin America is moving towards a new strategy on drugs, you have to remember that in a country with military police, you have zero rights. Bolivia is poor, and so are its soldiers and cops.

If someone felt like it, they could walk in, drag you out of the bar and take you to the nearest bank to empty out your checking account at the ATM with the alternative of throwing you straight into a Bolivian prison.

This is a common move in Colombia. No probable cause; no search warrant; no problem. I had a couple soldiers search me in Taganga, Colombia down to taking every credit card out of my wallet. If I had a bag of anything on me, they would have found it.

Given the fact that “Route 36″ is now world famous and mentioned in mainstream blogs and newspapers, it won’t take long for tactless tourists to blow up their spot and for some shady cop to see how he could capitalize on the situation.

If you want to experiment with coke a little closer to the source, before it’s been stepped on 16 times, I would recommend finding a friend and making sure you can trust them. Even then, you’re taking risks that should not be taken lightly.

Being caught with hard drugs in a poor country can be more than just a minor bump in the road.

What do you think of the cocaine bars? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Further Reading:

The best way to stay safe is remember what 80’s cartoons taught us: and just say no to drugs. Consider 5 Legal Ways To Get High While Traveling.

But if you still want to indulge, check out Tripping Out On The Road.

Photo: rednuht

Man, I wish I was at the Mallorca airport when this happened.

Apparently, a man who had just inherited a large sum of money decided to get all liquored up before his flight.

The booze (and being a complete moron?) led him to hand out $83,000 to other people waiting at the airport.

Unfortunately, only about £2,000 of it was in cash – the rest was in British travelers checks. Those have to be signed by the person who bought them, though I’m guessing forgery is possible?

The benefactor was arrested by police, who was supposedly described as “smelly” and “looking like a tramp.” Fantastic.

What are some more, though decidedly not as beneficial for other people, crazy things that people do at the airport? Getting a Starbucks latte right before heading to security, and then holding up the line while finishing it.

Or how about being so involved in a last minute chair massage, they have to tear through airport to get to their flight, knocking a little old lady down in the process (true story)?

It seems that flying elsewhere has given some people license to be utterly ridiculous and impolite.

What the craziest thing you’ve seen while waiting for a flight? Share your thoughts below.

Ian Usher selling it all / Photo: vnecono.vn

Some of you probably heard about the guy in Australia who was selling his entire life – house, furniture, car, friends – on eBay.

Along with the Russian girl selling her virginity in Germany, things didn’t go quite as originally planned. The bidders all dropped like flies once the person with the $400,000 winning bid couldn’t make it happen.

Nevertheless, the guy behind ALife4Sale, Ian Usher, is now cruising around the world in order to complete 100 goals in 100 weeks. These goals range from the life-selling-scheme, to nude sky-diving, to watching a baby being born.

He also includes some charity work, such as trying to raise $50,000 for bowel cancer research. Check out the full list here.

Of his decision to “sell his life” and take on the world, Usher says:

I have had goals and dreams for as long as I can remember, but like everyone else, I have found that living often gets in the way, and goals get put aside for too long! It’s time to start ticking off some goals. It’s time to challenge myself!

I have to admit, I was pretty impressed with some of his out-there endeavors, such as spending the night in a haunted house alone and driving a car off a jetty and escaping it as it sinks (ok, that probably would not make my list). He plans to see the Northern Lights, and just about every cool place you can think of in the world.

And he wants to secure a book deal. Ah, yes of course.

Photo: divemasterking2000

There also is the little tidbit about how the idea to sell his life came from his wife leaving him, which he has since written about in detail.

Readers were able to get the first part of the story on his in-depth website, but had to pay AUS$2.95 to find out how the story ended.

He’s also wrangled out quite a few sponsors, and Disney has optioned a movie deal about the eBay life-selling fiasco.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that to take on 100 adventures all over the world, it can’t be just about making money. Adventure travel has to be in his heart to even have the energy.

But I wonder if we are getting to the point where every move we make is for sale, including our own suffering. Some could say he has turned heartbreak into something positive, but others might say he has exploited himself and his ex-wife in order to make himself famous and rich.

Do you think Usher is a spirited adventurer, or simply a smart businessman? Share your thoughts below.

Community Connection

What isn’t for sale in society today? Check out Asanas For Sale: The Privatization Of Yoga for a look at the yoga trademarking trend, and Nature For Sale: The Growing Trend Of Wilderness Consumption, which questions the commodification of nature.

Photo: mariachily

A few days ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a speech about the possibility of banning burqas in public.

As many know, France banned headscarves (well, the Islamic ones anyway), the burka, turbans and other “religious symbols” in schools in 2004.

According to the government, the purpose was to completely separate religion and state.

But this time around, they are claiming the possible ban is about women’s rights. Sarkozy stated he believes the burqa “reduced [women] to servitude and undermined their dignity.”

Similar to five years ago, there are people who say that the possible ban, at this point only a proposed parliamentary commission to discuss the issue, is discriminatory against Muslims. Many also blame France for becoming completely homogenized.

Or it could be simply politically-motivated. In an article on The First Post, Neil Clark argues this is a calculated move by Sarkozy, who “knows how to spot a vote winner.”

Islamophobia Or Women’s Rights?

Clark continues his piece by voicing the dilemma that is occurring not only in France, but other parts of Europe as well:

For some leftists, civil liberties, a strong belief in multiculturalism and a determination to fight the rising tide of Islamophobia come first. For others, defending Enlightenment values and the rights of women are paramount.

What this possible ban once again brings to the surface is the debate over whether or not the burqa is actually seen as oppressive by Muslim women.

The Times of India ran a story saying many Muslim Indian women are “disgusted” with Sarkozy’s comments. They believe the burqa “is an article of faith, a pillar of support…in a world where sexual-crime is rampant, the burqa denotes comfort, security and allows a woman her dignity.”

Burqa or bikini – women’s choice? / Photo: DeusXFlorida

I also found an interesting take on what Afghan Muslim women vs. American (non-Muslim women) must face.

In The Choice Between Burqa and Bikini, written by Abid Ullah Jan, he argues that it is, in fact, western women who must face a culture that wishes to control their bodies. He noted:

From the hair removal products that hit the marketplace in the 1920s to today’s diet control measures that seek to eliminate even healthy fat from the female form, American girls and women have been stripped bare by a sexually expressive culture whose beauty dictates have exerted a major toll on their physical and emotional health.

Of course, on the other side is the argument that the burqa represents the ownership of women by their male family members, no personal freedom whatsoever, and complete sexual repression. And, in reality, nowhere in the Qur’an does it explicitly state that Muslim women must wear one.

Sarkozy ended his speech saying “the burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.”

Is France fighting for women’s rights or taking away Muslim’s rights? Share your thoughts below.

Community Connection

A bit southeast of France, the opposite is happening as Western women search for veils in Baxter Jackson’s piece, Veil Shopping In Cairo. Also, delve deeper into the debate around religious and cultural norms at Where To Draw the Line When Defending Cultural Norms and Put Some Damn Clothes On!

Photo: wili_hybrid

Marketing. These days, everyone is finding their niche, their place in the big-bad capitalist market, their branding, if you will.

And apparently, this includes a new and improved “upscale” India.

Amitabh Kant, former joint secretary in the ministry of tourism, just released a new book called, Branding India — An Incredible Story.

In it, he details how the “Incredible India” campaign, created in 2002, has approached increasing tourism.

Check out the campaign video:

More importantly (to some people), is that since the campaign began, tourism has increased more in value than in volume – leaping from $2.8 billion to $11.5 billion spent, while the number of visitors only grew from about 2.3 million to about 5.6 million.

In the Business Standard article, Position India as an upmarket destination, Kant says:

Based on a well-researched strategy, we worked out a marketing plan…we were clear about the positioning of the destination, in that we were not looking at a mass destination — we were looking at India which was going to appeal to the upper end of the market.

Ah yes, the all important “upper end of the market.”

The Positives And Negatives Of Increased Tourism

It’s a given that more tourists means more employment, as Kant notes in the article. Tourism floods money into a country, often helps with improving health conditions and infrastructure, and makes technology more accessible.

At the same time, increased tourism, especially of the upscale variety, means the development of a consumerist monoculture (snow globes of the Taj Mahal, anyone?), environmental degradation and upheaval, and makes technology more accessible (yes, this can be a bad thing).

Don’t get me wrong. I think all the people of India deserve good clean, running water and basic needs taken care of, and maybe this type of branding will help with that.

But to me, India is about the sacred and divine, over-crowded streets, and dysentery. It’s not always pretty or comfortable, but isn’t that part of the point?

Buddhism At Its Finest

Religion is also being used to stimulate this influx in tourism. As India Reports notes, a spotlight has been turned on Buddhism and it’s power to bring tourists to the country.

Photo: wili_hybrid

Pilgrimages to the Bodhi tree “might provide [India] with more tourist revenue (estimated at one billion dollars) than the Taj Mahal” if their plans for constructing hotels of “international standard” and more direct international flights from places like Japan and China (note the US is not mentioned) goes through.

Alright, so then we could be just as comfortable as if we were visiting the Taj Mahal in Vegas. Fantastic.

But I’m still not convinced that catering to upscale clientele (tourists), who often fall on the high end of resource consumption, is going to be the best thing for the people, or land, of India.

What do you think of the “branding” of India as an upscale destination? Share your thoughts below.

]]> http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2009/06/11/incredible-branding-a-new-and-improved-india/feed/ 9 http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2009/06/05/media-banned-from-tiananmen-square-by-umbrella-wielding-police/ http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2009/06/05/media-banned-from-tiananmen-square-by-umbrella-wielding-police/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:42:58 +0000 Ian MacKenzie http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/?p=2635 On the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, Chinese authorities have blocked media access to the Square. And they have irritating umbrellas.

Read the full dispatch from the BBC here.

Are any of you travelers at the scene?

This is your time to show travel writing can be a political act. Share your photos, videos, thoughts, below!

Competitours: The Amazing Race meets Travel Improv

Gotta admit, I’m not much one for reality shows. I think I’ve seen the Amazing Race once. Yet I got a wee bit excited when I started perusing through the Competitours website.

For those who are like me and only know that they eat bugs on the Amazing Race (wait, that’s a different show, right?), what the people over at Competitours are doing might seem like a whole new phenomenon.

Basically, you travel around Europe as a part of a team and do all kinds of cool challenges based on whether you are in the city or the country that day.

Here’s an example of one of their challenges:

Visit a Torture Museum in Prague, choose three instruments of torture and explain how each could be used as a non-lethal household item.

That’s what I like to see – reduce, reuse, recycle.

Another one:

Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and recruit and videotape 15 other tourists to do a rousing rendition of the French national dance, the can-can.

That’s actually a good way to get to know people while you’re traveling, and hey, you might end up getting some complimentary Cotes du Rhone from an appreciative French viewer.

Travel Now, Pay Later

Dance, boy, dance! /Photo: earcos

The really interesting part is there’s no upfront pay-to-play; you pay after the trip is over.

That way, you can make your own videos, upload them to your blog, and have a nice little “donate here” button that might get you some cash for the payment (no need to thank me for the idea…actually, please do).

They have a few different packages to choose from – standard for 14 days, express for 10 days, and a nice little budget trip for 8 days.

The next budget trip is soon, June 8-15, but if you can’t swing that, there is an express one that begins June 22 and a standard one on July 9.

Ok, the really REALLY interesting part, I will admit, is the grand prize: a worldwide travel spree, with up to 40 nights (!) paid hotel for the standard trip, with 2 airline tickets and $5,000 in spending money, baby. And you can go just about anywhere in the world there is a Starwood Hotel (yes, staying in a hotel–not a hostel. Ahh, luxury).

Beat “The Hippy” From The Amazing Race

But if you are one of those people that does know a lot about the Amazing Race, you’ll be pumped to hear that the Amazing Race Season 9 winner, Tyler MacNiven (otherwise known as “The Hippy”) and his Mom will be on the July 28th trip.

So if you want to take them down, here’s your chance!

Be sure to check out Eva Holland’s previous piece on Competitours over at Matador Pulse.

Are you up for the challenge? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: killthebird

I have to admit, when I first saw the headline, Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals, I thought it was a joke.

But apparently, a “decline in crime has led to overcapacity in the prison system.”

And to deal with the loss of jobs that will occur with the closures, some “reprieve” may come from Belgium, who apparently has too many criminals.

That got me thinking: why does one country have so few criminals it has to shut down prisons, and the country next door has so many they have to export their prisoners?

Boingboing points out in their coverage of the shut-downs that in the Netherlands, “most drugs are legal,” though a commenter who appears Dutch says this isn’t the case; only marijuana is “semi-legal.”

The blog Eideard adds:

Here we are – studying a nation perpetually castigated by Law and Order nutballs for being too soft on drug users, too free and easy on sex, having too many unions and too much personal freedom in the face of a large immigrant population and the danger of terrorism – ending up with empty beds in the prison system. What’s wrong with this picture of freedom, tolerance – absent Christian morality? Apparently, damned little.

Could it be that who we define as “criminals” throughout the world are based more on petty crimes (or taboo choices) more than anything else?

Here’s the problem with that theory: Pot and prostitution are pretty much legal in Belgium too.

And even within the Netherlands, there were some angry reactions to the news that prisons were being closed. An opposition MP, Fred Teeven, stated, “Violent crime is not going down…and we are far too willing to use community service. The Minister is wrong to close down prisons because of falling demand.”

Ok, got it:

Community Service + Falling Demand = Bad.
Believing that violent crime is Up + Keeping Prisons Open = Good.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Do you think that sex, drugs, and rock and roll lead to more crime, or are the morality police bent on keeping some people to jail? Share your thoughts below.

Recent headlines in Australian newspapers are putting the spotlight on Thailand, but for all the wrong reasons. Stories of tourists being detained, charged, made to pay hefty fines, and even beaten are raising some questions.

We’ve previously covered Extreme Cases Of Travelers Imprisoned Abroad, 5 Ways Travelers Can Avoid Being Caught With Drugs and How You Can Help Travelers Imprisoned Abroad.

But here are three relatively new cases to consider and the implication for tourists.

Case #1

Annice Smoel at Melbourne Airport. Photo: John Woudstra

Mother-of-four Annice Smoel has just been released and deported from Thailand after she pled guilty to stealing a $50 bar mat.

Mrs. Smoel was in Phuket celebrating her mum’s 60th birthday when a couple of girlfriends decided to play a prank. They stuffed the bar mat into her purse without her knowledge.

The story after that is a bit hazy. One account is that after discovering the mat in her purse, the police let Mrs. Smoel go, but when bar staff caught up with her later they turned her back in to police. Another story says she was abusive to the police, which is what got her in the predicament she was in.

Mrs. Smoel, who has denied that she was abusive to the Thai police, says as women out by themselves, they were targeted. She claimes that had a man been present, he would have been able to bribe them and that would have been the end of it.

After spending four days in jail, her passport was confiscated and she was stuck in limbo awaiting a trial. Charged with theft, she faced up to five years in a Thai jail. After making a desperate plea to Australian officials and with the story getting worldwide attention, the pressure was on Thai officials.

The governor of Phuket relented and guaranteed that she would be let go if she pled guilty (a not guilty plea would have meant being stuck in Thailand for months awaiting trial).

While Mrs. Smoel is uncertain what happened behind the scenes, she is of the belief that the Thai authorities became worried about the negative effects her story would have on tourism. Her lawyer, Bernard Murphy, had this to say:

“The court hearing came out of the ether and essentially a deal evolved which was You plead guilty, we’ll pay the ($38) fine, we’ll apologise and you go home.”

Bizarrely, as she was being deported, officials told her that she was welcome back any time.

Case #2

Logan Hesse and his wife.

Shortly after Mrs. Smoel’s story had been outed, Logan Hesse came forward to talk about the hell that he and his wife just went through.

In 2007, the house they were living in burned to the ground while they were out for dinner with friends. After investigators found an electrical fault to be the cause, the couple flew home to Melbourne, but not before confirming they were cleared to leave.

Last month, Logan and Urica returned to Phuket for a holiday, only to find out that there was an arrest warrant for them. They were detained and their passports taken away. It turns out that shortly after leaving Thailand in 2007, a new fire investigator changed the cause of fire from electrical to a cigarette.

Though Thai officials had their contact details, no attempt to reach them was made. 21 months later, back in Thailand, Logan claims they’ve been extorted for a total of $60,000 to pay off the landlord and officials. Because of the downturn in tourism, he says, “Their pockets are lighter so they are turning on tourists.”

It was also claimed by the couple that the Thai official knew they would be returning because they had several friends there still. For Logan and Urica’s full story, visit their blog Land of Trials: How Two Foreginers Were Extorted In Thailand.

Case #3

A couple of months ago, a British man was jailed for 21 days and beaten after he became abusive as he tried to board his plane home. He was traveling on a British passport that was issued in Australia, but for some reason the British embassy told Thai immigration officials it was not authentic.

He eventually lost his temper and, in the eyes of the Thai, verbally abused them. He says he was sent to jail because he couldn’t come up with 2000 British pounds for bail. He was eventually vindicated when his passport was found to be real.

What do you think?

It’s not a new revelation that tourists are often targeted by corrupt officials to add a little extra linings to their pockets, but in this economic downturn, are we seeing this on a larger stage?

If Annice Smoel genuinely broke Thai law, why would she have been let go, apologised to and welcomed back?

Or, is it simply tourist beware? Should we be more mindful of any compromising positions we put ourselves in, even if we think we’re acting within the law?

Feauture photo of Thai policemen: pandora23

Share your thoughts below!

Photo: The Tech Herald

From the, “Wow, this whole thing is really sad” file:

For those who don’t know, Alina Percea, a Romanian teenage girl living in Germany, recently auctioned off her virginity to an Italian businessman for 8,800 pounds.

Her reasoning was to pay for school.

What smacks of a horrible Hollywood movie plot has gone beyond a moral issue to one of economics: the German government is demanding she pay taxes on her earned income. And that could mean over half of her earnings will be taken by the government.

According to a German official:

It is not a moral standpoint but a fiscal one. Prostitution is not an illegal act in Germany, but not paying tax on earned money is.

Apparently, after the tryst, the 18-year-old discussed how she got along well with the 45-year-old businessman, having “unprotected sex at a luxury Venetian hotel.” Not exactly the poster child for safe-sex; shocking, I know.

Previously, we’ve covered when to draw the line when defending cultural norms, but this feels like it’s gone too far.

It gets worse: Alina had also gone through two medical examinations to prove her virginity. What year are we living in exactly?

Wonder if she still is so keen on him now that she has to part with that much of the money. Kinda makes you wonder if it’s worth it.

What do you think – was the government right to tax her virgin-earnings? Or should they have stopped the transaction in the first place? Share your thoughts below.

Jolanda, healer on trial / Photo: Jolanda.nl

Before I left for my last big trip, I went to see an intuitive (or a psychic, clairvoyant – whatever name works for you), as I often try and do at momentous occasions in my life.

I thought she was the woman a friend had recommended to me; it turned out that she was not.

She told me a few things (all of which ended up being wrong) and performed a bit of energy work on me at the end (which I’m assuming helped me in absolutely no way).

And yet last year, I was lucky enough to connect with a different woman who I literally felt knew my soul.

Rather than talking about the future, per se, we discussed more of what was happening for me on an energetic level, all of which really resonated with me. When she performed energy work on me at the end of the session, I definitely noticed it.

Alternative On Trial

So I was saddened to recently read that a spiritual healer and two alternative doctors in Amsterdam are being put on trial for the death of a popular TV star there, Sylvia Millecam.

I tend to believe that anyone practicing outside the “norm,” especially as alternative approaches to health become more and more common, is vilified whenever possible.

Then I got to the middle of the article:

The self-styled medium and faith healer known as Jomanda and two alternative doctors are on trial because they told Ms Millecam she did not need treatment. Jomanda, charged with causing grievous bodily harm, convinced Ms Millecam she was suffering from a bacterial infection.

It’s hard to know if this is the whole story, but if this is true, I’m horrified.

I did a quick search about Jomanda and came across the Apologetics Index, in which psychologist and naturologist Ewald Vervaet states that he has investigated dozens of her purported healings and miracles, but thus far has not one has been verified.

She is known for infusing water so as to give it healing power.

Thing is, she has had a large following since becoming a “celebrity” in 1991 when she started organizing healings in Tiel, so for better or for worse, some people believe she is the real thing. That means they have connected with her, felt healed by her, somehow came out better than when they started.

Beliefs around healing

Photo: Wonderlane/ Feature photo: kshgarg

I have heard countless stories of friends who have visited India or Thailand, or even spiritual areas in the US that have been greatly affected by healers they have come across.

Many of these healers would be considered “quaks” by Western standards.

If, like the crackdown and arrests of supplement sellers or the fight to ban home births in the US, this is a way to put those on the fringe of “accepted” methods of healthcare in their place, I’m not impressed (nor would I be surprised).

On the other hand, if this woman truly convinced Millecam that she did not have cancer, than maybe she should be on trial – or at least have it made publically known her errent influence on people.

Still, this still brings up questions of self-will and our right to choose our own path around health.

What do you think about alternative healers being put on trial? Share your thoughts below.

Here’s a little something fun for your Friday:

The rats are quite cute when they play, aren’t they? / Photo source / Feature: anniemole

Even though this is a (fake) New York subway advisory, many people who have traveled the world over or live in a metropolitan area can relate (and yet New York’s Metro PA system certainly has it’s own specific flavor, doesn’t it? Garblegarblegarble).

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system costs an arm and a leg, stops at 1am just in time for the 2am clubbers to drive home across the Bay Bridge after they’ve been drinking all night, and only has six stops in the actual city of San Francisco.

But, it’s pretty clean on the whole, has air conditioning (though we rarely need it), and the BART people tend to be helpful.

My favorite train systems I’ve encountered so far have been the tube in London (although I know many people will not agree, and there is that whole soot-filled-snot thing that happens when you ride it too much) and the U-Bahn in Berlin. I don’t even speak German and I was able to figure that one out almost instantly.

And although this advisory makes some good points, gotta appreciate the fact that you can get ANYWHERE in New York pretty darn easily in a relatively inexpensive manner.

That is…If you can figure out what they’re mumbling to change trains halfway to your destination.

What are some of the ups and downs of different subway systems throughout the world? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: mrpattersonsir

United Airlines just became the latest airline to make obese people pay for a second seat in coach, or upgrade to first class.

They are determining who has to pay more by assessing if the passenger is “unable to use an extended seat belt, put their armrests down, and if they infringe on another guest’s seat.”

Continental enacted their policy regarding oversized passengers five years ago; Southwest two.

UA’s policy goes a little something like this:

UA will refuse to transport or will remove at any point, any passenger … in the following categories where refusal to board or removal from the aircraft may be necessary for the safety or comfort of themselves and other passengers: … persons who are unable to sit in the seat with the seat belt fastened and the armrest down.

They add that the person “will not be removed upon the purchase of an extra seat,” and that if a seat is not available on that flight, they’ll have to take the next flight “without penalty” that has adjacent seats available.

A United spokesman said the rule was enacted due to the piles of complaint letters received from (apparently smaller) people sitting next to larger passengers that overflowed their seat.

But are the airlines really making the move to appease the leaner guests, or is it more about making money?

Shrinking Seats

Airlines have continued to make the seats smaller and smaller over the years so that they could fit more people in, and most large people just need a few extra inches, not an entire other seat.

And as William Saletan points out in his article, those who are too tall for coach can often (relatively) cheaply upgrade to business class, where there is up to five extra inches of leg room.

Above and beyond United or Continental’s financially-influenced decision making, I’m even more interested in the comments made in reaction to this blog about the the new rule.

One person, who goes by “Fat People Suck,” had quite a bit of commentary, including this choice piece:

Sucks for the fat people … but then, maybe they should lose some weight. Its annoying as hell when you are on a 10-11 hour plane ride, cramped as hell, and then it turns out you have 1/2 as much space because some fat ass cant fit into their own seat.

FPS later responds to a comment made by a man named Andy who mentioned being 6′4 and having a large shoulder width, mocking him by saying “Hey guys! I’m Andy, I’m totally fat (though I wont admit it!) and describe myself as a ‘bulge’. You probably ate my meal didn’t you?”

Many of the other comments were not friendly towards overweight or obese people, and I couldn’t help but think, what if this person were Muslim? Or African? Or physically handicapped in some way? Would people dare to be so offensive?

I guess at one point in history, people did.

Enter: Fatism

Don’t get me wrong – I understand that we want to be comfortable on our flights, especially the long ones, and that we’ve often paid good money to do so. But it’s as if obesity is the final frontier for complete and utter prejudice and discrimination: total fatism, or being fatist (a person with a prejudiced belief that one persons weight is superior to others).

Or as Anonymous says:

I like taking these comments and replacing ‘fat’ references with ‘gay’ references, really highlights the hate speech. For example…”… I’m tired of being in a country where not only is being gay acceptable, it’s looked down upon to taunt gay people and encourage them to go straight! I used to be gay, and I went straight because kids would make fun of me. Now the queers have no reason to be gay.

Thank you, United, for taking a step in the right direction, even if it was financially motivated and not really morally backed at all.” Good thing this is all directed at fat people, since that makes it okay…

What do you think about the airlines rules for obese people? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: hqhuyanh

While London has become hostile toward tourists, a British couple decided it was time to show the queen their randy side…on the front lawn of Windsor Castle.

Perhaps they need a refresher course in proper sex etiquette, and therefore should join the Vietnamese youth who are getting sex education while on holiday.

Yes, rather than teach their kids about the fine art of reproduction themselves, some Vietnamese parents are sending them on tour with the Viet Da Travel Company, who has teamed up with the Da Nang City Youth Union to provide culturally specific sex education.

According to the news source:

Sex education remains an awkward subject for both parents and teachers in Vietnam because of the conservative attitude towards things considered “sensitive.”

The tour hits spots like the Cham Museum in Da Nang, central Vietnam. This particular museum holds many artifacts from the Champa Kingdom era, including quite a few lingams, which represent a phallus, and yonis, the symbol of the vulva.

Both are Hindu symbols associated with Lord Shiva, emblemizing the union of male and female and generative power.

After the Cham, the tour continues to the Son Tra Peninsula and makes it way onto the My Khe Beach. There, the teenagers play outdoor games focused on sex education.

It’s hard to gather from the article what types of games are played, or what exactly a college student means when he commented, “We gain soft skills and knowledge of sex more easily through these outdoor activities.”

But toward the end of the piece, the author notes: “The tour manages to provide youngsters basic knowledge of sex and puberty without promoting sexual experimentation.”

Definitely sounds more exciting than girls and boys being separated in the fifth grade to watch their own gender’s video on puberty. And I have to say I was pretty impressed a travel company and youth group has put this educational tour together in a mostly traditional culture, where it is customary to not touch a member of the opposite sex in public.

And according to the article, “many schools in the city are eyeing it as an interesting extracurricular activity.”

Hmmm. In a culture where four students, who received suspended jail sentences for posting a clip online of a famous soap opera star having sex with her boyfriend, it’s hard to believe all Vietnamese would jump on the bandwagon.

Do you think these sex education tours would be effective? Should they be offered elsewhere in the world? Share your thoughts below!

Feature photo: Nick Nguyen

Guy Fawkes at the G20 Protest / Photo: quis

Imagine yourself in London on one of its rare sunny days.

From Westminster to Trafalgar Square, passing through Whitehall, you notice the streets are packed with police officers. Quite normal, you assume, considering that within a few kilometers are both the Parliament and 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the British Prime Minister.

Obviously, the two horses standing at the entrance do not provide Gordon Brown with enough protection.

Excitedly, you head to Westminster with your digital camera to capture the best shots for your travel blog. You reach the ideal spot, you set your equipment in the green park of Parliament Square, just opposite Westminster, and shoot a perfect postcard.

Then you get arrested for terrorism.

This scenario is not as far-fetched as it sounds. In the wake of the new counter-terrorism Act issued by the Home Office, travelers may find it hard to bring home pictures from the most famous London landmarks if they happen to catch police officers in their shots.

The section 76 is a recent update to the Counter-Terrorism Act issued in 2001. For years, humanitarian organizations have accused the government of restricting people’s civil liberties, but only recently a wider sector of the population are becoming aware of this late measure.

Strictly Forbidden

An Orwellian bus stop / Photo: Angela Corrias

Londoners are speechless in front of these progressive counter terrorism measures. Are they living in a growing police state?

The latest amendments of the Counter Terrorism Act 2001, added in 2008 and effective from February 2009, are aimed at increasing the power of the police against any behaviour that “elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s forces, a member of any intelligence services, or a constable.”

The G20 summit, held in London on April, 2nd, is still on everyone’s minds, not for the summit itself, but rather for the police violence that left many injured.

An unprovoked beating may have caused the death of Ian Tomlinson, who was hit by the police and died from massive internal bleeding. An autopsy revealed Ian died of a heart attack, though speculation remains the heart attack was triggered by his push to the ground. Meanwhile, another policeman has been suspended after being filmed while hitting a young woman.

The tension felt by UK citizens has been increasing – and now tourists are being affected, especially when they are stopped from taking photos. Many tourists like photographing the red double-decker buses, the sign of the London tube, both considered landmarks of the city.

Klaus Matzka, a tourist from Austria, was on holiday with his son. He was recently forced to delete all photos of public transports he had taken during his stay in London, as it was “strictly forbidden” as a measure to prevent terrorism.

A police official later offered an apology, stressing the ban is on photographing officers. Even so, Klaus said he would not come back to London.

Report Your Neighbour

While similar incidents have also happened between officers and photojournalists, the latest altercations involving tourists make everybody think that the government is going too far.

The constant pressure of CCTV cameras, the police campaign encouraging to spot any “unusual” behavior, the overall sentiment of being under control or pushed to suspect that “anybody can be dangerous” are proving counter-productive.

In addition to restricting freedom of action, the Metropolitan Police have launched an anti-terror media campaign through radio ads and posters on the tube, trains and bus stops.

The slogans read “A bomb won’t go off here because weeks before a shopper reported someone studying the CCTV cameras” or “These chemicals won’t be used in a bomb because a neighbour reported the dumped containers,” followed by a threatening “Don’t rely on others. If you suspect it, report it.”

Such messages are disquieting rather than reassuring. Many people are trying to understand what the government wants to communicate. The result of this campaign stokes fear and distrust towards our neighbors instead of collaboration, a sense of increasing isolation instead of feeling part of a community.

Citizens have started to wonder if this is the right way to face the threat of terrorism.

What are your thoughts on these anti-terrorism measures – are they a necessary evil? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Who wouldn’t want to visit Rome at the height of the empire? Photo: Carla216

Two hundred years ago a traveler had to wait months to traverse oceans. We now have the means to wake up in New York and fall asleep in Sydney, all in the same day.

The trend: travel is becoming exponentially more accessible to the common man.

But the tradeoff is that culture and history are being lost. Remote islanders maintain their outdated tribal customs merely to get a buck from the nearest walking wallet with a camera. Cities that in ancient times were considered quaint and romantic have become nothing more than identical concrete jungles.

We’re losing the remnants of human history with each passing day – why not find a means to time travel for leisure? Where would you go if you had a weekend in any city in any century?

1. Rome, Height of the Empire

No one in living memory has ever really seen the Colosseum. Whatever your religious beliefs, there used to be gods in that city; watching over the empire from their marbled countenance, and ensuring trade on one of the first greatest centers of business in the western world: the Roman Forum.

Imagine being able to walk down the epitome of civilization; they didn’t call the period after Christianity spread and the empire fell The Dark Ages for no good reason. ..

2. Kyoto, 16th Century

Giesha Girls in Kyoto / Photo: Anna Pearson

In the 1500’s, Kyoto served as the national capital and home to the imperial family. Tokyo (then Edo) was little more than a fishing village at this time, not yet placed on the map by the empowering of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

In modern times, many travelers journey to Kyoto to discover only remnants of what was once one of the most beautiful and mystical places on the planet. Back in its heyday, this Japanese city would have been the richest and most populated next to Osaka.

The predecessors to geisha gently walking in their kimonos, made from imported Chinese silk; visions of the mountains to the north and east not yet lost in a sea of grey; everything under ten meters high.

The only downside? Not much fresh fish or sushi: transporting the latest catch from Osaka to Kyoto took a while to perfect, and sushi was still in its infancy.

3. United States, The Old West

Back to the Future had the right idea – many people at one point imagine themselves as a cowboy or cowgirl.

What would you give to be riding on horseback on a cool summer morning in the undeveloped expanse of the western territories? Nothing for hundreds of miles in any direction, except perhaps the whistle of a steam locomotive and wandering tribes of Native Americans.

Of course, if you go back far enough in history, any land can be considered unexplored or undiscovered, but there’s a certain romantic connotation that stirs up when thinking about the American movement to the west.

It’s the promise of the unknown – traveling towards the Pacific, having uprooted everything stable, everything civilized in the east, and seeing where the Oregon Trail took you.

4. Ancient Egypt, c. 2500 BC

Imagine it like this…only newer. / Photo: liber

Watch the building of the pyramids and learn more about archaeoastronomy – skylights in the pyramids were carved so that certain constellations could be viewed at a set time of year.

Even the great structures themselves were arranged on the sand corresponding to the placement of three stars overhead. Discover the meaning of the Great Sphinx – who knows why it was built? Maybe some pharaoh just had a mutant pet.

Cairo will surely be hot and dry during this period in history, so remember to pack light loose-fitting clothing and plenty of sunscreen. If you wait around for another five hundred years, you might catch the finishing touches on Deir el Bahri.

5. London, 14th Century

“…the truth was that the modern world was invented in the Middle Ages. Everything from the legal system, to nation-states, to reliance on technology, to the concept of romantic love had first been established in medieval times.”

- Timeline, Michael Crichton

Everyone wants to be a knight in shining armor or a princess fair and true. Chivalry isn’t dead. In fact, if you choose to travel to London roughly seven hundred years ago, you’ll find it quite alive and well.

A walking tour of this city will let you face the first real London Bridge, providing the only access across the Thames. Canterbury Tales by Chaucer paints a rather vivid picture of this era. Many of the buildings in London we associate with medieval times were already in place: The Tower of London, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey.

Remember to apply insect repellant liberally, as the Black Death was known to pass through Britain and France in this century.

6. Chang’an, Han Dynasty

The origin of The Silk Road and a golden age in Chinese history, when Confucian principles laid down the foundation for society and Buddhism was just beginning to spread. Travel west along this trade route and in a matter of months, you’ll reach the Roman Empire.

7. Chichen Itza, 5th century

Although you may not be in a temple of doom, it’s wise to heed the words of Indiana Jones and “protect your heart!” As one of the largest Mayan cities on the Yucatan Peninsula, Chichen Itza was the site of human sacrifices.

It’s true that quite a few of the largest temples are very well preserved in modern Mexico, but I challenge you to find another time or place in which ancient games that could rival basketball were played. Best to arrive before the Toltec siege.

8. India, c. 600 BC

The Buddha had about forty-five good years of teaching from the time of his reaching enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree to his death. Don’t waste them. Meeting the Awakened One and learning the dhamma firsthand would be an experience for which almost anyone in Asia would trade his or her life. Try and eliminate the suffering in your heart before your departure…

9. New York City, Roaring 20’s

By the time the 1920’s dawned in New York City, the modern version of a cityscape was already formed: Macy’s department stores, the public library, Grand Central Terminal, and the then world’s tallest Woolworth Building.

Unfortunately construction on the Empire State Building won’t commence until after the crash of ‘29, but take advantage of this period in history with your choice of taxicabs or horse drawn carriages. Watch Lindbergh start his journey across the Atlantic. Gaze at the audience of women in hoop skirts and men in all too stiff and uncomfortable suits.

10. Babylon, c. 600 BC

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the hanging gardens of Babylon. As one of the first empires in human history, Babylon was built in the shadow of ancient Sumeria near the Euphrates River, and may have even been the source of the legendary Tower of Babel with its own Temple of Marduk.

I’m sure there are many asking “Why not see some dinosaurs?” Think a little practically in this impractical form of travel and question if you’d prefer camping in the late Cretaceous (and being trampled to death), or blending with the masses and observing the election of a Roman consul firsthand.

Besides, if a Tyrannosaur doesn’t get you, the meteor will later on.

Community Connection

You’ve been to the past, now meet travelers that we still remember tale. Read 10 Travelers and Why Their Tales Made History. Also, what other trends might we see in the future of travel? Check out 6 Predictions For the Future Of Travel.

Where and when would you go if you had a ticket guaranteeing a weekend of fun in any place at any time?

Photo: sherrattsam

According to an article in the Irish Times, a Chinese government manual has been circulating on “how to beat up troublemakers without leaving marks.”

Apparently, it’s not hard to obtain a copy of the manual; they are available in any bookshop or online.

Aimed at “urban management enforcement squads,” otherwise known as bruttish chengguan, the manual describes exactly how to go about beating up mostly unlicensed street sellers.

Tips include:

Urban management officials should seize the opportunity when there are not many onlookers around. Do not hesitate. Finish the job quickly, without giving your opponents time to prepare. The whole job should be completed within 10 seconds.

It also adds:

Several officials should always act together. Make sure to leave no blood on the opponent’s face, no wounds on the body, and no witnesses in the vicinity. Be calm and focused. Be a firm public official.

Coincidentally, China’s state council just introduced the nation’s first program on human rights called the National Human Rights Action Plan (2009–2010). The plan outlines measures to be implemented over the next two years around work, basic living conditions, social security, health, environmental, cultural and women’s rights, among others.

But activists say that recent arrests, including that of Tan Zuoren, an environmental activist from Sichuan that Amnesty International believes is at serious risk for torture, do not bode well for this enforcement of these rights.

It is believed that Zuoren’s detention was linked to “his intent to issue a list of the names of children who died in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake along with a report blaming corruption in state officials for the collapse of a number of schools.”

How does this explicit government manual affect China’s stance on human rights? Share your thoughts below.

Queen Harish / Photo: Monica Bhatnagar

I laughed as the San Francisco hipster ceremoniously handed his hat over to the drag queen performer from India.

Only in San Fran, I thought, could a literal dancing queen, Queen Harish, force seven guys on stage to dance with her, the men a mix of younger and older Indians, punk/goth white boys, and of course my favorite, the hipster.

They even enjoyed themselves.

Before Harish had taken over the stage, I got to watch the ladies of Clandestine, my favorite belly-dancing troupe, perform.

I marveled at not only how fun they are to watch, but the beauty of the different shapes and sizes of the women, which seems hard to come by in the media these days.

Dance has always been a connecting experience for me, joining me to all of the other people in the room, regardless of their background or beliefs, what they look like, whether they are dancing or simply taking in the scene.

Clandestine / Photo: SharonaGott

But then I began to think, is this happening everywhere, not just San Francisco? Is our world sneakily coming together by way of the vehicle of dance?

Carnevale hosts multicultural dancers in cities throughout the world, African Tribal Dance classes are offered at just about every high-end gym, and people are eating up tango tours in South America.

The continued popularity of Matt Harding’s traveling-dance video, Where the Hell is Matt, also makes me think dance is a force to be reckoned with.

This is what Matt had to say about his experience:

A lot of people wanted to dance along with me, so I started inviting them to join in everywhere I went, from Toronto to Tokyo to Timbuktu…here’s what I can report back: People want to feel connected to each other. They want to be heard and seen, and they’re curious to hear and see others from places far away.

Ah yes, connection. What could be better than that?

Have you experienced dance bridging people of different cultures and backgrounds? Share your thoughts below!

Little Tibetan Lama，Sichuan，China / Photo: utpala

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Burma, China, and Cuba: just a few of the countries out there with poor human rights records and a history of authoritarian governments.

Some travelers and organizations have advocated a travel ban to such countries, arguing that tourism helps to support the offending regimes.

Does it make us bad global citizens that my husband and I consciously chose to visit these countries and have a few more “rogue” states on our travel wish list?

We think the opposite. Here’s why.

1. Understanding and Advocacy

Father and son play games at their Ippodrom market
stall in Tashkent. Photo: Uncornered Market

It’s difficult – if not impossible – to truly understand a place without experiencing it first-hand and interacting with its people. You can be an advocate without ever having visited a place, but your advocacy carries more context and authority once you’ve traveled there and spoken with people on the ground.

What you see, hear and experience in country will influence, and possibly change, how you think about effective actions that support local people. Share this newfound knowledge and insight with others.

We had read about Chinese business interests in Burma, but it wasn’t until we visited Burma that we understood their importance in keeping Burma’s military officials, literally and figuratively, in business.

Another Matador writer explains how travel is a patriotic act. Her experiences in Cuba provided a sophisticated understanding of this misunderstood country; she now shares this knowledge with others.

2. Reject Isolation

A mother and daughter moment, Burma
/ Photo: Uncornered Market

Authoritarian governments generally want to keep their people isolated from the world. Their strategy is to control their people’s access to outside information and news. This is why they prefer tour groups to independent travelers. Organized tours help ensure that foreign tourists only see the “beautiful things.”

If possible, travel independently. Even if you’re forced to take a tour, find a way to engage with locals. Talk with real people at the market, in the taxi, at your guesthouse, and at street stalls.

We didn’t need to initiate discussions about politics or daily challenges – local people brought the conversation on their own when they felt comfortable with us and in a safe environment. We found locals’ views on their country to be surprisingly complex and nuanced, as were their questions about our home country.

In Turkmenistan, a country almost completely closed off to the western world until 2007, Turkmen people surprised us with their openness and curiosity.

3. Where You Spend Your Money Does Make a Difference

A spin around the vegetables, Turkmenistan
/ Photo: Uncornered Market

It is impossible to prevent every cent of the money you spend from slipping into the hands of the government. However, tourism is the people’s business.

Spend your money consciously: at privately run stores, street stalls and guesthouses rather than government-sponsored hotels, shops and restaurants. We believe the benefits that independent travelers spread by spending their money and sharing themselves with ordinary people outweighs the amount of money the government might collect in taxes and visa fees from your visit.

In places like Uzbekistan and Burma, people we spoke to felt the same. As tourism numbers dwindle, it’s the ordinary people working in guesthouses, restaurants, markets and shops who really feel the pinch. There just aren’t a lot of other job options.

4. Breaking Down Bias

Jose of Cuba / Photo: Sami

The perception we receive about a country often comes from the evening news, front page of a newspaper or the latest movie. Media is in the business of reporting crisis and Hollywood is in the business of creating drama. Countries, and their people, may look ominous and dangerous in this media light, but the reality is often something different.

I’m certainly not immune from these stereotypes. Before traveling to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, I thought of these areas as dark, evil places where people mysteriously die in prison. (Much of this is due to the fact that I worked for a media organization whose journalists were at risk). I initially resisted traveling to these countries, but my husband convinced me otherwise. And I’m glad he did.

Not to diminish the relevance of the transgressions that do still occur, but there’s more to these countries than their governments’ human rights records.

Like anywhere else, average citizens are just trying to make a living, raise a family and hope for a better life for their children – many times with extreme challenges. This is just as much the story as the rogue governments that run their countries.

5. Experienced-Based Empathy

At the animal market in Kashgar, China
/ Photo: Uncornered Market

When you’ve traveled through a country and have a connection with its people, the news about that place becomes more personal. When our own empathy is rooted in experience, it becomes deeper – we want to help.

Why does this matter? Perhaps this empathy will motivate you to act and become an advocate – to raise money, volunteer, or share your knowledge and educate others.

Even though we did not visit Tibet during our travels across China, the time we spent in two other minority regions – Kashgar (in the western province of Xinjiang with a primarily ethnic Uighur community) and Xiahe (in Gansu Province with a substantial ethnic Tibetan population) – provided the context to understand some of the impacts of the Chinese government’s development actions and attitudes first-hand.

I had seen plenty of “Free Tibet” slogans before our trip, but I now have a deeper understanding of what those signs mean and the nuances of the situation.

Although we’ve decided to travel to these countries with shaky human rights records, each person needs to decide whether to visit countries with governments they may not support.

If you make the journey, it’s even more important to travel responsibly and with an open mind. And don’t forget to share your experiences when you return.

What do you think – do the benefits outweigh the negatives when visiting banned countries?

Community Tourism in Kilengi / Photo: The Dilly Lama

What exactly is Community Based Tourism (CBT)? You may not be the only person who doesn’t know what this phrase means.

In the world of “funders, conservationists and development workers,” Community Based Tourism denotes visitors who live and work within a community – usually a poor, rural one.

The purpose is to help implement projects that will benefit the community over the long term.

Or, as ResponsibleTravel.com explains:

The residents (of the community) earn income as land managers, entrepreneurs, service and produce providers, and employees. At least part of the tourist income is set aside for projects which provide benefits to the community as a whole…CBT enables the tourist to discover local habitats and wildlife, and celebrates and respects traditional cultures, rituals and wisdom.

Sounds good and cheery, doesn’t it? Well a new study has found that the economic viability of these projects is not quite…viable.

Harold Goodwin, of the of main researchers on the study, writes in his blog that out of 116 CBT initiatives nominated from all over the world, only four were economically sustainable (keeping in mind that only 28 of the projects responded).

What’s the problem?

Issues ranging from donor dependence, lack of adequate markets (average bed occupancy achieved by CBT initiatives is around 5%), vague definitions of what CBT actually is, and the fact that there is not much difference between CBT projects and conventional investments are all working against this form of tourism.

Interestingly, Goodwin notes:

The research has demonstrated that there are a number of initiatives which are not CBT which have demonstrated very considerable employment, local economic development and collective community benefits, for example Manda Wilderness (Mozambique), Aga Khan Development Network in Pakistan (Baltit and Shigar Forts) and Chumbe Island (Tanzania).

He still lists off 6 recommendations that would strengthen CBT.

Still, many of us like to believe that working from the ground-up is the way to implement sustainable ways of living, and that as tourists, we can help a community achieve this goal.

Even Goodwin asks: “If you know of examples of successful CBT initiatives where success is demonstrable by data please let me have them – I am still looking for successes.”

Do you think Community Based Tourism has been mis-judged, or should it be discarded? Share your thoughts below.

1. Un-Roadtrip

In April of 2009, Boaz is setting out on an Un-Road Trip. He’s criss-crossing the United States using every mode of transportation except for car. He’ll be traversing dozens of states by kayak, bicycle, dog sled, scooter, hot air balloon, horseback, segway, hang glider, fishing boat, crop duster, and whatever else he can find.

2. Twitchhiker

Paul Smith set out on March 1, 2009 to travel as far around the world as possible in 30 days via Twitter. Last week, he finished.

Here’s what he had to say in his final post: “The Twitchhiker project showed that kindness is universal, that the whole can be infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, and that social media may begin online but it will converge with the real world whenever and wherever you let it.”

3. The Odyssey Expedition

Also in 2009, Graham Hughes aims to set a new world record by setting foot in every nation on Earth in just one year, without flying. He calls his journey The Odyssey Expedition, and is posting frequent blogs and video clips on his adventures.

4. Hitch 50

Scotty and Fiddy started in Times Square, New York with the intention of hitchiking 50 states in 50 days. Hence, the name Hitch50.com. Between Oct-Nov 2006 they managed this feat, and have the hilarious video clips to prove it.

5. One Week Job

Do you know what you want to do with your life? Sean Aiken graduated college and had no clue. So in 2007 he figured he’d find his passion by trying a different job a week for one year. The result One Week Job.

I was actually part of the project and am currently editing the documentary. Stay tuned!

Any outrageous travelers we missed? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo: Daniel Sandoval

When I first began practicing yoga about seven years ago, I chose to learn the Iyengar form over Ashtanga or Bikram, the two other main types of yoga classes offered at the time.

Now, it seems I can’t look left or right without seeing a new “form” of yoga, most of which are trademarked before they even make it out the door and into a gym near you.

The newest crazes include Acroyoga , for those who feel like using a partner to stretch beyond their normal limits, and AntiGravity Yoga, or its sister (i.e. differently trademarked) Aerial Yoga, acrobatic forms of this ancient practice.

Then there is rope yoga, which uses a contraption that looks a bit like a Pilates rebounder, and the similarly-named but completely different approach of flat rope yoga, which has a person literally sitting on tight rope and holding a pose.

There are those out there, such as Shirley Archer, IDEA mind/body exercise spokesperson, who believe these different forms are simply expanding yoga to a wider audience:

I think yoga can reach people at many levels of interest and need. Some people seek yoga practice for the mental benefits, to clear their mind and achieve deeper levels of relaxation. Others practice it to enhance their own mind-body connection. Some simply enjoy the physical conditioning benefits in a more gentle environment.

But is this spiritually-based form of movement, practiced for free for literally thousands of years by millions of people, in danger of becoming just another capitalist exploit?

Take a look at Bikram’s lawsuit-happy approach to yoga. After obtaining a copywright in 2002 for his series of 26 postures taught in a 105 degree room, he began filing suits.

Any yoga instructor that has not completed his $6,600 teacher-training program who proceeds to teach this “hot” form of yoga is at risk of being slapped upside the head with some serious legal fees.

Other forms are not only costly, but can be life-threatening, as a lawsuit against Dahn yoga enterprises shows. The family of a woman who died of heat stroke and dehydration during a Master training hike filed a wrongful death suit against the group that some have alleged is cultish and money-hungry.

What do you think about the ever-expanding choices around yoga? Share your thoughts below.

1. Dolphins blowing bubble rings

Filmed at Seaworld, these dolphins effortlessly blow bubble rings and play with them in their tanks.

2. Elephant painting other elephants

These surprisingly beautiful representations of other elephants are so good, the artist gets his own gallery showing.

3. Monkey peforming martial arts

You better wish you don’t meet this monkey in a dark alley.

4. Giraffe refrains from biting annoying tourist

This giraffe demonstrates incredible self control. If a tourist called me a “zebra” I don’t know if I could’ve held myself back.

5. Spiders behaviour on drugs

I know, spiders are technically insects…or wait…arachnids. But this documentary showcases some… unique… behaviour not previously observed in the wild.

Photo by peamasher

The Obama administration recently “eased” travel restrictions to Cuba for those Cuban Americans who have relatives on the island.

They are allowed to travel to Cuba once per year for as long as they like, moving regulations back to pre-2004 rules enacted by Bush.

Some think this is a signal from the US government of a change in attitude towards Cuba. Others, noting Obama’s administration’s pledge that the new policy will “have no teeth,” think this is not the case.

If US policy towards Cuba continues to be softened over time, what does this mean for Cuban Americans?

Many of the Cubans who fled the US after Castro’s rise to power have consistently backed a policy of non-engagement with the country until Castro’s regime is overthrown. But the anticipated fall never occurred.

And as Cuban-American Miriam Perez noted in a recent blog:

Over the years the immigrant population has changed a lot, both because of numerous other waves of immigrants from the island and simply the passage of time…my parents’ generation have spent most of their lives in the United States and are pretty well integrated into communities here.

Many in my generation have never even been to Cuba (myself included) and know Cuban culture through places like South Miami.

The political landscape of Cuba has, for the most part, stayed its course. Should Cubans living in the US and Cuban-Americans hope for further removal of travel restrictions to Cuba?

And would eased access to Cuba even matter to 3rd generation Cuban-Americans?

Share your thoughts below!

Community Connection

If you’re set on visiting Cuba, check out How To Travel To And From Cuba, and Why You Should Travel To Cuba Now.

Recently, while flipping channels on the tube, I came across a show flashing copious amounts of skin, blonde hair, and inane one-liners like they were going out of style.

My first thought was that I’d landed on The Girls Next Door. But it wasn’t long before I realized I was in fact on The Travel Channel, and the show was the newly launched Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches.

Turns out the show’s host, Bridget Marquardt actually was a Playboy bunny in Hef’s mansion. And now she’s gallivanting around the world, showcasing the world’s beaches at their sexiest.

Or at least, it’s a thin excuse to get mostly naked and rub mud on their bikini clad bodies.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all for fun and (borderline) nudity… but I suppose I expected more from Travel Channel. With smart shows like Anthony Bourdain, this seems like a dubious addition to their lineup.

As one viewer, Manny, wrote on Bridget’s blog:

Did the intelligence quotient suddenly drop below a 100? I watched the show [and] half an hour was the most I could take of the “airhead acting”. You will notice that most of the talking was done by the [...] natives and not our host. Our host was busy gawking and looking around like a child at Disneyland.

The Travel Channel really needs to evaluate this show because unless they want to appeal to the MTV generation their demographic is not represented here. I am not trying to hate but evaluate and Bridget needs to go back to MTV crowd or other mindless pursuits.

Then again, April writes:

Thanks Bridget. It is nice to watch a beautiful girl and one who is educated to teach us about great places to visit. The Travel Channel picked a great host when they found you.

Am I being too hard on them? What do you think of the new show Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches?

Photo: Central News Agency

Organizers in Taipai held a protest last Saturday to mark the 50-year anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, which led to the exile of the Dalai Lama.

The protestors, which included over 30 civic groups and 300 people, called for the government of Taiwan to allow the Dalai Lama to visit the capital city.

Taiwanese activists warn that “Tibet is a mirror of Taiwan,” and that if things continue in the same direction, China will achieve its ultimate goal of annexing Taiwan.

Days later, a bomb exploded at a government office in a Tibetan-dominated region of China. The Xinhua news agency stated it was “a bomb thrown by terrorists,” but declined further details and said the explosion is being investigated.

According to the AFP article:

Chinese authorities have launched a massive security clampdown in recent weeks in a bid to quell possible unrest as Tibetans mark the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising. They have also curbed travel by foreigners to Tibet while overseas journalists have been barred from most Tibetan inhabited areas in China.

March 14th also commemorated a year since riots occurred in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, in which at least 22 people died and over 950 monks, nuns and villagers were detained.

As the United States works with China on stabilizing the world economy, will Tibet and other human rights issues stay on the front burner?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo: Brittney Bush

Most people tend to think of yoga as separate from religion, or at least non-dogmatic and non-denominational.

Not so to Islamic leaders in Malaysia: in November, 2008, Muslim clerics banned the practice of yoga by followers of the religion. The National Fatwa Council Abdul chairman Shukor Husin stated that:

“Many Muslims fail to understand that yoga’s ultimate aim is to be one with a God of a different religion.”

Indonesia leaders followed suit a month later.

Insiya Rasiwala-Finn, a yoga teacher based in Vancouver and a practicing Muslim, was appalled by this ruling, especially considering she watched her devout father practice yoga every morning while growing up.

Yet she understands that yoga was originally a Hindu practice, and Hindu philosophies still pervade the tradition.

Should all Muslims, which number over 10 million in the US and Canada alone, refrain from taking part in the spiritual practice of yoga?

Does this also cause a problem for other religions, especially the fundamental factions found within many faiths?

Share your thoughts below.

This is simply too funny not to share.

Free Range Studios, the creative team behind such classics as The Meatrix, put together this clever parody of Star Wars. Their aim is to promote organic food instead of the industrial, chemical-laden food that has come to dominate most grocery stores.

Looking for more food articles on BNT? Check out these classics: The Ultimate Vegan’s Guide To Finding Food On The Road, and Dumpster Diving: The Easiest Way To Find Free Food.

idrewuk

The Best Marketing Ploy In the World

Interactive travel magazines like Matador are establishing a serious online presence, and tourism promotions like the Best Job in the World are garnering thousands of applications. It’s proof that the tourism and promotion game is changing, again.

• Is the best job in the world a competition?
• Is it a job application process?
• Is it a marketer’s wet dream?

Yes.

A win-win situation

There aren’t many people who wouldn’t like a job involving marine recreation on a resort island. Even city slickers might consider it for six months. Throw in something approaching a six-figure salary– and free lodging– it’s a very persuasive package.

Photo: andrewcparnell

But the real genius lies in the huge amount of PR being generated. Gary Arndt, who writes the most popular travelogue-style blog in the world and possesses a background in internet marketing, says, “The whole thing was very clever. The cost of the actual job is trivial.”

While AUD$150,000 sounds like a great six month’s work to me, the investment of the Queensland Tourism Board is minimal… because the publicity it has generated is worth millions.

By forcing candidates to show their knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef, Tourism Queensland has collected an immense amount of quality user-generated content. They couldn’t have bought this coverage if they tried. Every time someone watches an job applicant’s video, they learn something about the area… and that something makes people want to visit.

When viral isn’t bad

In new-media parlance, a campaign has gone “viral” when it grows exponentially and beyond the control of the company who started it. The way top videos have spread, the chatter on Twitter and Facebook, and the websites and blogs of applicants are all indicators of a viral campaign.

Fast-spreading media can bite the hand it feeds, though. One video showed a woman getting a tattoo to prove how committed she was to winning the position. Sharp eyes recognised this as a bogus clip and quickly pounced with hard-hitting headlines.

As suspected, the video was created by a marketing agency. Seeding dummy videos, like reviewing your own products, is considered very bad form.

Realising this, Tourism Queensland responded with an apology on the official site. In the social marketing age, a quick apology can do a lot of good.

Community is king.

Susie Parish is the founder of the Island Reef Job Ning community. It’s a place for applicants to chat, discuss tactics, and share their videos.

Reflected in the tag line, “We need more than 60 seconds to tell our stories,” she started the site because “applicants needed a space where they could say more about themselves.” Over 100 have taken advantage of the platform and more are added daily.

An applicant herself, Parish says, “[Applicants'] friends and family only want to hear so much [about the job]. Within the community, they can talk all they want about it and continue to hope that they will be the chosen one.”

A social web

A niche community is further proof of the power of Tourism Queensland’s campaign and the changes in traditional marketing. Susie makes it simple:

“The social web enables companies to interact with and develop a relationship with their potential customers…They have to interact on [many platforms] or they risk conversations about their company taking place without them or having their competitors do it and be that one step closer to their customer.”

This closely relates to the official view from Tourism Queensland’s PR manager, Nicole McNaughton:

“Travellers these days are placing increasing importance on first-hand reports from other travellers when they choose a holiday. So when Tourism Queensland was looking for an innovative way to promote our new Islands of the Great Barrier Reef campaign, what could be better than having a real and independent traveller based on a Great Barrier Reef island reporting on their personal experience?”

The travel and tourism sector can learn a lot from this campaign. Copycat efforts aren’t the message though. The real gold is in learning to use new media tools in mutually beneficial ways: if the consumer wins, the companies will too.

Community Connection

Want to know more? Win the best job in the world, meet an applicant or find out what it’s all about.

We can all get over Acoustic Guitar Guy playing Jack Johnson in the corner.

We intrinsically know that the older dude from Montreal is going to fart in his sleep. And we accept that the front desk lady is going to lie about not having quarters, even though she has seven left in the drawer.

However, there are things that can be done to make a hostel more tolerable.

Photo by 733.

Your Peppercorn Is Not Wanted Here

I’ve nearly fainted while standing in an overheated kitchen, waiting for a place to cook Ramen Surprise. One man’s opinion: There’s just no need to make Coq Au Vin on a Bunsen Burner.

If you’re a backpacking gourmet, plan ahead and do whatever you can to make it speedier than Rachel Ray on trucker speed.

And please, stop scoffing at my meal while you’re braising your venison. Those bedbug’s track marks are inches from your spatula, just like the rest of ours.

Don’t Be A Ziplock Mary

Let’s get this straight: No matter how hard you try, a year’s supply of socks cannot be repackaged into a cubic centimeter.

Especially at the crack of dawn, when everyone is trying to catch some shuteye. Accept it: Your peas are going to touch your mashed potatoes. It’s 4am and we’re trying to sleep. Just cut the crap.

Photo by stuhaigh.

Gateway’s Drug

Sure the lobby computer is a gigantic piece of shit but it’s OUR gigantic piece of shit, filled with viruses, spyware and a cookie history that’s often criminal. This is not the time to install Worlds Of Warcraft or write an essay about Bungy Jump At Nevis.

Get on the computer, do your thing and get off. And please people, remember – Facebook is not the internet. It’s Facebook.

TV Room Hogs

Straight Up. You could just as easily take your lazy ass to a hammock and listen to Ben Harper there. This room is sacred – be cognizant of the fact that not everyone wants to marathon the Lethal Weapon films while you drink tallboys and intermittently fall asleep.

Surely there’s a Friends marathon going on at a nearby cafe, where you can wrap yourself in your sarong and order Pad Thai without shrimp.

Photo by nest hostels valencia.

That Isn’t Shampoo On The Floor

There’s a finite amount of soaping that one man can do in fifty minutes. We know what’s going on in there.

While we appreciate you not having seizures on the bunk above us, we also have to step into the shower after you and would appreciate some tidying up first. Use your brains, man.

Recognize Your Stank

It happens to everyone – laundry piles up. Employing The Pepsi Challenge on your socks is a good sign that you’re skunking the room.

Just because you Fabreeze your bra doesn’t meant that it will not smell like the jungle trek you’ve just left. A simple “hey does anyone else need to do laundry?” will usually find at least one other partner to help with funds and suds. Look at that – you’ve made another smelly friend.

Photo by denmar.

A Letter To The Guy Who Never Leaves The Room

Dear Sir. Why did you leave home? Don’t you get bored looking at the walls and repeatedly telling the story of your night dive on the Great Barrier Reef? How many times can you unpack and pack?

May I just have one moment alone here to collect my thoughts? You’ve been sitting indianstyle on your bunk for two days, reading The Davinci Code. There’s a whole other world out there, sir. Please?

Best Regards, Tom

Cushion Pushin

Oh, you two. We saw your snog session at the bar next door go from PG13 to NC17 in about four beers and two shots. We all know that you’re going to sneak into each other’s bunks in fifteen minutes.

As suggested in a recent article here, why to take it to a dark corner instead? There is no Invisibility Cloak for sex. You’re going to make The Noise and we’re all going to mock that noise for the rest of the week.

Photo by paper or plastic?.

Flip Employees A Brewski

They’re hostel workers, one click up the food chain from the guy who slits a cow’s throat before it is butchered.

We all know that they are going to spend their salary on weed and never make that trip to Nepal.

But still, they pick up our Twix wrappers and, well, worse. Even a pity bagel can make this person’s week. Pay it forward.

Any tips we missed? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo: is space travel just around the corner?

Travel has come a long way in the last century.

It goes without saying that the landscape of tourism 30, 40, or 50 years from now will be different from that of today. In what ways will our norms and expectations change?

Here’s a look at 6 predictions for the future of travel.

1. Virtual tourism

Mexico as seen in Second Life

As technology advances, it becomes easier to virtually experience the essence of a place. For example, sites like WHTour aim to preserve UNESCO heritage sites in 3D photography, and then allow web surfers to interact with these images in 360 degrees, “as if you were really there.”

Online communities like Second Life are being used to recreate destinations virtually. While it’s unlikely technology will ever actually replace physical travel, but it can bring access to the world ever closer to us.

2. Changing traveler demographics

As this New York Times article from 2006 suggests, countries such as China have growing economies and a burgeoning middle class with disposable income for activities like international travel.

As demographics of large tourist populations change, popular destinations will begin to cater to their needs. Will aspiring tour guides flock to learn Chinese? It’s a possibility in the world of future travel.

3. New York, Paris, Pyongyang?

Photo yeowatzup

Travel can certainly be an economic boon to a country, bringing in much needed economic revenue. In the future, countries currently viewed as closed to the world may begin to open up using tourism as a vehicle.

An example of this can be seen in Libya right now, although as USA Today suggests, it has a ways to go. Even North Korea allows small (albeit tightly controlled) groups of foreign tourists in to visit.

As the political and economic landscape of the world changes, people may begin to travel to places previously considered to be “off limits,” with this increased openness benefiting both host and visitor.

4. Extinct sites

Photo 14983

Just as travel in the future can open up opportunities, it can also reduce possibilities as well. Over-visitation of popular sites can wreak havoc on the environment and infrastructure.

From “sinking” Venice to the impact of mass tourism on Machu Picchu or the Galapagos Islands, finding ways of mediating the negative effects of travel (such as introducing stricter quotas) is one potential (though undesirable) outcome of travel in the future.

5. Mentality changes

Photo Mannequin Display

Of course, if the current energy situation heralds a new trend, we may have to re-think our assumptions about travel. Just as the “staycation” became a buzzword this summer, we may need to consider the moral and behavioral impacts of leisure travel.

6. The final frontier?

One of the more “futuristic” predictions, space travel could one day become a feasible option for people besides the mega-rich.

As described in a recent New York Times story, both the Russian space program and the private company of Virgin Galactic are sinking their teeth into this emerging niche market.

The degree to which this takes off, both figuratively and literally, has yet to be seen, but perhaps sometime within our lifetimes it won’t be unheard of to receive a postcard from the moon.

Someone 50 years ago would be shocked to imagine a future where one could travel from London to Paris by train, or fly across Europe for the price of a guidebook.

Similarly, changes occurring in the future of travel in the next century, whether good or bad, will undoubtedly surprise us as well.

What predictions do you have for the future of travel? Share in the comments!

If there’s one thing I love about politics, it’s the political ads.

Basically you get to distill complex policy decisions into 25-60 second advertisements that will, in all likelihood, be riddled with leaps of logic and poorly constructed arguments.

But hey, it’s television right? Here’s 8 of the most ridiculous political ads we’ve seen so far from the 2008 presidential race.

1. John McCain – Obama The Celebrity

What does Obama have in common with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? According to this ad, none of them are ready to lead. So it makes sense to put them all together in a political ad.

2. Hillary Clinton – If You Can’t Stand The Heat

The stock market crash. Pearl Harbour. The Cold War. No Gas. Osama Bin Laden. Judging by the onslaught of imagery, you’d think you’re about to watch a documentary on 20th century history. Instead, you get Hillary Clinton.

3. John McCain – Obama Is The One

Another attack on Obama that bizarrely seems to highlight his leadership as “the one.” Oh yes, and there’s Moses.

4. Hillary Clinton – Jack Nicholson Approved

Speaking of movies, Jack Nicholson decided to announce his support for Hillary with an ad highlighting scenes from his distinguished career. Unfortunately, the only thing you come away with is how old Jack looks at the end of the segment.

5. Mike Huckabee – Chuck Norris Approved

A classic. Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse…he tells America how it’s gonna be.

6. John McCain – Obama And Change

Obama wants change. Change apparently means putting your head on the Statue of Liberty? This will leave you scratching your head.

7. John McCain – The Mccain Girls

True, this isn’t a political ad endorsed by any candidate, but it’s too amazing for words. This is why the Internet was invented.

8. Barack Obama – I Got A Crush On Obama

Not to be left out, Obama fans also want to share their love with the world.

Any ridiculous political ads I missed? Share your picks in the comments!

Goodbye to Bush / Photo lewishhamdreamer

You are sitting in a European sidewalk café. You overhear the word, Bush.

What’s next? Furrowed brows and incredulous questions? Whether or not you think our president deserves this disrespect, you’ve likely encountered it.

Between now and the election, fellow European travelers, we can cram hope in our suitcases right next to optimism.

I just returned from Europe, barely missing the president’s farewell tour. Before departing, President Bush stood on the White House lawn and declared, “We’ve got strong relations in Europe and this trip will help solidify those relations.”

FOX News reports, “Europeans feel US foreign policy will be better once he’s gone, and they’re already looking past him to his successor.”

Before reflecting on my own experience and what Europeans have to say about the tour, I think back to the highlights of yesteryear.

A Brief History Of Bush Protest

London, 2004: Bush was in the role of enemy. I saw furious protestors gathered outside the British Parliament, waving anti-Bush signs. Millions of people all over Europe had done the same. Throughout England and Scotland I was asked suspiciously, “Will Bush get re-elected?”

Paris, 2005: Everyone from the hotel concierge to the sophisticated executive courteously demanded (as only the French can), “How could your country re-elect Bush?”

Wendy Hendrickson, a teacher and entrepreneur living in Vienna who voted for Bush still hears the same question today. “There has always been disbelief that we could have elected him twice.”

Italy, 2006: Denise and Cid Busby of Edmonds, Washington lived in Naples and traveled extensively around Europe. “We had many instances when people in all different countries of Europe immediately started in on George Bush: ‘He is a very bad man. He is not very smart. Why would you elect him?” ‘We just started saying we were from Canada. We felt so sad.”

Bordeaux, 2007: I could see the taxi driver’s face in the rearview mirror. The radio announcer was interviewing French people about Le Président Des Etats-Unis, and guerre (war). The driver’s eyes scanned mine for comprehension; I gazed out at the vineyards and chateaux.

“Boosh was dangereux and un tartufe (hypocrite). Eyes sparkled, the moustache twitched, and the driver chuckled discretely. The war was ridicule, inutile (unnecessary); about pétrole and la avidité (greed).”

Belly laughs boomed from the front seat. I leaned forward and asked the man in French if he liked the US President. He gave a horrified start and nearly wept with embarrassment, exuding sympathy for me.

Today – The European Reaction

Bush with Chancellor Merkel / AP photo

Back to 2008: The Boston Globe said last week, “President Bush’s motorcade will speed through European capitals, but for many Europeans, the Bush presidency already is in their rearview mirrors. ”

BBC News says, “Judging from the level of public antipathy towards Bush in Europe, perhaps ‘Good Riddance’ would be the more accurate message.”

Slovenia’s news source Delo says: “After eight years of George W. Bush, who embodied all the negative stereotypes and prejudices regarding the US, everyone wants a new American president.” The Slovene word for goodbye is Nasvidenje.

In Germany, our commander-in-chief threw his arm around the shoulder of Chancellor Angela Merkel, causing Europeans to recall July 18, 2006. Bush told Germans, “I could have used better rhetoric.” Will Germans ever again pine for war rhetoric? Nein.

They half-heartedly wished the president Auf Wiedersehen. Der Tagesspiegel newspaper: “Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore.”

“Monsieur Boosh should go”

I Googled French news for their take on the president’s visit, and déjà vu! Radio France’s announcer once again interviewed people. “A man who takes himself to be a god.” “Monsieur Boosh should go.”

Aerospace executive John Byrne was in Italy last week when Italians bid Bush Arrivederci. He said, “They want Bush out.” Hendrickson says Austrians echo this sentiment. “I haven’t met an Austrian yet who doesn’t think getting Bush out of office will do the United States a world of good. They seem concerned about our loss of stature in the eyes of the world.”

“The attention is now on Obama and McCain,” says Antonio Missiroli, research director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

I found this to be true on my recent trip to Europe. After a terse comment on Bush’s sanity, Anne, a Parisian historian smiled. A window was flung open and a gust of fresh air blew in: “You will have a new president soon, yes?”

In Vienna my tour guide informed me, “We in the EU have to work out our differences. We don’t just bomb people”. Then-whoosh-”Maybe your new president will try diplomacy.”

Looking To The Future

Steven Kull, director of The Program on International Policy Attitudes comments, “Views of the US are being mitigated by hope that a new administration will move away from the foreign policies that have been so unpopular around the world.”

The Slovenian news indicates that this open window hinges on prospects for diplomacy: “If a candidate who wants to adhere to Bush’s course wins, the transatlantic rift will only grow deeper.”

Which candidate will have a longer shelf-life in Europe? I searched both John McCain and Barack Obama’s websites under Issues for their positions on foreign policy, looking for specific references to diplomacy. I urge you to do the same.

This summer, I’ll travel to England after the Brits cry, Cheerio. We’ll have tea and chat about hope. Then it’s off to Ireland, who wished the Bush Slán leat. I’ll lift a Guinness with the Irish and toast to diplomacy.

What do you think of Europe’s reaction to Bush’s farewell? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Waiting for relief in Burma. Photo by TZA

A few weeks ago I was going about my business, striding through the lobby of a building where a giant television was broadcasting CNN.

My previous three days had been consumed with a heap of work that made me retreat into my own little shell. I hadn’t been following any newsworthy events.

But today, in passing, I heard the news anchor say that things were getting worse for the people of Myanmar in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

I stopped dead in my tracks and listened.

For the next few minutes, I stood in the lobby, hypnotized by the images of disaster and destruction in Myanmar (still known as Burma to democracy advocates).

There in the lobby, I couldn’t grasp the specifics of the situation. Rather, snippets of the news segment were weaving a horrifying web through my consciousness: “tens of thousands dead,” “No access to potable water,” and “Yangon paralyzed.”

My heart swelled with the emotional weight and felt as if it was dropping through my stomach, landing with an agonizing thud on the cold linoleum floor.

After my visit to Myanmar two years ago, I knew the shaky camera phone images were doing little justice to the disaster.

Memory Of A Trip

My brief visit to Myanmar was an unexpected vision quest, an emotionally fulfilling, inspiring, and eye-opening experience to witness a complex country Orwellian in nature and seemingly frozen in time.

Because of economic sanctions, Myanmar is a country shrouded in mystery to many Americans, even to those who travel the Southeast Asia circuit.

I’ve felt a profound connection to the events unfolding in Myanmar, even if I had to experience them vicariously from the sterile comforts of a college campus: from the monks protest in October the so-called Saffron Uprising to the ongoing detention of Aung San Suu Kyi to the devastation of Cyclone Nargis.

These images of Myanmar projected in the mainstream media magnified my longing to return as soon as possible.

That night, I stayed up until the morning hours, checking and rechecking international news websites and The Irrawaddy a Thailand-based newspaper covering Myanmar, for more information.

With Myanmar’s free press quashed by the government and a moratorium on foreign journalists, I realized my efforts were relatively futile.

While the lack of information was frustrating, I grew even more frustrated with the seeming lack of compassion from companions and peers. I wanted them to have the same perspective.

The Power Of Empathy

After a week of grasping and reflecting upon every news-bit coming out about the country, my grandparents (seasoned travelers themselves) asked if I’d been paying close attention to the havoc in Myanmar

Cyclone Nargis ravages the city. Photo by Azmil27

I nodded and my grandfather replied, “Well, when you’ve been to a place and fallen in love with a country, and something like this happens, it’s hard not to feel invested.”

I was struck with the significance of a seemingly universal travel truth.

Obviously, traveling challenges and changes perspective. In our plugged-in, hyper-global society, perspective and context of a particular travel destination expands with the direct traveling experience to a realm of intricate visceral emotions, particularly when a disaster befalls upon a beloved place.

Once the essence of a country and its people are held dear to the heart, images of that place never appear the same again. Rather then being mere abstractions, they are humanized according to the traveler’s experience.

For me, images in newspapers of flooded Yangon streets near the Sule pagoda weren’t just abstract televised images; they were streets brimming with memories, crowds of laughing, smiling human beings, corners where I walked in a longyi, drank tea, and was hushed on touchy political subjects.

Contracting The Mind

No matter the location, a natural disaster broadcast to all corners of the earth tends to invoke a sense of sympathy from the global body.

However, the melancholy concoction of emotions from a tragic disaster is amplified if you’ve been there – eaten the food, drunk the local beer, wallowed in spicy olfactory sensations, rode a bicycle, reveled with the locals.

A connection to the country, geography, culture, and most importantly, the people, instills a feeling deeper than the shallow, distant sort of sympathy that’s limited to news reports and newspaper articles.

Perhaps this is what Paul Theroux meant when he wrote in The Great Railway Bazaar:

Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.

Traveling narrows our perspective of a particular place while expanding our worldview. After the adventure is over, travel memories invoke a profound empathy, encouraging one to push the dramatic change of paradigms to others and further participation in the goodwill citizenship of a global community.

I can’t think of a better justification for wanderlust.

In the meantime, I’m still glued to news from Myanmar and I still can’t wait to get over there, to pitch in my share.

What do you think about how real-life experiences can open your heart to a certain place?

Photo by Mikael Damkier

After today, I can’t wait to sprint away from American culture.

I have decided to visit Europe in two weeks; I consider it a Culture Dash.

A Culture Dash is a rapid dash away from the culture of a country. This can be accomplished by traveling far away from the familiar.

You can go to Paris for a Dash, or you can go meet the new neighbors, or you can get away from it all inside your own brain.

This last type of purely mental Dash is a bit tricky, as it requires you to ignore important cultural icons such as Matt Lauer, Oprah, and the Bush family.

Why the urge to dash?

Recently, I spent 10 minutes watching The Today Show, and quickly found myself gasping for another culture like a fish out of water. In the span of ten minutes, the one person who spoke of the soul reaching its true potential and other issues I deem important was… Madonna.

She alone spoke sense.

The rest of the time, I was invited to play one of the seven video games on Today.com; note that more than 6 in 10 American women are calorie prisoners and secret eaters; wonder if text messaging is really the best way for families to stay in touch; and bid Matt farewell on his trip to discover other cultures while keeping up our manic schedule.

I was enticed to experience Chili’s Bottomless Express Lunch, including Big Mouth Bites and Kickin’ Chicken, with unlimited refills!

Leave It All Behind

After my Culture Dash, I will sit at a sidewalk café under a bright awning, amid red geraniums. I shall sip a Bordeaux and nibble at soft cheese and fresh baked bread.

I will not need to Create My Own Combo. Bye bye American fries, Bonjour pâtisseries of Paris.

I have many options this day in America. I could carry with me Neo-to-go, to protect my kids from evil germs-every cut, every time, everywhere!

After my Culture Dash to Paris, I can view motherhood from the perspective of the French, who regard “the insane sort of perfectionistic and hyper-controlling behaviors” that American mothers engage in today as Perfect Madness.

Today I could practice the codes used in texting, so I could be a hip parent. God forbid I assume LOL means “lots of love”.

I have a sneaking suspicion my kids would much prefer to have me in the dark about their codes, no matter how hip I wannna be. GTG on a Culturedash.

Right this very moment I can whiten my teeth “anywhere I want” with Listerine White Strips, puckering up my lips at the gooey texture of slimy bleach clinging to my teeth, gums, and even lips.

Sitting right here at my computer I could rapidly develop teeth a person can see right through when I smile in a patch of sunlight.

Gotta Keep Moving

Photo by Alanishere

I want to Dash from the American obsession with perfection. I can’t wait to stride down the Champs-Elysées feeling irresistibly beautiful despite my varicose veins, wrinkly neck (which I feel bad about thanks to Nora Ephron), not to mention my dull teeth.

I live in Seattle. In my neck of the woods, there are scattered showers with low elevation snow expected in the next few days. The temperature is in the 60s right now on the Champ de Mars, the grassy, cushiony paradise I’ll sit on (post-Dash) while gazing at the intricate Eiffel Tower. Beam me there, Scotty.

I could contemplate Oprah offering the House of the Future, with features that have been in European homes for decades, such as toilets that take forever to flush, causing Americans to impatiently tap their foot. Merde!

Air France, take me away. In less than a month I’ll be at the Louvre losing myself in contemplation of Michelangelo’s perfectly carved marble male sinews and muscles (and rounded buttocks).

Another way I could spend today in the US of A would be dissecting the Clinton-Obama tussle . Hillary’s been looking refreshed after grueling weeks on the campaign trail, seemingly recovered from running the late night talk show gauntlet.

On the other hand, Barack appears visibly relieved that his pastor has finally catered to the hoards of hyper-analytical American voters by clarifying that he’s a pastor and Obama is a politician.

A Breath Of Fresh Air

It’s enough to make me admire Nicolas Sarkozy, who refreshingly refuses to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing unless China opens a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.

I wish to Dash this minute.

It’s April in America, and who can resist chuckling at the Today Show’s celebration of Earth Day. Special guests are the wife and daughters of the president who declared,“We need an energy bill that encourages consumption”.

When I am in Paris, maybe I will catch a glimpse of Sarkozy’s new wife, Carla Bruni who once dated Mick, a claim to cool our own First Lady can only feverishly fantasize about (compare the finesse of Bush’s softshoe routine on the White House steps with the sexy Jagger-esque strut).

Today’s examples of American culture are all buzzing around my head like a frenzied tangle of angry wasps: calorie prisoners, Big Mouth Bites, LOL, slithery Listerine strips, The House of the Future, Hillarack ‘08. I want to flee-to Culturedash straight to Paree.

Will you join me? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo Khin Maung Win/Agence France-Presse

I landed in Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar, a very ignorant young woman.

I traveled there on a whim and, upon arrival, knew nothing about the country. So you can imagine my surprise to learn that the men wore skirts (called longyi), the women have yellow powdered circles on their cheeks (called thannaka), and that the country has no banks and, therefore, no ATM’s.

I only had $350 American dollars in my pocket to last me for three weeks.

Somehow, I survived on $10 a day and, three weeks later, I left Yangon a changed person, with a bigger heart and a desire to see this country’s people rise from their currently powerless situation.

That was one year ago. I departed from Yangon less than one month before the peaceful protest to Shwedagon Paya went wrong. And now this: a cyclone.

This beautiful country with generous (and helpless) people is suffering from one of the worst natural disasters in a decade and all their government closes their borders to aid? I just don’t get it.

Searching For Change

The more I travel, the more I have seen how beautiful this world is. The human spirit is an amazing and resilient thing.

Now in Colombia, I can’t help but think of Myanmar and try to make sense of how desperate a nation can be without proper leadership.

In Colombia, I see a people rising from the ashes of a horrific terrorist regime and finally beginning to reap great rewards (i.e. booming tourism and growing economic stability) thanks to their whole-hearted support of wise President Alvaro Uribe.

Yet in Myanmar, we are witnessing a country dealing with two very different but equally debilitating disasters.

Myanmar’s political crisis is rotting from the inside. Its neighbors – Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and even Laos – have Western amenities like throne-style toilets, cellular phones, and fairly organized streets.

Myanmar’s major cities of Mandalay and Yangon survive in the dark ages, with each apartment running on self-funded power generators. Toilets and phones are the least of this country’s concerns.

Its oppressive military government continues to suppress its people and their ability to join the wider technological world.

Recent Disaster

On May 3, Cyclone Nargis struck the area surrounding Yangon and has likely killed more than 50,000 people. The government has been reluctant to accept aid even from India and Thailand, who have a vested interest in continuing trade with the country.

This is a country that needs massive worldwide support and attention.

Editor’s note: Here’s an interview from former Burmese monk Alan Clements on the current aid crisis:

Regardless of whether the Myanmar government chooses to allow aid for this disaster, there are ways to help the helpless.

• Educate yourself on what is happening in these countries. Political news sources like The Economist and Wikipedia are good places to start.
• If you’re feeling generous, donate to a non-profit organization that can go directly toward helping these countries gain a sense of national pride and identity – something Myanmar needs badly right now. The Network for Good blog has a great list of organizations that can help you do just that.
• Most importantly, try not to sit at home wondering why you should care or how you can help. A little seed of hope, a little prayer, or a conversation with someone who doesn’t yet “get it” can go a long way.

Photo by Bhollar

The Internet has made it much easier for writers to break into the world of publishing. As an aspiring writer myself, I’ve spent countless hours exploring every website imaginable, all of which promise the key to success.

Websites such as Matador Travel, Transitions Abroad, and EditRED provide opportunities to hone your journalistic endeavors.

But while the Internet is undeniably one of the greatest platforms a modern writer can use to promote their work, the debate between old-school traditionalists who prefer print and cyberspace junkies who preach the gospel of RSS still burns.

Many perceive the printed word as THE official medium for a writer.

This perception is largely due to the pervasive belief that the editorial standards of print media are higher than those of online alternatives.

This perception is incomplete, because many online outlets do have high editorial standards; in some cases, higher than the majority of print publications.

Even if your writing is accepted by an elite online publication, telling your friends about your accomplishment will rarely evoke gasps of admiration. The reputation of inconsistent online quality is just too hard to shake, because so much mediocre writing is freely available through e-zines, online communities and blogs.

The truth needs to be revealed: writing for the web is more than Myspace blog posts and personal “My Summer Holiday” narratives. There is excellent writing online, you just need to know where to look.

The Weakness Of Websites?

One argument put forth by the traditionalists is that websites present less detailed information and lack in-depth analysis, supposedly symptoms of the online media generation afflicted with a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder.

Photo by Len-K-A

Instead of reading an article thoroughly, these web-savvy youth merely log on, scan a few paragraphs, get their facts, and scuttle off to the next site in search of pirated movies, music, and the latest Britney Spears upskirt photo.

In some ways, this criticism hits the mark. Reading online does not provide the tactile and leisurely pleasure of turning the pages of a morning paper over coffee and eggs.

However, many websites such as Drift Magazine, Terrain and Anderbo provide downloadable PDF versions that are designed to provide a more in-depth reading experience.

Many online articles also provide a full-on multimedia experience that goes beyond the simple act of reading and provides new ways for reader and writer to connect.

And greens take note: in this age of increased environmental awareness, reading online is also much friendlier for the environment. Digital magazines prevent unnecessary paper consumption and waste.

Editorial Opinions

Online media also provides immediate opportunities for reader involvement. Simmons B. Buntin, Editor of Terrain, says:

“Online publications have provided more real-time, what we might call ‘viral’ marketing or exposure opportunities. If you read something online that you like, all you need to do is send the link to a friend…newer web technologies allow us to rate writing, comment on it, track it, listen to it, promote it through our blogs, and in general share it with others at an exhilarating, if not mind-boggling, rate.”

The online medium has become indispensable for aspiring writers because they’re able to receive feedback and publicity for their work.

Websites such as The Rose and Thorn, Hack Writers, and Cafe Irreal, provide the possibility for writers to interact with their audience.

Furthermore, e-publishing is a great way to gain exposure, not just among fellow writers, but also to literary agents, editors, and publishing houses who can help writers make the transition from web to print.

Editor Sam North from Hackwriters attests to the fact that online work can be a useful tool for self-promotion:

“Writers gain exposure through writing on-line and some find editors who will take them up in print…many of our writers have had books commissioned from work on site.”

Authors like Rolf Potts, James Ogle, and Digby Beaumont got their start by publishing in e-zines and online communities, and have since moved on to print publications, although both continue to publish writing online.

Learning Where To Start

Many authors have gotten their start by joining online writing communities. This concept of a society of artists is not new. For decades, authors have formed social bonds that involve the free exchange of connections and ideas.

Examples of legendary icons who have taken this route to fame and fortune include Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and their fellow beat poets, Ernest Hemingway and the Lost Generation in Europe, Henry Miller and Anais Nin, and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

One of the foremost websites that promote this concept is EditRED.com, which aspires to help writers get work published by exposing it within the online community.

In this ‘writers space,’ users are not only able to promote themselves, but can also provide feedback and support on each other’s work. EditRED is also a great space for self-promotion, because authors can advertise the books they’ve already published.

Sean Merrigan, editor and co-creator of EditRED, believes that the success and sustainability of both a writing website and aspiring authors is contingent on:

“…finding and keeping an interested audience. But I think beyond this simple formula, sustainability in any creative field involves finding a market or niche or community that is willing to participate, support and nurture talent. Editors need great writers, writers need great editors, both need an audience that is switched on to what is being presented to them. At the same time, audiences are ever more discerning.”

Show Me The Money

Screenshot of your beloved BNT.

However, if helpful sites such as EditRED.com aim to provide all the tools that a writer would need to become wildly successful, why aren’t there more successful online writers?

Alternatively, how do editors of quality websites achieve their sustainability without getting lost in the vast junkyard of blogs, sites, and ezines?

Simmons B. Buntin states: “the publication can be the impetus, but not the regulator.”

The tools, tricks, and the mechanics of publishing can be assisted by the website or community, but the real work begins and ends with the writer.

Buntin states the “responsibility of advancing work lies first and foremost with the writer…but the elements contain such things as hard work, perseverance, a thick skin, plenty of reading, plenty of writing, lots of submitting, an eye for detail, and no small amount of luck.”

Thus, the main way for writers to get work noticed and accepted is to produce quality pieces. Simple.

With so many ‘quick and easy’ schemes available on the net (as well as in print), it is easy to forget that the main job of the writer is to actually write well. The value of a website relies on the caliber of the written word.

Just like traditional writers, Barbara Quinn cautions that “…many people tell stories that aren’t interesting to anyone but themselves. Writers need to ask why would anyone want to read this? What makes this story stand out from the hundreds of others like it?”

Online magazines and writer communities won’t allow a mediocre writer to succeed, but they will grant good writers the possibility of success by allowing them to immediately expose their work to a wide audience.

A Changing Perception

Attitudes towards online media seem to be changing, and sites have been garnering greater attention from both readers and print publications. Online magazines, which many people initially thought of as a passing trend, seem to have become a permanent fixture.

Popular newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times and Newsweek have taken notice, building a major online presence with features such as blogs, podcasts, and videos.

With more and more companies, communities, and magazines expanding into cyberspace, the competition to produce quality content is fierce. Simmons B. Buntin asserts that the view of the public is changing and will continue to change “as more people find good literature online.”

With so many new technological innovations conceived and invented every day, readers, writers and editors all wonder: what’s next?

G.S. Evans from Cafe Irreal thinks that “some form of revolution in reading technology that would make it easier and more comfortable to read online publications” could combat the residual bias against cyberzines.

Simmons B. Buntin believes that websites that can be accessed through mobile devices, such as iPhones, and Amazon’s Kindle, are becoming increasingly necessary for success.

On a similar note, Sam North from Hackwriters believes that the future lies with magazines that move, allowing “some combination of sound, text, image…Performance readings and the like.”

Sean Merrigan looks to establishing closer ties between readers and writers:

“…the future holds greater interactivity between writers and readers; more debate, and more ideas. But this will be a collaborative process: editors need to ensure they promote quality writing; readers need to be demanding about what they want to read. This will be the key to greater legitimacy. In my opinion the sky is the limit.”

What do you think about the changing view of online writing? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Earth Day 2008 is just around the corner. Join the global celebration for a healthy planet!

On April 22, 1970, 20 million people celebrated the first Earth Day, the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, one of the most environmentally aware men to ever grace the United States Senate floor.

Senator Nelson observed “teach-ins” on college campuses against the Vietnam War, and believed the same approach could work to bring environmental concerns to the forefront of American politics. He announced his idea during a speech in Seattle, Washington in 1969.

Over the coming months, with help of good advance press from the New York Times, Earth Day became one of the best examples of grassroots activism ever conceived.

How to Observe A Global Holiday

Fast forward 38 years. An estimated 1 billion people will celebrate this global holiday in ways as diverse and creative as the places where they live.

Magnificent festivals infused with music, healthy eats, information and workshops on eco-friendly living, are planned in places as diverse as Washington, D.C, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Shanghai, Durban and Tokyo.

This year’s Earth Day theme is “Call for Climate,” focused on how to abate global warming. But the range of ecological topics is unlimited, presenting a vast array of actions to encourage sustainable living.

Local Activism, Global Celebration

Here are some examples of Earth Day events around the globe.

The Community Broom Bash is not what most people think. Scotch broom, a nasty invasive plant, is taking over the Mayen Island Conservancy in British Columbia. Volunteers will work to limit its invasion in the reserve from April 19th to Earth Day proper.

Clean up a beach, then watch a dolphin show on Itaparica Island, Brazil. (If I were anywhere near South America, that’s where I’d be).

Expats in China are encouraged to purchase “environmentally friendly light bulbs and showerheads” in coordination with Shanghai’s International School at the Shanghai Zoo on April 19th.

The Green Festival of Israel at the Big Caramiel Centre runs concurrently with the High Holy days of Passover.

Polar Palooza, Rowdy Dogz Earth Day, No I’m Not a Plastic Bag. These innovative celebrations are testimony to the worldwide recognition Earth Day now receives. Find one close to you on the Earth Day Network.

If you’re unable to attend a formal celebration, there are intimate ways to help lower your human footprint.

For shopping enthusiasts in the States, go to the closest Buffalo Exchange Saturday, April 19th. This very hip second hand clothing store chain will donate 100% of their Earth Day receipts to ensure the continued presence of tortoises on Pinta Island in the Galapagos Islands.

London declares April 22nd “Bag Free Day” , discouraging use of those ubiquitous plastic grocery sacks. Don’t forget your recyclable tote when you go shopping!

So fire up that solar oven. Buy and eat organic. Pick up plastic water bottles on the side of the road, and then recycle them. Dance to the percussive rhythms of a band from another part of the world.

Earth Day is a time to recognize and celebrate our collective responsibility as residents of the third rock from the sun.

Community Connection!

Frogs appear to be a recurring theme for the Matador community this Earth Day. Tim Patterson plans to camp with peeper frogs back home in Vermont.

Lauren Lim will help the amphibians and their toad cousins safely cross the road in Bialovieza, Poland. It’s warming up here in Northern Idaho, so I may encounter a few frogs myself while cleaning up Rathdrum Creek.

What will you do for Earth Day? Leave a comment, inspire us, and share your plans!

Photo by Betssssy

One sunny spring afternoon in Dublin, a female friend and I stood waiting next to the massive “spike” on O’Connell Street.

The air of anticipation suggested that she was waiting for a blind date, with me there for moral support in case she changed her mind and decided to leave.

With several people milling about, it didn’t seem like the best place to locate a stranger for the first time. Yet, in the midst of the hubbub, a long-haired, sunglasses-clad man emerged and approached us.

Handshakes were exchanged, and my friend went off, duffel bag in hand, to spend the weekend with him.

This shady-seeming encounter represents just one of hundreds of meet-ups being played out around the world each day, arranged via “couch-sharing” websites such as Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club.

The premise of these sites, which began in 2002 and 2003, respectively, is to connect travelers with hosts who volunteer to act as free tour guides or even accommodation providers, offering up lodging in their own homes.

The Kindness of Strangers

I felt a bit nervous as my friend walked away with the lanky, long-haired Irishman. She, too, must have had slight misgivings: after all, she hadn’t told her family that she’d be sleeping in a stranger’s living room for two nights.

Yet, when Monday arrived, my friend had lived to tell the tale – and, as her pictures of new friends and music jam sessions revealed, she had a great time in the process. She’s since “couchsurfed” with two other people.

By its very nature, staying with a stranger from the Internet seems fraught with risks for guest and host alike. Sure, the allure of a free place to crash is appealing, but then again, the peace of mind afforded by a youth hostel could be worth its weight in gold.

Therefore the allure of “couch-sharing” sites must be about more than purely financial concerns. In fact, the sites’ mission statements underline this basic premise.

Couchsurfing.com states that it “is not about the furniture, not just about finding free accommodations around the world; it’s about making connections worldwide.”

Monetary considerations are just one element of Hospitality Club’s assertion that it offers a “fun, ecological, economical and socially beneficial way of traveling.”

Both of these sites do take measures to encourage safety, including the possibility of “vouching” for people and encouraging public feedback after a meet-up occurs.

The Couchsurfing website statistics mention that in a given week, there were 12,962 real-life introductions, of which 81% were reported as “positive,” and less than 1% as “negative” (the other rating option was “neutral”).

While it’s unlikely that every encounter is without trouble, successful exchanges seem to be the rule rather than the exception.

A Local Connection

Photo by PhilipC

Hosts aren’t obliged to offer lodging (some may just be available to meet up for a drink). Jana’s host in Alicante took her out to “an original Spanish outdoor party I would have never found myself,” and her Portuguese host “showed us very nice local places in Funchal and drove us in his car over the whole island.”

Similarly, Jessica’s hostess in Bucharest shared her local knowledge of the capital, driving her around to cover the most sights in the limited time available.

Motivations for Couchsurfers are often based around wanting to experience a place from the point of view of a local; to avoid the traps and well-trodden paths forged by guidebook-worshipping backpackers.

Couchsurfing, in a way, enables a person to gain a different experience; to become a traveler rather than a tourist.

This sentiment is echoed by Mehdi, another surfer who says: “Traveling in CS way will involve you in people’s culture, so it’s more than seeing different places…All these things can help us to make a wonderful paradise out of this damn multimedia robotic world!”

The World On Your Doorstep

Motivations for hosts are often less clear, although a tendency towards altruism tends to prevail. Some people enjoy the feeling of being an “expert” and in sharing special places with others.

Another commonality among hosts is a desire for inter-cultural exchange, with the added benefit of being able to meet people from other countries without having to go anywhere.

As a host, George explains, “I love how the culture comes to me when I am not able to travel myself.”

The possibility of making new friends from around the world (who might be able to return the favor of hosting one day) is another major draw for the people upon whose generosity the couch-sharing sites must rely.

The Internet has enabled people from around the world to communicate with each other, and hospitality sites take this to the next level by facilitating real-life cultural exchange and sharing. While there are bound to be a minority of unscrupulous people who abuse the system, overall, the success of these sites tend to speak for the power of trust and good will.

The couch-sharing trend seems to provide an alternative travel paradigm that many people find fulfilling and return to support in the future.

Have you ever couch surfed, or hosted a Couchsurfer? Share your experiences in the comments!

I once worked with a man named Victor. We forged a friendship that was contingent upon a shared penchant for searing social criticism, ironic humor, and good food, (though not necessarily in that order).

The evening we decided to go out for dinner to indulge all three interests was a watershed moment for me.

As we waited outside for the handicap ramp to be slid over the restaurant’s steps, and as Victor rejected my offer for help, using his calloused, dusty hands to heave his wheelchair over the lip of the ramp, I thought about how much effort Victor had to exert every day just to move his paraplegic body from point A to point B.

Years later, I thought about Victor as I watched tourists with walkers and wheelchairs try to navigate the uneven cobbled streets and narrow sidewalks of my adopted hometown of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, and I began to think about the accessibility of travel for people with disabilities.

How are the challenges of travel exacerbated by disability? How are the joys possibly tempered? I could only imagine how difficult travel must be for disabled people. But I was wrong.

Walt Balenovich and Dave Wilkins set me straight. These intrepid travelers and travel writers recently spoke with me about their experiences in the air and on the road. Both men are seasoned backpackers whose passports are well-inked with the evidence of their intercontinental journeys.

Here are the highlights of our exchange about traveling with disabilities.

Julie: What type of disability do you have?

Walt: I had polio when I was 12 weeks old and spent the first 5 years of my life in the hospital. I used to walk on crutches, but when I was 27 I moved into a…wheelchair full time. Far from confining, the increased mobility freed me up to travel.

Dave: I had a brain hemorrhage in ‘97 which has left me with no feeling on the left side….I have balance problems and can’t see anything coming from the left. I also suffer anxiety….My scrambled brain cannot cope with noise, large crowds, and rapidly changing situations.

Julie: How do you go about choosing your destinations? Do you look for places that are disability friendly in terms of transport, accommodations, and the like?

Walt: I just decide what continent to go to. Usually access doesn’t enter into it. I am backpacking the world alone, so I have to rely on help sometimes.

Dave: Where I go is certainly NOT disabled friendly! I chose Ecuador as my first destination as I knew the country and lacked the confidence to try somewhere totally new at that time. Then to SE Asia because it had always attracted me. In recent years I have concentrated on West Africa because I have been bitten by the Africa bug and can’t ignore the continent!

Julie: Do you tend to travel independently or as part of a tour or package?

Walt: I travel independently. I love doing my own thing. I like going when and where I want in my own time, so I usually avoid long tours, though I do go on boat tours often. Those are good because you can watch the sights float by!

Dave: I have never traveled with a group and would never consider it. I hate the idea of having to fit in with someone’s wishes…I need to concentrate on looking after myself.

Julie: What kinds of challenges have you encountered as a disabled traveler?

Walt: Mostly just stairs and washrooms… sometimes a place to sleep, but not often.

Dave: Have you got all day? My life is a never-ending challenge from getting up and having to get washed and dressed, to eating/drinking/moving about, to getting to bed at night.

Magnify these by adding the novelties of a foreign country, customs, language, and food, to finding a means of traveling to the next destination, fighting off crowds, suffering bouncing journeys, and hunting out a bed that isn’t too bug-ridden and with water for washing…. (Dave’s personal best for a long-haul vehicular journey is 52 hours in a 7 seat taxi with 13 passengers plus luggage).

Julie: Among the places you’ve visited, which ranks best for the disabled traveler?

Walt: Iguazu Falls in Argentina, on the Brazil border. The upper track of the National Park is fully wheelchair friendly and you are suspended over the gorge and surrounded by over 100 waterfalls in the beautiful tropical Amazon basin.

Dave: Laos is my favorite destination… however I fell in love with a dusty little village in Cameroon that doesn’t appear on any map. I return there are least once a year….By no means is this place disabled-friendly, but I love it.

(He loves it so much, in fact, that he’s started a charitable organization to promote women’s rights and children’s health in the extreme north of Cameroon).

The Verdict on Disabled Travel

Walt and Dave agreed that while it might be nice for more places to be accessible-especially with respect to transportation systems, they also insisted that people with disabilities need, in Walt’s words, to “get out there and be visible.”

Dave acknowledges that meeting the needs for diverse disabilities isn’t feasible in many cases-”the cost would be astronomical,” he says, “and it would adversely affect the beauty of such places.” Both men hope that by traveling without limits, they can inspire other people with disabilities to travel anywhere in the world.

Increasingly, it is becoming easier for people with disabilities to travel.

John Weaver, of the company Special Needs at Sea, explains that advocacy groups such as the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality have been instrumental in uniting disabled travelers and encouraging them to travel, as well as representing their interests and needs by working with local governments and private businesses to understand accessibility needs and improve practices.

SATH authored a Code of Conduct towards travelers with disabilities that was adopted by the World Tourism Organization in 1991.

Weaver also reports that certain segments of the tourism industry are improving accessibility significantly, noting that cruise ship companies are becoming increasingly accommodating of disabilities.

Many ships now have signs posted in Braille and in December, 2007 Royal Caribbean realized just how much of a boon disabled travelers can be for business when more than 3,800 deaf and hard of hearing passengers set sail together on a cruise that was specifically designed to meet their needs.

But for those adventure travelers with disabilities who aren’t willing to wait for the tourism industry to adapt to their needs, Walt and Dave say that the world is waiting for them.

Most people on their journeys around the world have been friendly and helpful, and both have learned that few places are totally inaccessible to them.

Visit their blogs to read more about their experiences, and check out Walt’s recently published book, Travels in a Blue Chair.

Julie Schwietert Collazo is a writer, editor, researcher, and translator who lives in New York, Mexico City, and San Juan. She has a BA in English and Women’s Studies, a Masters of Social Work, and is working on a PhD in Literature at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.

Inspired by Walt and Dave’s courage? Got a story of your own to tell? Please join the conversation by leaving a comment below!

The photograph on the front of the paper, showing the perpetrators piled up on top of the women, instilled in me a sense of outrage that I have not felt since I was in Thailand, and was assaulted by a mototaxi driver as I attempted to go to a job interview alone.

During the awful experience in Thailand, just like the assault on the women in Mumbai, passersby simply stood and watched, unsure of how to react, perhaps afraid to get involved.

When I made a complaint to police, freshly emerged from the scuffle with torn clothes, it was my behavior that was questioned. The police wanted to know what I had done to encourage the assault. Seeing that “boys will be boys,” they assumed I had done something to warrant the violence.

I was simply told not to travel alone again, and they considered the issue solved, for it was seen to be my problem, and not the driver’s, unrelated to the wider social hostility towards independent women.

“She Had It Coming”

The public reaction to the women being mobbed in Mumbai contained similar sentiments. While The Hindustan Times responded to the incident by publishing an article on violence against women, many people who they spoke to as part of the piece felt that the women somehow deserved the attack because they had been drinking, were dressed in provocative clothing, and were out late at night.

Such incidences of sexual harassment, and reactions to them, are not uncommon, and violence against women is still a major problem.

It is not that men, too, do not suffer acts of aggression, however the problem of violence against women comes in a specific context. While it has always been accepted that men will travel alone, women are still fighting their way through the 21st century amidst the notion that they are, by being independent and female, open to abuse.

The question is, as women, what can we do to speak back to this violence and protect ourselves while traveling?

Women everywhere are victims and at the same time catalysts for change. Men can also be helpful in eradicating the violence, by supporting women in their struggle to be free. While it is true that the male presence deters many violent incidents from happening, sadly, even the women who were mobbed in Mumbai were in the company of their boyfriends.

What To Do?

In cultures where it is not acceptable for women to show skin, we might do ourselves some good by covering up. Observing local norms of dress is as much an act of respect as taking off one’s shoes before entering a temple.

However, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that we will be safer in a sari than we would be in shorts and a T-shirt, and no one is right to say that a woman dressed ‘provocatively’ is asking for violence.

If we abide by this theory, then we are saying that no woman wearing a burqa has ever been raped.

Sex Or Power?

There is also the misguided perception that men perpetrate violence against women because of sexual frustration, particularly in cultures where sex before marriage is taboo.

In this case, then women, having sexual urges as well, would be as ravenous. As well, married men, who can be assumed to have at least some access to regular sex, would never harass women. This is not the case, which signifies to me that sexual harassment is less about sex, and more about power.

Given this predicament, perhaps women could work to resist violence by claiming some of it back.

In Canada, many of my female friends carry pepper spray, or take self-defense courses so that they may fend off any unwanted attention. Some do not walk after dark, but some do, hoping that “looking confident” will be enough to discourage violence.

Resist!

Here where I live now in India, I have read about many women who are resisting abuse in similar fashions.

An Indian women’s blogging site, called Blank Noise, collects the views of women who are determined to secure their free place in the world, particularly as it relates to street harassment. One woman, Annie Zaidi, asserts that the first step in eradicating violence against women is not tolerating it. She writes:

I WILL NOT ACCEPT IT. I will not stop buying “provocative” clothes…I will not make unwanted rules for myself. I will crush the beast where I see it. With a stare, with a slur, with a scream, with a camera…I will take my rights as a citizen and nothing less.

Perhaps then, when we travel alone, we should use our cameras, not only to capture the beauty of the horizon, but also to document the unspeakable acts of a few men who think they have power over us.

When we put a lens in front of someone’s face and call harassment a crime, we are putting a name to the problem of female abuse everywhere, and bringing it out in the open where it can be mediated.

Fight Or Flight?

A topic that many women debate is the “fight or flight” reaction, which comes at the height of a trauma.

When confronted by the mototaxi driver, I found myself, at five foot three, instinctually swinging at my attacker like The Terminator. This was effective in fending off what could have been a possible rape. I had a friend in Canada who, in South America, managed to overtake three attackers in a park.

While not every woman gets the “fight” reaction, and for some, it may present even further danger, certainly we are capable of kicking butt.

Should instinct, our greatest weapon, tell us to “flee” an attack, a functioning cell phone is invaluable, as is being in an area in which other people are reachable.

Staying in a busy neighborhood, and traveling in groups, sometimes helps us to escape attack when we are not able to fight on our own, but the most important thing women can do to protect themselves is to listen to their inner voice.

Mr. Nice Guy?

One problem in distinguishing our risk of danger is that often, men who want to attack women are nice to them first. They attempt a cheerful dialogue, or a few drinks and a chat.

I meet many a woman who confess that they “feel like a bitch” if they express their discomfort in circumstances where the man appears to be friendly.

We need not be paranoid in meeting strangers, but if we get that feeling of “something being off” we must trust ourselves and respond accordingly.

Here in India, where street harassment is common, sometimes the line, “Excuse me, but did I ask for this conversation?” or, “I’m just fine by myself here!” manages to ward off unwanted attention.

I might sound like a bitch, but if I’m getting a negative feeling from someone, chances are it’s warranted, and even if it isn’t, I’ll never see them again.

Also, in many countries, there are crisis centers, often mentioned in travel guides, which could be of service. Even putting a notice on the hostel bulletin board about any dangerous acquaintances might be effective in protecting other women.

“Oops, Gotta Run!”

It’s common on the road for women to meet handsome strangers, who at some point turn out to be creeps.

A simple arrangement for someone, even a hostel-mate, to call midway into the evening, could prove a wonderful opportunity for escape. We can easily tell the offending bloke that our “friend” is “having an emergency” and make our speedy exit. It’s the oldest trick in the book.

We should be less wary of wounding someone’s ego, and more concerned about our internal alarm system, which is telling us that there is danger ahead. Even if we have to feign a semi-psychotic episode (”I forgot to take my meds. Gotta run!”) it’s best to just leave the scene.

Traveling is about as “safe” as anything else we do, however some people in the world have yet to catch up with the independent lives that many women now lead.

Women should not be fearful of venturing out, but they should be prepared to confront the problem of violence. Silence is not a weapon: our minds and our voices are.

We do not ask to be violated, we ask for violence against women to stop.

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.

“Beat Me And Break Me” and “Fallen Flower” Photos by Ryan Libre.

Your thoughts are important! Let’s start a conversation below.

I was working on my fourth glass of complimentary champagne and talking to Matthew Polly, a faculty member and author of the travel/kung fu memoir, American Shaolin.

“Playboy!” I was saying, waving my glass for emphasis. “I don’t think I could even go into a store and buy a Playboy, let alone aspire to write for them someday.”

The problem I was trying to explain was this: ever since I had started seriously thinking about trying to make it as a travel writer, I had noticed that a lot of the best travel narratives out there were being published by men’s magazines like GQ, Esquire, Men’s Journal, and yes, even Playboy.

The magazine my idols were writing for, the one I should logically hope to write for someday, was kept under plastic on the top shelf at my local newsstand, right below the security camera.

“I counted up all the entries in all seven editions of the Best American Travel Writing,” I continued, “and then I counted up all the other magazines that all those authors had written for. I made charts! Graphs!”

Matthew Polly, who has himself written for both Playboy and Esquire, looked impressed. Or possibly weirded out. “I mean, does Playboy even publish articles written by women?”

“Sure,” he said calmly. “If your story’s good enough.”

Hearing him say that made me feel a little better about my future in the industry. But it didn’t answer the question that had first occurred to me when I noticed that one of the Best American anthologies had more selections from Men’s Journal than from all the big-name travel glossies combined.

The Plot Thickens

Why is so much of the best travel writing today running in men’s magazines? And conversely, why do women’s magazines abstain almost entirely from running quality travel narratives, sticking instead to “charticles” about beaches and fake tanner?

I emailed several well-known travel writers to find out.

At first I thought the connection between the big-name men’s mags and travel writing must be the popularity of adventure travel – the traditional domain of your stereotypical rugged outdoorsman, though of course that’s starting to change.

Jim Benning, co-editor of World Hum and a freelancer for publications like Outside, National Geographic Traveler and National Geographic Adventure, agrees that extreme outdoor travel is part of the equation:

“Men like to think of themselves as the adventurer-explorer types, even if they spend most of their time in cubicles,” Benning told me. “It gets at that Hemingway archetype that’s still strong in North America today. Men no longer go through rites of passage rituals as they did centuries ago, but I think men still have a need to test themselves in the world, and travel and adventure is one of the ways men do that today.”

That made a lot of sense. But I was still wondering about all those travel narratives I’d encountered in GQ or Esquire that had nothing to do heli-skiing or canyon-running or dog-sledding or mountain-climbing.

What was driving the editors of men’s magazines to run these long, first-person narratives? Why didn’t the staffers at Elle or Glamour do the same?

And for that matter, what was stopping women’s magazines from running something comparable to the adventure stuff, using stereotypically “feminine” subjects?

The Edge of the Abyss

There was a tiny voice in my head the whole time I was thinking about this question.

The voice was saying, “Stop! Stop while you’re ahead! If you’re not careful you’re going to find out that none of your female peers want anything to do with thoughtful, intellectually-stimulating narratives about far-away places.”

Deep down, I was a bit afraid that the average Esquire reader was simply more engaged with the world than the average Glamour reader.

Thankfully, though, my interviewees all dismissed the idea. Tom Bissell, whose stories have appeared in Esquire, Men’s Health and Men’s Journal, and whose resume was one of the first to get me thinking about the question, suggested publishing tradition was more to blame than readership preferences.

“I would imagine that if a magazine such as O or Elle published a gritty travel piece about Burma, many of their readers would respond favorably. I think that men’s magazines publish such pieces more reflexively has a lot to do with the traditions behind magazines aimed at men, which are about an entirely different sort of wish-fulfillment than magazines traditionally aimed at women. In other words, we’re working within an eighty-year-old paradigm and don’t appear fully to realize it.”

Matthew Polly agreed that there was a different dynamic at work.

“I think women’s magazines tend to trade in envy rather than desire,” he told me when I contacted him for a (sober) follow-up to our conversation at Book Passage. And he suggested that the serious content in men’s mags was partly required to balance out the smut:

“To justify buying a soft-core porn magazine, a Playboy reader needed a couple of serious articles by serious authors in every issue. GQ & Esquire really are the same, just with more clothing. Women’s magazines are not really as racy.”

The Cold Hard Facts

Just to be sure that my fears were unfounded, I did a bit of poking around on the web and came up with some demographic numbers: Outside’s female readership is 33%, while 55% of The New Yorker’s readers are women. Travel and Leisure’s female readers clock in at 52%, and Budget Travel’s readership is the highest of all, at 66%.

So clearly, there are plenty of women out there who are interested in travel, and in longer, intellectual magazine articles. I was relieved, but I still didn’t have an answer to my question.

It was David Farley, a travel writer who has contributed to both Playboy and GQ, who got me thinking about male and female spending habits.

He noted that women buy more books (and presumably, magazines) than men. But, he suggested, different magazines serve different purposes for their female readers: “Magazines like The New Yorker, which is a general magazine and read (I suspect) by as many women as men help fill the void for interesting travel narratives that women’s magazines don’t supply.”

Polly agreed, suggesting that there is a difference in the way men and women consume magazines:

“Men read magazines in far fewer numbers and less frequently, but when they do they want to feel like it was really worth their time. So men’s magazines have a smaller, more selective market, kinda like HBO. Whereas women’s magazines are more like network TV, because the audience is bigger and less critical. I watch women on airplanes and they will have half-a-dozen magazines that they flip through quickly. A man will have one.”

I pondered Farley’s suggestion about subject-specific female reading habits, combined with Polly’s (extremely accurate) observation about the number of magazines women go through on your average flight. Was that the answer?

Personal Reflection

I decided to conduct an unscientific survey of one woman’s magazine readership: my own. I knocked the dust off the stack of magazines that have accumulated next to my bed in the year since I moved in, and counted them up.

My dearly departed Jane led the pack with seven issues, while In Style, The New Yorker, Glamour, Vanity Fair, and The Walrus had two each. Rounding out the pile were single issues of Outside, National Geographic Traveler, Cosmopolitan, Harpers, The Atlantic, People, Travel and Leisure, Vogue, Outpost, and Elle.

Quite the mixed bag. The GQs and Esquires of the world cover everything from gadgets and girls to books, politics, and travel. But their female equivalents, the Glamours and In Styles, really don’t get much beyond hair, make-up and clothes – hence my varied magazine collection.

Maybe, just maybe, when women want to read about travel, we buy travel magazines.

When we want to read about the arts and current affairs, we buy intellectually-oriented generalist publications. And when we really just want to read about shoes, handbags, and Nine Ways To Blow His Mind, we buy women’s magazines.

Can it really be that simple? I don’t have all the answers, but whatever the reason it looks like I’ll have to come to terms with men’s magazines if I want to make it in this business.

If anyone gives me trouble when I’m perusing that plastic-wrapped top shelf, I’ll just have to tell them: it’s for the articles.

Why do you think there’s never quality travel writing in women’s magazines?

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.

You get the idea. It’s been a long time since I first created Brave New Traveler.

During that time I’ve met some amazing people, celebrated small milestones, and continued to plug away.

Some realizations: creating a sustainable blog model is much harder than it looks. It’s not like you can slap up some content (along with a strip or two of Google ads) and expect the money to roll in.

Also, there’s no way I could have done this alone. For the first 4 months I was writing 90% of the content and driving myself insane.

Today, I’m able to focus more on editing other brilliant writers, and collaborate with my amazing staff – Tim and Laura.

When we’ve come so far, it’s always nice to look back at our favourite picks from the year. This is just a small sample of the excellent content found in our full archives.

Tim’s Picks

1) “The Journey Begins With a Single Step” by Greg Rodgers

A heart-felt and deeply inspiring account of one man’s escape from a soul-crushing job and the burden of knee-jerk American consumerism.

“In December, I gave myself the ultimate Christmas gift, I bought a one way ticket to Bangkok and turned in my letter of resignation…”

2) “The Crisis Of Too Much Energy” by Josh Kearns

Josh Kearns serves up a healthy dollop of common sense in this sweeping condemnation of conventional wisdom about the energy crisis. Josh’s essay is a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered if plastic toys and big SUVs are really the ingredients of happiness.

3) “5 Reasons The Lost Girls Can Afford To Travel The World” by Amanda Pressner

Amanda Pressner and her 20 something friends “The Lost Girls” traveled around the world for a whole year.

How did they do it?

“The short answer is that it’s actually much cheaper to travel for a year than it is to maintain our cost of living back in the United States. Seriously!”

This is a great article. Seriously.

4) “50+ Travel Magazines The Want To Publish Your Travel Writing” by Ian MacKenzie

Ian’s comprehensive list of travel magazines is an indispensable resource for all writers who aspire to publish their travel stories. Simply awesome.

Ian’s Picks

5) “The Art of Spiritual Travel” by Cameron Karsten

Travel is more than alcoholic binges and sandy beaches. It’s more than bland tourist attractions and plastic souvenirs. Travel at its purest is an inner journey, navigated by the outer self, as Cam poetically reveals in his first article for BNT.

6) “5 Steps To Save Money Like the Buddha” by Lucia Byttebier

If there’s one thing Buddha wasn’t worried about, it was bling. (After all, he did forfeit his palace for robes and the open road). Lucia applies the Buddha’s lessons towards the traveler’s budget, with enlightening results.

7) “Are You Afraid of Flying?” by Ian MacKenzie

I know, it’s probably bad form to showcase my own article. But I do feel this was one of my favourite to write – the article was biting at the back of my mind for months. I felt I had to get it down on paper. And thankfully, I feel I was able to articulate the real problem: irrational fear.

8 ) “Top 10 Things I Miss About Traveling (But Hated At The Time)” by Sarah Lane

In this entertaining and thoughtful article, Sarah put in perspective all the things that get under your skin while traveling. Most of us don’t realize (until we get home) how much these trying moments push our awareness of what it means to be alive.

9) “The Truth About Carbon Offsets” by Doug Dosdall

Flying is bad for the environment. Carbon offsetting is the way to balance out the damage. But how effective, really, is carbon offsetting? And is it the end-all solution or just a temporary bandaid? Doug answers these questions and more in this great piece.

10) “Why We Need Micro-Loans Instead of Slum Tourism” by Trip Sweeney & Scott Zimmerman

“We would like to present a new concept in tourism; a travel experience that celebrates the individuals in developing countries looking hopefully into the future with an entrepreneurial spirit.”

Trip and Scott of StepUp Travel present their powerful argument for empowering poverty-stricken populations with the tools to thrive.

What are some of your favourite articles from the past year of Brave New Traveler? Please share in the comments!

Here’s an early treat from my friends at Common Craft. Have a great Friday! I’m still looking for my own costume…anyone have any ideas?

Reports are now pouring in that the military regime has begun killing the peaceful protesters, much as they did in the previous protests almost 20 years ago.

Many of us have never experienced life under a brutal dictatorship, and hopefully none of us ever will. Therefore it is our moral obligation to support the Burmese people as they reach out to us, and force as many eyeballs as possible to watch what happens next.

From the USA Campaign for Burma:

The military is now utilizing violence against monks and other non-violent protestors. They have beaten and arrested hundreds of people, and it is reported that more than a hundred have been killed. We are tired of the international communities just making statements – they must ACT

Click here to take action and sign the petition.

If you didn’t know your passion in life, would you throw everything aside to search for it? Such is the premise for my friend’s One Week Job project.

Since February, he’s been traveling around Canada working a job a week, meeting new people, learning new skills, and generally experiencing continual uncertainty. It’s like traveling…on steroids.

And recently, he managed to drag me along for the ride.

I’ve taken on the role of filmographer – shooting, editing, and producing weekly episodes based on his jobs. We’ve spent the last few weeks in Toronto and it’s already been a wild ride: working at a brewery, a tattoo parlour, and now the largest cancer research hospital in Canada.

Episode #2 from New Tribe Tattoo Parlour was just published today. Have a watch, and if you like it, it would help both of us greatly if you spread the word. Any feedback is also appreciated!

As many of you probably know, there has been an ongoing genocide occuring in Darfur. It is as complex as it is horrific – though with one thing for certain: it must be stopped.

The above film was put together by an advocacy group Stop Genocide Now, who are also documenting the journey of humanitarian workers as they navigate the people and region.

I highly recommend checking out their website and joining the movement. As well, Amnesty International has a dedicated campign for Darfur with further information and action guidelines.

Coincidentally, the question “How do we get beyond empty promises for Darfur?” was asked at the recent Youtube debates to the upcoming presidential candidates. Here’s what they said:

Why do you think the Darfur conflict has been largely ignored by the West? What do you think is the best course of action to stop the genocide?

One of the travel realities that’s rarely revealed is the amount of waiting that accompanies every type of journey.

I remember in Thailand, I had taken a bus from Bangkok to the southern coast, arriving in the terminal sometime around 4am. It was unbearable hot, pitch black, and nothing was open. It was too muggy to sleep and I was too hungry to read a book.

In short, it was a mildly hellish 5 hour wait until morning when the ferry arrived. If only I’d had something more effective than a book for distraction, it might have made the time more bearable.

Enter: the Nintendo DS. I’ll be honest with you – like all adolescent boys, I used to be addicted to video games.

Luckily, I outgrew that practice in my early 20’s. Sure, I’d play video games now and then at a friend’s place, but for the most part, I left the pixelated world cold turkey.

The Revival

So recently, when I tried the latest Nintendo DS, I was skeptical. (Full disclosure: I was sent a free review copy). Had video games really changed that much in the past 6 years? Would I really want to pack one of these in my backpack for guaranteed distraction on the road?

When the box arrived, I unpacked it with suspense. First impression: it’s sexy. Nintendo has definitely been taking design lessons from Apple, borrowing their white graphite aesthetic.

Second, it’s a marvel of technology. I remember when the original Gameboy weighed 8 pounds and sported one dismal black-and-white screen. This newer version is a fraction of the weight, and the dual screens are a beautiful site to behold.

Third, it comes with a stylus. Yep, it’s utilizes touchscreen. I couldn’t believe it myself. It’s like having a Blackberry — only one that you can’t get business calls from and forces you to play games.

Get Smarter

Speaking of games, the Nintendo DS came with a copy of Brain Age. You may have heard of it already, as it was apparently one of the top-selling games in Japan.

It’s basically a combination of brain-sharpening activities that test your mental prowess, such as high-speed multiplication, reading exercises, brain teasers, puzzles, and even a version of Sudoku.

If it sounds mildly interesting, it’s not. It’s actually a blast.

Or at least, that was my wife tells me. Ever since we got it, she’s been playing it more than I have.

Maybe it’s the curious combination of competition and the promise of a better brain that makes Brain Age so addicting. Or maybe it’s the fact that the game is narrated by a jovial Japanese professor who cracks jokes and urges you to develop your “pre-frontal cortex.”

Either way, I’ve decided to do what I never thought possible. On my next trip, in anticipation of the agonizingly inevitable waits I’ll be forced to endure, I’m going to pack along the Nintendo DS.

Because you never know when you’ll need an escape.

Ian MacKenzie is editor of Brave New Traveler, and co-founder of the blogging community TravelBlogger. Recently, he also began offering website marketing consulting services specifically for travel websites and service providers.

We’re all familiar with the idea of traveling across geography, but what about time?

Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku presents his case in the above video clip. He also writes more about the idea in an article “The Physics Of Time Travel”

“Not surprisingly, time travel has always been considered impossible. After all, Newton believed that time was like an arrow; once fired, it soared in a straight, undeviating line. One second on the earth was one second on Mars. Clocks scattered throughout the universe beat at the same rate.

Einstein gave us a much more radical picture.

According to Einstein, time was more like a river, which meandered around stars and galaxies, speeding up and slowing down as it passed around massive bodies. One second on the earth was Not one second on Mars. Clocks scattered throughout the universe beat to their own distant drummer.”

If you want to go deeper, watch The First Time Machine and read the fascinating article Timeline Dynamics.

What do you think about time travel? Possible or wishful thinking?

Some travelers wouldn’t be caught dead with one, but there are others who enjoy the comfort and security those little paperbacks provide.

The internet’s equivalent of these guides has been around for a while, but there’s a new player in the field: wiki travel guides.

These guides can be written by anyone, whether they’re an expert on all things Europe, or just know a thing or two about hiking in Russia. It’s a free-for-all affair that has the potential to overthrow the dominion of the guidebook.

“But,” I hear you say, “how many people are going to trust the opinion of a pack of amateurs?” Quite a few, judging by the popularity of TripAdvisor, a site that allows people to review hotels they’ve stayed at.

A recent survey of UK travelers found that more travelers trusted the reviews on sites like TripAdvisor than any other online resource, including professionally written guides.

So should you ditch your guidebook? Here are 5 reasons why you should make the switch to user-written destination guides.

1. More writers means a balanced opinion

We humans are subjective creatures. Some of us like pizzas topped with anchovies; others retch at the thought. Our views of the places we travel also vary wildly, depending on the kinds of things we look for in a holiday.

By offering multiple people the chance to collaborate on a single article, user-written guides can be more balanced than a guidebook written by a lone professional. Wiki travel guides represent the combined views of anyone who feels like contributing their 2 cents’ worth of travel knowledge.

2. Editable information is current information

One of the drawbacks of religiously following a guidebook’s advice is that there’s a good chance thousands of others are doing the same thing – meaning the quiet but beautiful beach written about in your guidebook is anything but quiet these days.

That’s great for local business, but it sucks for travelers trying to get away from the crowd.

The benefit of user-written guides is that people can update the information at any time, so information stays current – a luxury that guidebooks don’t have.

3. An outlet for travelers to share their advice

Have you ever returned from your overseas trip and discovered that no one really cares about how great the beaches in Thailand are? They might feign interest; but until they start planning a trip to Thailand themselves, they probably won’t care that much.

Online guides provide you with an outlet to share your pearls of wisdom with an appreciative audience.

4. A complete information package

Wiki travel guides aren’t without their critics. An article in Slate Magazine recently complained that Wikitravel, the web’s best-known user-edited travel guide, lacks accommodation listings.

That’s true. On Wikitravel, you’d be hard-pressed to find decent recommendations about where you should stay the night. But there are other travel sites who are taking the concept of a wiki-generated guide and incorporating it as part of their service.

For example, Travellerspoint has added a member-editable travel guide to its existing range of features for travelers. (Full disclosure: I work for Travellerspoint).

Anyone using Travellerspoint’s destination guide to research their trip can easily head over to the accommodation booking area and find everything from top-end resorts and hotels to cheap budget options.

While they’re at it, they can also browse photo galleries and members’ blogs about the place they’re planning to visit, or get advice in the forums – all of which delivers the traveler a package that comes pretty close to being complete.

5. Unlimited Growth

The final step for most wiki travel guides is the build-up of content: it goes without saying that a guide written by users needs users to write. But the beauty of the internet is the limitless amount of space.

It takes time to build up, but with enough users contributing, wiki travel guides can become vast repositories of knowledge.

Consider how Wikipedia and TripAdvisor, two excellent examples of user-generated websites, have risen on the backs of millions of contributions made by people around the world.

It’s just a matter of time till wiki travel guides follow in their footsteps.

Eric Daams has lived in the Solomon Islands, Netherlands and Micronesia, but these days he calls Australia home. He is the editor of Travellerspoint and enjoys hunting down spammers, reading about people’s travel adventures, and writing for the Travellerspoint blog.

Or at least that’s what we’re led to believe when listening to local guides with a macabre sense of humour.

During my travels, I’ve survived encounters with deadly Fijian sea snakes, tarantulas in Australia’s Outback, and even a face-to-face stare down with some local Vancouver deer.

So I suppose it was only the universe balancing itself out when it decided to hide a wayward scorpion in my T-shirt on my Costa Rica honeymoon.

The setting: lush, thick jungle miles away from the nearest city. The accommodation: Pacuare Lodge, a stunning eco-location offering beautiful bungalows and no electricity.

A Unknown Assailant

On our first morning at the lodge, Karen and I decided to go for a hike with our guide. My shirt had gotten wet from the previous day of rafting, so I’d left it to dry on the outside patio, where I retrieved it when dressing for our hike. I threw the shirt on and began walking down the stone path.

Suddenly: a painful jab in my shoulder. I spun around. Had something landed on me? Perhaps a rabid humming-bird or giant mosquito? Again, a jab. No, a sting! Multiple stings!

I spun around like a man possessed, ripping off my T-shirt and throwing it to the ground in a single motion. The stinging immediately stopped, revealing the assailant must have been between the shirt and my skin.

I cautiously used a stick to push aside the fabric, showing a particularly smug scorpion nestled in my clothing. “It’s a scorpion!” I exclaimed to Karen.

She immediately flew into a frenzy, fearing if the variety in Costa Rica were as poisonous as their Mexican and Australian cousins.

We ran to find our guide, Pascal. Breathless, I mouthed “Scorpion! Stung me! Am I dead?” He checked my scars, asked if I was allergic to scorpion stings. “I dunno,” replied. “I’ve never been stung by a scorpion before.”

“Okay,” he said. “I think you’ll be okay. But just so you know, the pain will get worse for a few hours before it gets better.” He made a upward incline with his hand to illustrate. Comforting, I thought.

A Lesson Learned

Was it as painful as he described? Yes. Did that stop me from asking Karen to take a few photos after I knew my life would be spared? Of course not. These are the experiences that make good stories later.

And on top of that, the attack had put “the fear” into us for the rest of the trip, compelling us to be extra cautious to avoid the snakes, bullet ants, and other crawlies that made their homes in the jungle.

What about you? Sparing anything too grisly, what’s the worst insect/animal attack you’ve been privileged to experience?

Share your stories in the comments!

The flight attendants closed the doors, checked all overhead compartments, and our plane geared up to pull out of the gate. We made it about 10 feet before the electrical system died.

Yes, died.

The plane hushed and came to a stop. The passengers glanced at each other with obvious surprise. A moment later the captain’s voice crackled over the intercom:

“Uh, yes, it seems our electrical system has conked out on us. But don’t worry folks, this is actually our secondary system, which we only use to taxi in and out of the gate. We don’t use this system in-flight. We’ll just restart the engine and be on our way.”

My wife reached over and clamped her hand around mine. Needless to say, our comfort towards flying did not increase.

Runaway Anxiety

I used to be okay with flying. There was a bit of nausea during takeoff and landing, but otherwise, I never quite let the cold, clammy fingernails of terror trickle down my spine.

But the incident above was not the only one during our trip. All four of our flights experienced complications: from the air-conditioning malfunctioning, to electrical storms, to closed airports, to emergency diversions for refueling.

Could it be we just have bad luck? Not so, I realized, considering Rolf Pott’s described a similar situation in a recent World Hum post:

We started flying in circles. Then the pilot kept coming back on saying, “Another 20 minutes.” Then he said we were running out of fuel so we were going to have to land in Baltimore. In this day and age, when you get these cryptic messages from your pilot, you get a little nervous. We were coming in for a landing in Baltimore and were about 10 feet off the ground when we pulled up again. That was a little freaky.

And consider this sobering statistic reported by Chris Elliot:

Buried in the latest government figures about the airline industry is one number that is bound to fill every air traveler with dread: Complaints are up an eye-popping 77 percent from a year ago.

“In April, the Department received 1,246 complaints from consumers about airline service, up 76.7 percent from the 705 complaints received in April 2006,” it says. “But 4.9 percent fewer than the 1,310 filed in March 2007.”

Flying really has gotten worse.

Statistically Speaking

On the ground, it’s easy to convince yourself the chances of actually dying in a plane crash are slim (1 in 5051).

But in the air, while circling a massive electrical storm, it’s more difficult to stop the vivid imaginings of the plane being ripped apart, the engine falling off, a lighting bolt striking the wing, a gremlin unfastening the doors, etc…

Why do we fear the unlikely causes of death? I previously explored this topic “What You Think Probably Won’t Kill You” and again found it revisited in a recent article by Scientific American.

Basically, the author wrote, psychological science has identified four factors that feed our risk intuitions:

• 1. We fear what our ancestral history has prepared us to fear – With our old brain living in a new world, we are disposed to fear confinement and heights, snakes and spiders, and humans outside our tribe.
• 2. We fear what we cannot control – Behind the wheel of our car, but not in airplane seat 17B, we feel control.
• 3. We fear what is immediate – Smoking’s lethality and the threats of rising seas and extreme weather are in the distant future. The airplane take-off is now.
• 4. We fear threats readily available in memory – If a surface to air missile brings down a single American Airliner, the result will be traumatic for the airline industry. Given the difficulty in grasping the infinitesimal odds of its being (among 11 million annual airline flights) the plane we are on, probabilities will not persuade us. Intuitive fears will hijack the rational mind.

Makes sense. But try as I might, I spent my recent flights with stomach clenched and sweat greasing the palms of my hands. While I was able to fight off complete panic attacks, the journey was far from a pleasant experience.

By the time the planes landed, it would take hours before any sort of relaxation returned. And just the thought of hopping back on a plane is enough to quiver my core.

The Remaining Options

It’s possible you’re in a similar situation. So what are the alternatives? I figure there are three:

I could stop flying. But I love traveling so much, this is not really an option.

I could work on convincing myself that air travel is safer than being on the road, that accidents are rare, and that I lack ability to control the outcome of a flight anyway. Whatever happens, happens. Deal with it.

Or lastly, I could try something I’ve never done before: the wonderful world of anxiety suppressing drugs.

Ian MacKenzie is editor of Brave New Traveler, and co-founder of the blogging community TravelBlogger. Aside from writing, he spends his time exploring the fundamental nature of existence and wishing he did more backpacking.

Are you in a similar situation? How have you dealt with the fear of flying?

Seems the time for travel/internet hybrid shows has finally come. First there was 5 Takes, then more recently, GlobeRoamer TV.

Now there’s Word Travels – a 13-part half hour travel series to be broadcast on Canada’s OLN in early 2008. And who are the incredibly lucky participants in this new venture? None other than previously featured travel writers Robin Esrock and Julia Dimon.

Must…suppress…murderous…envy. Just kidding. Congratulations to both writers, and no doubt, you’re probably looking forward to the first episode of this sure-to-be-interesting series.

For more info, head over to Modern Gonzo.

Some people may believe my occasional forays into the topic of news and media is diverging from our mandate of brave new travel. But when you think about it, the issues actually quite related.

Our view of the world and other cultures is largely coloured by the lens of big newspapers and television. In the past, diversity of opinion is what kept the multitude of lenses from swinging too far from reality. You could pick a few sources, and find your own truth in the middle.

These days the tentacles of big media have largely enveloped these once independent sources. And they’ve been spewing toxic sludge instead of thoughtful reporting ever since.

Case in point: the two largest newspapers in Vancouver this week carried front page stories about Paris Hilton’s jail sentence (and I’m sure the coverage was even more thorough in the US).

How to combat this noxious pollution? Support alternative news sources. Stop reading big media. And turn off your TV.

I was reading a magazine today that claimed (in large, bold script on the front cover no less) to offer ten tips on how to have a fabulous vacation without ever leaving your house.

Intrigued, as those crafty devils who wrote the byline intended no doubt, I opened the magazine to page 42 and skimmed the article.

The conclusion I reached at the end of the brave little piece, was this (and let’s skip the niceties and be brutally honest here): people simply don’t plan half-assed vacations.

People don’t scrimp and save and book time off work to sit around their apartments and pretend to be on holiday.

I’m all for appreciating where you are and what you have and no one knows better than me that nothing beats unplugging the phone and sitting around butt-naked eating goat cheese and drinking wine – but I don’t call that a vacation do I? No, I simply call it Sunday afternoon.

We vacation on the other hand, to leave the ordinary and the known, to experience new things and new people. We vacation to get away from it all, not simply pretend that we are. My point is, the end goal of a trip is to actually go somewhere, right?

Brilliant In Theory

I’ll give the writer credit though, she was excited about this idea or very skilled at pretending she was. Her words bounced off the page as she offered tips on buying plush “hotel-quality” robes and exotic bath oils to evoke a restful spa week “right in your own bathroom!”

Like communism, this is an idea that is brilliant in theory only. The thinking is, “Who doesn’t love bath oils and plush robes?” But come on, really?

Where’s the sleek receptionist and the cool slate tiled hallway? Where’s the darkened room and massage table, the masseur with strong capable hands? Where’s the joy in plush robes and an exotic oiled bath when you’re the one laundering the bathrobe and trying in vain to rinse the oil off the sides of the tub the next morning?

The article continues in the same vein for a page and a half with well meaning advice on: ordering in all week to substitute for that “expensive overseas cuisine” in Italy and Greece.

Foreign language film rentals are subbed in for being immersed in a different language and culture.

Taking in the art at a local gallery instead of the renowned Louvre in Paris; setting up a lounge chair in your backyard, margarita in hand, in lieu of relaxing on the beaches of Mexico; a page and a half of these cheap, half-assed ideas.

Quite frankly, it was irritating. Contrary to this woman’s opinion, I, like many of you, can tell the difference between a Greek salad ordered from the take-out joint down the street and one made in Greece.

I am well aware of the fact that real life does not occur within the frame of a 27″ television screen, nor does it have subtitles. Perhaps most importantly, nothing, nothing is better than real Mexican tequila.

So. Where does that leave a poor workhorse who longs for some time off?

Well I won’t write a page and I half on the subject but I will tell you this much, if you are broke and have no money for a vacation, you needn’t spend what little you do have on take-out and movie rentals.

The Real Budget Getaway

There are indeed other options and rest assured they don’t involve you leaving a cringe worthy message on your machine to the effect of “Sorry, I’m not in right now. I’m spending a week at the exclusive resort ‘Chez Moi’…”

In order to truly tackle a budget getaway you either choose an inexpensive vacation or you simply pool what funds you can, pop it into a higher interest bank account (ING has a great one offering 3.5% as opposed to the .05% most banks offer) and save until you can afford a proper trip – complete with actual air travel.

But if your cubicle is closing in on you and you think you might fatally injure your alarm clock tomorrow morning, consider the budget travel options.

Enlist your trusty car or a greyhound and visit the friends you’ve been promising you would since they moved three years ago. Accommodation is free, food is usually provided and all you have to shell out for is cash for drinks and a nice thank-you gift (being broke is no excuse for being rude!)

Alternately, pick a place about a day’s drive away and spend some time taking in the local colour. If you have a car and your seats fold down, you won’t need a hotel and if you’re taking the bus just splurge on a $50 pup tent and you’re set.

Speaking of tents, I’m not so much the outdoorsy type (I once brought stainless steel martini glasses on a camping trip) but I hear that some like it rough, so if you’re up to it, tackle a hike in the backwoods of your area.

You’ll be getting a great workout and I have a girlfriend who swears she never sleeps better than on the hard ground under the stars.

Whatever you do, for the love of vacations promise me it won’t involve turning up your thermostat to simulate a tropical climate or writing postcards to your family and friends from your living room.

Madeleine Somerville is a big city girl living in small city British Columbia, where she works as a newpaper columnist. She has travelled to Thailand and Japan and most recently came back from a few months of sun and sand Down Under.

When you were growing up (or hitting your mid-life crisis), did you have your own personal travel dream?

Was it scaling Mount Everest? Dining under the glow of Paris streetlamps? Lying on the sand in Koh Samui?

For me, I didn’t begin traveling until the end of high school. My family couldn’t afford to take any fancy vacations overseas, so I had to watch with envy as friends returned from Disneyland, Mexico, and other exotic climes.

But in truth, it wasn’t the dream of Mickey Mouse or all-inclusive hotels that danced in my head. It was the vision of standing on a remote beach, somewhere in the South Pacific, surrounded by warm, glassy waves, with nothing but endless horizon before me.

It was my dream to stand on the edge of the earth, (or at least feel like it).

While reading the blog of Vancouver musician Matthew Good, I came across an entry describing the realization of his own travel dream – to stand before the Roman Colosseum.

“I was there, you see, in the city that, since childhood, I had dreamed of seeing. I wanted to run my hands along the rough bricks of the Colosseum, walk up Palatine, walk through the ruins of a civilization that I had long studied and been fascinated by. But in the three days that followed it was like trying to walk with knives being shoved in my stomach.”

Unfortunately for Matt, he was extremely ill at the time. And his travel companion unappreciative. Still, he offers some sage reflection:

“Looking back on it, I’m thankful that, despite the circumstances, I was able to see that place with my own eyes. [...] In the end, what we do in this life comes full circle. I’ll get mine just as all of you will get yours. Just make sure that no matter what happens in-between, that you get to touch your wall.”

What was your travel dream? And did you ever find it?

A few weeks ago, I asked if online travel guides were useful, or just too much information.

Some readers agreed with me, believing an information overload can overshadow the experience.

Others thought online travel guides were useful depending on your situation, and it was unfair to lump all the sites together.

With that said, I figured I would highlight a few websites that provide free travel video guides.

GeoBeats – Short videos on international destinations that highlight history, culture, shopping, food, nightlife, lifestyle, and more. All videos are professionally produced, but thankfully lack a heavily commercial feel.

Zoom and Go – Slick interface and a fairly large selection of travel video clips and longer guides. Also pay for all accepted submissions, based on their own point system.

Traveler Videos – Comprehensive portal that aggregates a fair amount of travel content from a variety of other video websites. The design is a little clunky, but definitely worth poking around.

Youtube Travel – The mother of all video sharing websites shouldn’t be overlooked as as great place to find travel guides. Keep in mind, you may have to sift through the rough to find the gems.

Travelistic – Great interface and high-quality video. Travelistic has a growing database of informative travel content, along with exclusive series and their own show “The Map.”

This is at odds with the exponential growth of online travel guides that pull together destination data from multiple sources, such as hotel reviews, attractions, activities, comments, ratings, photos, blogs, guided tours, maps, etc.

Here’s just a few examples: TripBase, Boo, We Just Got Back, Check Point Black, Mapwing, TrackaTrip, Geobeats, IVisitU, Gusto, GeoJoey, TripTie, Unearth Travel, TripUp, TravelVideos, TripConnect, Worlds Revealed, Vcarious, Placeblogger, RealTravel, and Virtual Tourist.

On the one hand, reading about various destinations can help you plan for the trip you want. But do you ever feel like too much information and planning can kill the unique excitement of uncertainty?

It’s true, I co-founded my own community TravelBlogger, but we’ve consciously decided to focus on allowing our members to blog their trips, rather than attempt to catalog every city and country on the globe.

What do you think? Has the explosion of travel portals helped you or do you try to avoid the avalanche of information?

I’ll be sending him a brand new copy of the Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography — not that he’ll need it, but I’m sure it’s chock full of useful photography tips and advice.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, as well as the judges (Kris, Pam, Timen, Ethan, and Pia) for making the final nominations from so many great entries.

Have any ideas for more contests? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks to everyone who participated and sent in their entry. I hope the opportunity provided you at the very least with a trip down memory lane, through photographs you hadn’t seen in a while and hoped to forget.

The Final Nominations
(in no particular order)

• Lee LeFever
• Travoholic
• Vagabondish
• Muse Maria
  
• Stu’s Rusty Bucket

So now it’s up to you, dear reader.

From the list of final nominations above, YOU must vote on the top winner. The polls will be open until midnight April 29. One vote per person.

Please note: I’ve added an optional first page to the voting that asks a few demographic questions about you.

I repeat: it’s optional – though I would appreciate the extra few moments to answer the questions because it helps me better understand our audience and in turn, publish a better blog.

Click To Play

Lee LeFever and his wife Sachi over at CommonCraft (and TWINF fame) have created a short little instructional video finally demystifying RSS. He writes:

In my opinion, RSS has been too geeky for too long. I have friends who use the web as much as I do and have no clue about RSS. It’s a minor travesty.

I’d have to agree with him. I’ve been on the RSS bandwagon since early last year and my ability to keep track of blogs and skim headlines has increased 5000 fold. Every person I show how to use RSS has a bewildered look on their face…until it clicks. Then they’re instantly hooked.

So enjoy Lee LeFever’s “RSS In Plain English” video above, and when you’re done, feel free to subscribe to Brave New Traveler’s feed. You’ll be glad you did.

So without further ado, the secret celebrity judge is Ethan Zohn.

You may know him as the winner of Survivor: Africa and as an advocate for Grassroot Soccer, which provides African youth with the skills and support to live HIV free.

You may be wondering how the heck I’d know Ethan. Well it turns out one of my previous side projects was trying to sway CBS Television to Let Me On Survivor – basically harness the support of Canadian fans to force them to allow Canadian contestants on the show (something they still haven’t allowed).

During the campaign I was able to contact and gain the endorsement of many past Survivor contestants, including Ethan. He actually wanted 10% of my possible million dollar winnings, but I pointed out he was already a million dollar winner himself.

So there you have it.

Only a few days left in the 5 Hilarious Travel Photos competition – deadline is midnight on April 22. We’ve had some fantastic entries so far, but there’s still room for yours.

After the entry phase closes, the judges will have until Wednesday to narrow their choices to the Top 5. From there I’ll open it up to a public vote for the winner. And the grand prize? A brand new copy of Lonely Planet Travel Photography: A Guide To Taking Better Pictures.

Don’t forget to send me an email when your entry is up. Good luck!

Thanks to the first few brave souls who have submitted their entries. (You can check them out by scrolling down and below the MyBlogLog widget on the right). If you’re still in need of inspiration, I included my own top 5 photos here.

But now onto the good stuff.

Who will be judging the competition?

I’m delighted to announce the following judges are confirmed onboard:

Kris Krug – Photographer, technologist and author based in Vancouver. I first met Kris at the Northern Voice pre-dinner a few months ago, and have since been in awe of his stellar photographic skill. Check out his website and Flickr sets to see what I mean.

Pam Mandel – Travel editor for the women’s blogging network, BlogHer and personal blogger/photographer over at Nerd’s Eye View, Pam is uniquely qualified to offer her judgment in the competition. Instead of scouring the web for the best travel conent, she’s now looking for the most hilarious.

Pia Taylor – Blogger at Backpackers.com. Pia is always looking for what’s new, useful and exciting for today’s backpacker, from upcoming events, travel tips, planning ideas and more.

Timen Swijtink – Blogger at InMyAllStars.com. Timen is an advocate of “experience traveling” and an avid photographer. He’s also the mastermind behind the recently unveiled Trusted Travel Blog Network, providing a seal of approval on all blogs that publish fair and trustworthy content.

Secret Celebrity Judge – And last, but not least, there will be one secret celebrity judge unveiled at the end of the week. Who could it be you ask? Guess you’ll have to wait and find out…

So if you’re sitting on your own top 5 hilarious travel photos, publish them already! The deadline is fast approaching: midnight on April 22.

Don’t forget to shoot me an email when it’s up. Good luck!

Entries have already started trickling in, which you can read by scrolling down and looking beneath the “recent readers” widget. I’ll be adding all the entries as they are submitted, up until the April 22 deadline.

As I’m a judge, I obviously can’t win. But I just thought I’d put together my list to offer inspiration and guidance when crafting your own 5 most hilarious photos.

Remember, yours doesn’t have to be structured exactly like mine. You can write as much or as little of the back story behind each of the photos you choose. Keep in mind, all entries will be judged on overall hilarity, and not on a single photo alone.

1. High Fivin’ Buddha (Bangkok, Thailand)

Upon arriving in Bangkok, there’s one thing you realize pretty quickly. Buddhas are everywhere. Gold buddhas, fat buddhas, wooden buddhas, happy buddhas, buddhas of all sizes and shapes.

This photo captures my attempt to give the gold Buddha some skin…unfortunately the statue is behind glass and I probably would have been tackled by the Thai guards if I tried to touch it directly.

2. Hitching A Ride (Outback, Australia)

In spring of 2002, I took a Landrover across the Outback, with 8 other backpackers and our Aussie guide. What we found was a whole lot of nothing.

This particular stretch in the photo is aptly called The Moonscape. My handwritten sign says “Canada or Bust.” As you can probably guess, had I actually been left there in the desert, my odds of even seeing another vehicle were about equivalent to being hit by a meteor.

3. Sauteed Street Insects (Bangkok, Thailand)

Usually I wouldn’t even trust the vegetarian noodles bought from a street vendor, let alone a heaping tray of steaming insects. Sean attempts to capture the moment with a combination of fascination, disgust, and yes…curiousity.

What became a casual dare suddenly turned into this. And let us never speak of this experience again.

4. A Shocking Experience (Whistler, BC)

While on a hike with my friend Mike, we came across this dangerous-looking wildlife fence. We’re not ones to miss a great photo op when we see one, so we snapped this choice shot.

The best part is the look of sincere pleasure on Mike’s face as he reaches for the wires. Sort of a “Look what I can do, Mom!” as you push yourself higher on the playground swing. Except in this case, there’s a few thousand volts waiting to course through your veins.

5. Half Moon Bay (Leleuvia, Fiji)

In 2001, I had just set out on my first solo trip. Having arrived on the beautiful and sparsely populated island of Leleuvia, I wanted to capture the feeling of total exotic freedom. Hence, the bare white ass.

But while the photo itself has always induced a chuckle in friends and family, think for a moment of the conversation I had when asking a complete stranger to take the shot. Now that was awkward.

So there’s my submission to the 5 Hilarious Travel Photos contest. Hopefully it inspired you to post your own entry – but hurry! The deadline is midnight on Sunday, April 22.

Good luck!

Whether it’s a sunset framed by Fijian palm trees, the weathered face of an Indian rickshaw driver, or strips of Tibetan prayer flags flapping in the wind, the focus is on beauty, emotion, and awe.

But rarely is the art of the “hilarious” travel photo celebrated in these circles.

These are the shots depicting a certain look of horror as you’re about to board a rickety river ferry, the satisfaction of “raising the roof” in front of the Vatican, and the shame of passing out on the table of the Irish pub after one pint too many.

So in the spirit of this underrated art, I’ve decided to launch the 5 Hilarious Travel Photos Contest.

Here’s how it works: pick your top 5 hilarious travel photos and publish them on your blog.

What’s the prize? Well, you’d think the amusement one gets from digging through their travel photos for the most absurd shots would be enough. And let’s not forget the prestige factor.

But just to make it interesting I’ll send the winner a brand spankin’ new copy of Lonely Planet Travel Photography: A Guide To Taking Better Pictures.

The Official Rules

1. To participate, you must choose 5 of your most hilarious travel photos and publish them in a single blog post between now and the deadline: midnight on Sunday April 22, 2007.

2. Each photo must either include you OR be taken by you.

3. The photos don’t necessarily have to be hilarious themselves. Often, it’s the story behind the photo that makes them extra hilarious, so feel free to elaborate on each.

4. Send a trackback to this post or email me directly to let me know you’ve posted your entry. I will be gathering and listing them all here until the deadline.

5. After the deadline, I will choose, along with help from a few other travel photographers, the top 5 entries. Entries will be judged as a whole, and not on the merits of a single photo.

7. On Monday, April 23, I will publish the finalists along with a voting poll for the audience to have their say.

6. Voting will end midnight Friday, April 27. From there, the winner will be announced on Monday, April 30.

If you’re stuck looking for inspiration, I’ll be publishing my own entry in the competition this Wednesday. Of course, I’m not eligible to win.

Make sense? If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

I rose from the television, my evening’s indulgence. I walked through the crystal glare of the screen and entered the kitchen.

Flicking on the lights, I reached the pantry, opened its wooden doors and pulled down two contents: a can of Equal Exchange Organic Hot Cocoa, and a plastic bag of Western Family Marshmallows-jumbo.

Outside, a layer of clouds blocked the night sky. A sheet of rain piddled on the patio. As the teakettle came to a boil, I turned down the gas flame and filled my mug.

I stirred in the powdered chocolate and white puffs of sugar. As the marshmallows dissolved to sweet perfection, I wondered: is true sustainability ever possible?

A Sickness At The Root

Back in the television room, I continued watching the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Directed by Robert Greenwald, the film captures the stories of employees and those affected across the United States.

It is a story of American capitalism gone awry. Like David versus Goliath, the box-store behemoth slams into a community and entices families with its cheap plastic products. We hear from an employed mother forced to seek government-assisted healthcare to raise her children, and a family-owned hardware store crushed by the neighboring Wal-Mart superstructure.

The movie recalled my recent journey to Mazatlan, Mexico and the newly razed soil to accommodate the acres of asphalt and the high ceilings of cheap Wal-Mart goods. Not only has the corporation captured the minds and bodies of Americans, but now it extends to Mexico, Europe, and countless other countries.

Wal-Mart imports an outrageous amount of products from overseas. On November 29, 2004, Jiang Jingjing of China Daily reported, “The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., says its inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit US$18 billion this year, keeping the annual growth rate of over 20 per cent consistent over two years.”

That’s an estimated $18 billion pumped out from sweatshop factories employing young, naïve women, men and children living in poor provinces. According to Global Exchange, Wal-Mart employs 400,000 workers overseas.

It’s everywhere. At the beginning of this year, just 15.59 miles from my doorstep, a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened its doors on January 31 in Poulsbo, WA. It’s 203,000 sq. ft. store provides 525 new jobs in 36 departments that remains open to customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What’s most amazing, apart from the $35,000 donated to local organizations through its Good Works community involvement program, is the fact that twelve miles down the road there is another Wal-Mart Supercenter located in Silverdale, Washington.

The Accomplice In The Mirror

As always, my cocoa was most delicious. Let it be known hot cocoa without marshmallows is not the same. Plainly, it sucks.

But as I continued to watch the film, I felt a pang of guilt. Here I was, drinking organic hot cocoa fairly traded through the worldwide network of small farmers and co-ops, yet topped with gigantic, jumbo-puffed, white-oozing, falsified sugar marshmallows.

No, the marshmallows were not organic, fairly trade, or manufactured with conscious decisions. They were packed, shipped, stacked and stored for months. They were not sustainable, the plastic bag unsalvageable-America’s weak recycling programs will not help this time.

The movie ended. I went to the kitchen sink and washed my brown, sugar-stained mug. I opened the pantry and perused its contents. I took note of the products: most were organic, purchased in bulk. They were stored in containers able for reuse or recycling.

They were fresh and limited; only the necessities and a few luxuries, not piled with the excesses of your average soccer-crazed Mom with an over-zealous fear of Judgment Day. But still…those marshmallows.

Despite my reassurance about the impact I was making on the world, I felt a needed to do more (or less). This yearning carries me into each and every experience. It is one of caring for the world, caring for our family of brothers and sisters.

It is a desire to look forward into the future and make sure we have preserved the beauty of the land and its resources for the generations to come.

What more can I do? What more can we do to better our minds and lifestyles? And what more can we do to make a difference in the way economies run so economic tyrants like Wal-Mart return to their more modest roots.

Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s founder, once said, “You can’t create a team spirit when the situation is so one-sided, when management gets so much and workers get so little of the pie.” I wonder if today’s CEO Lee Scott remembers his words?

The Karmic Consquences

In Mexico, I overheard a woman who had been traveling to Mazatlan for twenty-five years. She was grateful for the new Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Now just a mere five-minute pulmonia ride, she buys all her groceries as if she were back home. “We arrive. We shop at Sam’s Club.”

That night, I found myself in the heart of Old Mazatlan wandering the Centro Historic in Mercado Pino Suarez. This was Mexico.

The large market houses vendors from traditional foods of homebrewed recipes to clothing and appliances. It felt real. It is a culture supporting people. It is their livelihoods mingling with their tradition of agriculture, textiles and cooking.

Purchases made, a small-town local supported.

Back home, the US continues to expand and dominate other regions from the Latin world, to China, India and Bangladesh, to Europe and beyond.

There are those among us who condemn this expansion, who believe in a higher standard, not of income or consumption, but in something far surpassing the physical world. We’ve come to recognize Mother Earth’s life. If some don’t take notice, it’s bound to fall into hands far more omniscient.

On March 15, the Wal-Mart of Poulsbo saw a glimpse resistance. The Seattle Times reported a suspicious fire that broke out in the women’s undergarment department causing one million dollars of damage. Nobody was injured and officials are looking into suspected arson.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

Last week, Stacy from Rambling Traveler tagged me with the ongoing “5 reasons why I blog” chain.

For those not in the know, it’s an opportunity for a blogger to articulate why they spend vast amounts of their time for little monetary gain. Now I can’t speak for our legions of talented guest contributors, so I’ll approach this exercise as my own.

But rather than answer with straight-forward sincerity like my peers, I figured I would take the opposite approach…with tongue firmly in cheek, of course.

So without further ado, here are my 5 reasons why I blog.

1. I can shove my travel experiences in people’s faces

If you wander through the site archives, you may have noticed the occasional place drop here and there, such as “When I was roaming through the Australian Outback,” or “While hanging out in a hammock for two weeks doing little…”

This wasn’t an accident. It was to subtly stir up envy in those readers who have never hit the open road for any length of time, or have traded those days for an office cubicle. It’s a great feeling to bask in smug glory.

2. The ludicrous perks and sponsorships

Some people think that getting invited to lavish parties thrown by various hotels and tour companies is a bad thing. They say it compromises the integrity of the travel blogger’s unbiased review.

Where do they get these ideas? What’s the harm in accepting a free night’s stay in a Presidential suite, or a gold-plated yacht in exchange for a few favourable nuances?

After all, it’s not like I’ll ever meet the legions of travelers that base their decisions on my horrendously biased reviews.

3. The adoration of women

The first marriage proposal I received in the mail was cute. The second was flattering. By the 13th proposal, the whole thing’s starting to get old.

I know that women can’t seem to resist the attraction of a bold, well-coded Wordpress template, but this is just getting out of hand. Plus, my actual fiance is less than impressed.

4. The name recognition

I used to think being stopped on the street and asked for an autograph would be annoying. But that’s actually the easy part. It’s posing for all the photos that I really find gets in the way.

5. The vast money I make from Google Adsense

There’s no shortage of scam artists and snake-oil salesman promising how easy it is to make money online. Before I started this blog, I figured they were full of it.

But now, with my income topping six figures a month, I realize they were just trying to spread the gospel of pay-per-click. Google’s commissions are much higher than a expected, and my readers love telling me how useful those strips of advertising enhance their enjoyment of the blog.

So there you have it. 5 reasons why I blog.

I would pass this chain along to other travel blogger’s but I think most of them have been tagged already.

Except my buddy Rick Steves. Whaddya say Rick, care to join in the fun?

Ian MacKenzie is editor of Brave New Traveler, and co-founder of the blogging community TravelBlogger. Aside from writing, he spends his time exploring the fundamental nature of existence and wishing he did more backpacking.

As I jaunted about town (town currently being Singapore) today by taxi, bumboat, escalator, staircase and metro, enjoying restaurant, museum, statue, skyscraper and crowds, I found myself musing on a general theory of tourism.

The way I see it, all tourism can be reduced to six categories (view handy diagram here).

• 1. Learning something new
• 2. Eating something new
• 3. Buying something new
• 4. Watching/seeing something new
• 5. Doing something (physically) new
• 6. Meeting someone new

Every possible tourist activity falls into one (or in a few cases, several) of those categories. Satisfaction comes from doing something that is more extreme and interesting and new in one of these six ways.

Tourist activities cost money, of course, and the amount you’re willing to pay is increased by what extent it fulfills one of the six categories (and correspondingly limited by the total amount of funds you’ve got at your disposal).

In Search Of Experience

For example, you can go parasailing behind a boat in Mazatlan. The physical activity is #5, doing something new. The view of Mazatlan from the air is #4, seeing something new. And if you need to be trained to do it, it can be #1, learning something new.

Overall, it’s not that expensive compared to your total budget, so you decide to do it.

Now, if you’ve done parasailing before, maybe in the Bahamas, you’re not doing something new. And if it’s basically fool proof and they just need to strap you in, then you’re not learning much.

So therefore, you’re just paying for the view. This means you might decide not to do it again.

On the other hand, if you decided on your first day not to do it, but it’s now your last day and you haven’t spent your budget, you might look at the money you have and compare it to the cost and decide that it’s now worth it.

Going to see a play in London. That’s seeing, and if it’s a play about the French Revolution, perhaps you’d consider it learning, too. Getting dressed up might make it “doing” as well.

Is it worth it? Depends if you’ve gone to lots of plays before, and if you’ve got money enough to also accomplish the other tourist activities you have planned.

Going out to a restaurant in a hawker’s market, that’s eating and seeing. Possibly meeting, because you might be at a table with someone interesting. That’s better than a restaurant, which is only eating, and maybe seeing if it’s something out of the ordinary architecturally.

Buying is usually a category of its own, but you tend to pay more if it’s at a place where you’re doing or seeing or learning, because then you feel like the thing you bought has a little more value.

Buying something expensive can also, itself, become a valued memory or interesting tourist tale-like a rug from a Turkish bazaar.

To Each Their Own

What’s interesting is that the thing doesn’t have to be good-seeing something awful (disaster tourism, or visit to Auschwitz), eating durian fruit or something raw and icky, or even meeting someone weird or obnoxious, which later can be turned into a highly amusing anecdote.

Overall, each person tends to prefer some of the categories over other categories, and this, more than anything else, should determine who travels well together.

You might have different budgets and still come to some agreement over what to do. But if one person likes to shop and the other person likes to hike up mountains, that companionship is doomed.

What I’ve come to realize about myself is that of all things touristic, I prefer learning and eating, and if at all possible meeting new people.

Everything else is secondary.

Travis Smith is the owner of Hop Studios, a Web design and development company. He’s also a professional speaker on such topics as blogging, subscription-based revenue models and online journalism.

What numbers of the tourism theory are you most likely to embrace?

Darren Barefoot posed this question in advance of his discussion at Northern Voice, a blogging conference I attended this weekend in Vancouver, BC.

He expected a few hundred replies to his online survey. He got over a thousand, answering questions like “Why Did You Start Blogging?” and the inevitable for many, “Why Did You Stop Blogging?”

For my own answers, I confess I’ve had a number of blogs over the past few years, all of them personal (until Brave New Traveler).

Aside from my obvious interest in technology and writing, I felt blogging was a way to share my thoughts on various topics, from movies, to news, to politics – basically blogging whatever was on my mind.

I kept these blogs up with relative frequency and minimal readers (like the majority of other blogs on the web). But I made myself a promise: I would stop blogging the day I realized I had nothing to say.

Who Has Anything To Say?

Granted, the definition of saying something with “meaning” depends very much upon your audience. The blogger can only put out what they believe has value. The readers decide what’s valuable to themselves.

Some bloggers, of course, don’t care if they have 1 reader or 1000. Blogging for them isn’t about “spreading their thoughts” into cyberspace, it’s more a personal diary that allows them to back-up their brain, practice their writing, or any number of other motivations.

Darren told a great story about how he worked for a few summers at the Victoria information office helping tourists decide how to spend their vacation. They would ask him, “What’s there to do here?” to which he would be forced to list off a number of choices until one caught their interest.

It wasn’t until months later that Darren finally gave up and asked the tourists a question of his own: “Why did you come here?”

If they didn’t know the answer to that, they had no business being in Victoria.

An Open Discussion

And so, I thought I would pose this question to all of Brave New Traveler’s readers, many who author blogs of their own.

Why do you blog?

Whether you write a personal blog, travel blog, business blog, art blog, or any blog at all — please introduce yourself, your blog, and share your answers in the comments below. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: northernvoice

Yesterday, they announced the finalists, as chosen by their panel of prestigious judges, and I’m happy to report that Brave New Traveler made the cut for two categories:

• Best Travel Blog
• Best Group Written Travel Blog

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t exciting to be in the running with the ranks of Newyorkology, Vagablogging, along with the rest of the deserving finalists.

I couldn’t have done it without our fantastic guest contributors, writing quality posts week after week. And of course, a big thank you to our readers, who nominated Brave New Traveler in the first place.

Once again, I must ask for your support.

Voting is now on for the next week, and I’d be eternally grateful if you’d head over and cast your vote.

I’ll report back with the winners once the votes are tallied.

Lastly, if you’re looking for a writeup of all the original nominations, check out a great analysis over at Travel Notes.

Battambang is Cambodia’s second largest city, but you wouldn’t know it walking the rain-soaked streets like I did in the spring of 2006. There were the swarms of motorbikes and noodle street vendors of course, just like every other Southeast Asian city – but it lacked the frenetic pace.

It was here my girlfriend and I met “Tin-Tin”, the most memorable guide of our entire trip. He pulled up with the buzz of his motorbike, clad in a white t-shirt and helmet, and took us out for a day exploring the region’s countryside and ancient Buddhist temples.

Tin-Tin liked to talk. He obviously knew a great deal of his country’s history, culture, and traditions, having lived here all his life.

He also knew first-hand the horrific reign of the Khmer Rouge, and the genocide that wiped out most of his own family. Over lunch in the shade of a tree, he explained how he was forced to work for no money and little food, and how it felt to exist in a country traumatized by war.

Without a doubt, we were entirely grateful to him for sharing his story, along with the beauty of his city, through the eyes of an actual resident. It made me realize how many tourists settle for the bland, package tours that are cost efficient, but utterly sterilized.

My girlfriend and I pledged to spread the word about Tin-Tin to anyone we met that was heading in the direction of Battambang. My hope is that we sent him some new business. If only there had been an easier way to spread the word about quality local guides.

A Lack Of Opportunity

On their spring break from medical school, in the largest, most chaotic public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Trip Sweeney and J. Scott Zimmerman met for the first time.

Their first all-nighter together was working to place over 200 sutures in the leg of a 15 year old girl who had been involved in a motorcycle accident. As they worked, the girl told Trip and J. Scott of her accident, where she was going, where she had been. They listened as she described her family, her loved ones, her fears, and her insecurities.

Reflecting on that encounter, Scott recalls,

“Throughout our time in the hospital, tending to patients gave us exposure not only to their lives but also to the health and ailments of a culture outside the hospital. Socio-economic issues were in the wounds and pathologies of patients. Knife wounds spoke of violence, bullet holes of drug trade and class war, and many pathologies were, in part, due to lack of opportunity and poverty.”

It was outside the hospital that Trip and Scott discussed these issues, while sharing their appreciation for Rio de Janeiro and Brazilian culture. With that appreciation came their resolve to contribute to the community around them.

Responsible Travel Meets Web 2.0

18 months later, Step Up Travel Classifieds was born. On the surface, the site is a travel directory that allows local small enterprises and individuals to publish ads for their own unique cultural services. But dig a little deeper, and you realize the significance that the idea really represents.

Here’s how it works: anyone can post an ad, which remains on the site for a year. The Step Up algorithm prioritizes local, small businesses and individuals, and those listings where other travelers have left feedback.

Says co-founder Trip, “By using Step Up Travel Classifieds and connecting directly with locals, travelers are able to learn of more obscure and fascinating activities, while also helping redirect money away from the commercial tourism industry and toward the people who make their culture what it is.”

These local services are wildly varied – a quick peruse will reveal everything from Teotitlan Carpet Making lessons in Mexico, to apartment rentals in South Africa, and of course, local guides promising an authentic view of their cities.

I have little doubt Tin-Tin from Cambodia would have loved the ability to post a free ad announcing his services to the world. (And I would have been only too happy to recommend him to others).

A Network of Socially Minded Travelers

Having traveled throughout a few impoverished countries over the past couple years, it’s easy to see how the tourist industry is dominated largely by multinational chains or foreign interests, who funnel most of their money away from the local population.

A website that allows visitors to connect directly with actual residents should result in a new way of traveling, where culture is experienced through permission, rather than coercion.

It will be very interesting to see how Step Up Travel progresses into the future, and I hope their site marks a new dawning for socially conscious cultural exchange that permeates into the rest of the industry.

What do you think of the value of having travel classifieds to promote local business?

In fact, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Mark Ashley over at Upgrade: Travel Better has finally decided to step up and start the very first travel blog awards: The Travvies.

Why you ask? Mark provides the answer:

There’s a misconception that travel blogs are all travel diaries. Some of these might be terrific, but the scope of the travel blogosphere is much larger. More and more, these blogs are influencing the way consumers, companies, and journalists get information. The Travvies try to take this breadth into account.

There’s no prize, other than the prestige that comes from recognition within the travel blog community. And that’s certainly worth more than any shiny trophy (although ludicrous bags of money would be nice).

There are 6 categories in total, and I think we have a decent shot at 3 of them. As editor of Brave New Traveler, this is my attempt at asking you, dear reader, to visit the links below and nominate our magazine by leaving a comment with our name and link.

• Best Travel Blog
• Best Informative/Practical Travel Blog
• Best Group Written Travel Blog

Remember, this is just the nomination phase. Next they have a panel of secret judges who will cull the nominations down to a list of 3 for each category. From there, finalists will be announced on February 21 and the voting will begin. I’ll be sure to post an update.

Until then, thanks for your support!

Technorati Tags: travvies, travel+blog+awards

If there’s one activity that must be experienced in southern Thailand, it’s scuba diving. My friend Sean Aiken put together this excellent short film showcasing his own underwater adventure from spring 2006.

A warning: if you are currently living in a cold climate (like myself) this film will induce a strong urge to flee the icy streets of your own town and book a flight to warmer waters.

But in Sean’s case, the tropics were not all leisure and sun. He also spent some time volunteering at a Burmese refugee camp in Mae Sot, a sobering experience and compelling article not to be missed.

For further adventures with Sean, check out his profile here.

What’s a “lurker?”

I believe the term was first coined to describe visitors to discussion forums that read the posts, but never left a comment themselves. With the advent of blogs, this term was extended to blog readers who often visit but never leave a comment.

Sound familiar?

Now don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of reasons readers decide not to comment. It could be you’re shy. It could be you don’t feel you have anything to add to the post. Or it could be you’re just not inclined.

I’m guilty of lurking myself. I visit too many blogs to count, and I leave a comment perhaps 10% of the time. That’s actually an official statistic for any online space. I can’t remember where I read that exactly (probably Jakob Nielsen) — but it’s proven. Only 10% of visitors to a blog actually decide to leave a comment.

Well this is what delurking week is all about. If you’ve been hovering in the wings, enjoying Brave New Traveler, this is your moment to come out of the shadows and introduce yourself.

I’ll even provide a few questions you could answer, such as: How did you find Brave New Traveler? What’s your favourite article so far? What do you like about travel? Or you could ask me any question you like, and I’ll answer each one personally.

You could ask me why I started this magazine. You could ask me what’s my craziest travel story. Or you could ask me about the time in Australia where I donned a Santa hat and a speedo for a Christmas card home.

So go ahead. Say hello!

“Bloggers don’t have a standardized set of ethics,” says blogging expert Alexander Halavais of Quinnipiac University. “You might trust something you read in a magazine because you have faith in the news organization. But when it comes to blogs, the trust is often tied up with the person.” As a result, you may be accepting tainted advice from your favorite blog without even knowing it.

True, it’s not like bloggers have any ethical standards to which they need to abide. But it certainly helps your credibility by disclosing any bribes handed out by the company you happen to be fondly reviewing. Tainted advice, in any shade of grey, is not cool.

As for the blog readers researching their next trip, the article offers sound advice:

In an era of product placements, where advertisers can buy their way into movies and TV morning shows, sponsored blogs are only going to increase. The consumer’s best defense is to take a skeptic’s view of blogs (and other media, for that matter). Don’t base big decisions on one piece of advice. Be your own reporter and check out other sources. Your next vacation may depend on it.

Read the full article.

What are some “red flags” you find when reading questionable travel reviews? Please share your tips in the comments.

I spent 2 years of my life trying to get on the US reality tv show Survivor. (Don’t ask me why).

While I didn’t quite make it on, I was able to garner the support of many previous Survivor contestants, including Ethan Zohn, who is the co-founder of an amazing non-profit Grassroot Soccer.

The organization uses soccer as a way to inform and educate African children on how to combat the scourge of AIDS. Why soccer?

Soccer is an integral part of local cultures across the world. It is something so positive that it brings smiles to children’s faces even in the worst of circumstances. In most places simply arriving at a field with a soccer ball will win you instant friendships and immediate access into a local community.

By working within this existing structure and by training role models – pro players, coaches and youth players themselves – to get the message out about healthy behavior and the risks of HIV, we have shown that we can dramatically increase awareness, change behaviors, and turn the tide against HIV.

I was recently alerted to a new movie they’d produced called Lusaka Sunrise. Check out the film’s official website to learn more about the organization, watch more video, and learn how to get involved.

Technorati Tags: africa, aids, grassroot soccer

All I want to know, is why didn’t I hear about this before Christmas?

Everyone starts with the best intentions. Then things start to get cramped. Then you notice your neighbour has more oil than you. Before long, war is waged, nukes are dropped, revolutions are fought and terrorists are doing your dirty work, before turning on you…

This is the War on Terror, the boardgame: A quality boardgame for 2 – 6 players, lovingly illustrated and politically correct (in a very literal sense). Playing it will bring out the nastiest, greediest, darkest, most paranoid aspects of your character. It’s all great family fun.

Speaking of the actual War on Terror, it came to an anti-conclusion last week with hanging of Saddam. Regardless of whether you agreed with the death sentence or not, the hanging was an ugly affair.

Far from being a quiet and dignified business, the new video shows that several of the witnesses taunted Saddam during the last seconds of his life, chanted the name of one of his many enemies, and told him he was going to hell.

Almost by accident, a few days ago I stumbled across the cell phone footage on youTube. At first I didn’t realize what it was, until I saw the grainy footage of Saddam standing on the gallows.

A curious fascination gripped me (much like the reason we crane our necks as we drive by the wreckage of a car accident).

Should I continue watching the footage? After all, what purpose would it serve? Would I feel satisfaction? Disgust? Mere emptiness? I closed the window and with it the paused face of Saddam.

This morning I received an email from a friend:

I’m pretty much begging all of you not to watch the video of Saddam circulating around on the internet. I didn’t realize it was different than what is on CNN and thinking now I witnessed his last moments is beyond disturbing.

It’s after 4 and I’ve been trying to sleep for hours so I’ve decided to email all of you to beg.

If you haven’t seen it don’t. Even if you’re curious to watch it, why take the chance how it could affect you. I’d gladly cut out that memory from my cerebrum if I could, that’s how strongly I don’t want you to see it.

Welcome to the civilized world.

Technorati Tags: war+on+terror, saddam

You may know I’m the co-founder of the online travel journal community TravelBlogger.

I started developing the site back in the summer of 2004 with two friends, after I had the epiphany one day in the car, “Hey, what if there was someway for backpackers to blog their journal automatically?”

(Remember, this was when the whole ‘blogging’ phenomenon was just getting started).

Anyway, after months of development, TravelBlogger finally launched in Feb 2005. Since then a lot has happened with blogging — as the idea has become much more mainstream. Everyone had a blog for awhile. It was the cool thing to do.

Now I believe blogging is starting to level out, as many people realize it’s actually a bit of work to maintain. That’s where TravelBlogger comes in.

It’s an alternative to the “everday” blog since you only write it when you’re traveling. It’s your own online space to share your journey, upload your photos, meet other travelers, and keep your friends and family updated back home.

So in honour of the new year, we’ve given TravelBlogger a much-needed facelift, stripping out some extraneous content and fiddling with the design. (Dare I say…a touch of Web 2.0?)

If you’re already a member, I salute you and invite you back to check out the updates. And if you haven’t checked out the site yet, and you’ve got an upcoming or previous trip you’d like to share, feel free to start your free travel blog now.

Technorati Tags: travel blog, travel journal, travel community

What do you think of the new look? What are some new features you’d like to see?

I lived in Sydney, Australia for 4 months.

During that time I worked a variety of jobs, including (failed) bartender, deejay, and junk mail stuffer in a warehouse outside of town. My goal was to save a bit of cash to fund the rest of my trip backpacking around the country in the new year.

Renting an apartment didn’t make sense at the time, since I didn’t want to sign a lease or get into any complicated relationships with other friends looking to share short term accommodation.

So aside from a temporary attempt to room with a drug-dealing friend of mine outside the city (which is another story entirely), I stuck to staying in various downtown hostels – a nuisance with a transient backpacker population, but what else could I do?

If only I’d had a Loftcube.

“What could a temporary, minimalistic domicile look like, to suit people of a nomadic lifestyle, living for short periods of time in large cities and dense urban areas, offering both sanctuary and social structure, and where might such temporary dwellings be built?”

If you think the rooftops of post-war high rises are the perfect place to set up your own urban pod, then you’d be right.

Read the full Loftcube story.

Technorati Tags: loftcube, urban+design, minimalism

A year around-the-world taught me a lot of things: never turn down an invitation, bargain hard and always carry a roll of toilet paper.

Most of all, traveling made me globally aware.

I learned about abducted child soldiers in Northern Uganda; the loss of indigenous culture in Tanzania; the construction of the “separation wall,” also dubbed the “apartheid wall,” across Palestinian land.

I learned that the Turkish government denies the Armenian genocide; that despite the AIDS epidemic in Africa, humanitarian aid money often doesn’t reach the people it professes to help.

I learned about the persecution of the Falun Gong and saw the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.

Travel has been the ultimate education.

My trip has given me a deeper understanding of what’s going on in the world and where I fit within it.

Now when I read the newspaper, I feel a connection to the stories being covered. I’ve been there, seen the country, met the people and know, first hand, that “they” are just like us. The similarities between nations and across cultures far outweigh the differences.

With new understanding of world events comes new frustration. In print and TV, important news features seem increasingly overshadowed by celebrity gossip. Why do the extra-marital affairs of Tie Dome get more media attention than rebel violence in DR Congo?

It’s frustrating to see that mainstream media isn’t enlightening, it’s sensationalizing and dumbing-down. After witnessing extreme poverty, homelessness and child labor, I’m finding it awkward adjusting to a society that reads People magazine and watches shows like “Deal or No Deal.”

The gap between the haves and have nots is huge.

These inequalities get under my skin. I often ask myself: why do some people in this world wear $200 jeans, while others lack clean drinking water and access to health care?

Now that I’m back home, once again sipping from the cup of North American privilege, I try to stay grounded, remember what I saw, who I met and what I learned.

Julia Dimon, 26, is editor of The Travel Junkie, and a regular contributor to several travel, news and style publications, including The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper. Also check out her other film, “Around the World: Uncensored.”

Technorati Tags: woman+travel, backpacking, world, adventure, budget+travel,

What do you think of the ability for travel to open minds and raise awareness? Please share your own experiences in the comments.

The following is from my previous personal blog, written just after the London tube bombings in summer 2005. I’m republishing it here because I felt it extended a previous post on irrational fears while traveling.

I wonder about mortality.

My friend confessed she has panic attacks while sitting on the tube in London. She asked me to cheer her up and so I told her the only way to get over her fear is to be okay with dying.

“No matter what you do, there’s the possibility that you could be hit by a bus, a meteor, a terrorist bomb, heart attack, falling piano, etc…” I told her. She called me a hippy and put my advice on her blog.

A friend of her’s believed I missed the point, and wrote, “It is one thing to accept that one day we all die and to be ok with it. It is another to have your life stolen from you while you are going about living your daily life.” Which is quite true.

Rarely do we think about getting hit by a meteor every time we walk out of the house, but neither do we think about being ripped apart by a suicide bomber — until it happens in our midst.

Then the media drills it into our skulls.

We look at others with sidelong glances. We wonder what everyone is carrying in their backpacks.

Another friend of hers claimed I was living in a dream world, an abstraction. According to him, we Canadians “wallow in the secure privilege of that sanctuary of fattened mediocrity.”

He says Londoners have nightmares of death, while we have dreams of early retirement. My death resides on an installment plan, measured and predictable. “Find me a Canadian who has not been lobotomised by safety,” he demands, as if Canadians should somehow feel guilty for not living in a war-torn society, shattered by decades of hatred.

I never claimed to know how Londoners feel during these last few weeks, nor do I claim the same about the daily reality of those in Haiti, Palestine, Israel, Congo, Darfur, the list goes on.

But that doesn’t change what I believe about death. Being okay with dying doesn’t mean you’re indifferent to the circumstances that threaten you. It’s not like you simply let life happen.

Instead, the refusal to give in to the fear of death helps us work through the paralysis that is the aim of all acts of terrorism. This realization motivates me to help others in whatever modest way, seek out unique experiences while I can, and proceed through society cautious but optimistic.

Accepting the possibility of death helps to clear our minds so we aren’t controlled by our fear — whether justified or imagined.

Her third friend wrote:

“I think we’re afraid of death because it means we know for the most part we’ll die with regrets. All the should haves, could haves. The unfinished business. Some people try to reconcile that, I think, with religion or a belief in something that gives us something to cling to, a hope that well, this isn’t the end of it all. But personally, I kinda of think it is. We leave what we leave. Hopefully there’s some good stuff along the way that makes people remember us fondly, or with a smile, but when you’re gone, you’re gone.”

Her friend realizes that our fear of death stems from our belief about the situation we leave behind.

Did I do enough? Will I be remembered after I’m gone?

All of this is irrelevant if you accept the circumstances that you’ve created for yourself and for others. If you have conducted yourself to the best of your ability than there is no need for regrets. We don’t know what happens after this life — it could be nothing, or it could be something.

The Buddha didn’t care about it either way. He believed we should deal with this lifetime first, then worry about the possibility of the next one when the time comes.

Presumably, when we realize this, all our worry about soldiers, suicide bombers, safety, security, retirement, death, everything…it doesn’t matter. We put it aside. And then we act.

What do you think, pragmatic living or hippy nonsense? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Vancouver, Canada, where I live is a different story. Our tap water is generally quite drinkable. In fact, I’d always attributed our abundant water to the continual rain that we experience for most months out of the year. Water, water, everywhere.

The irony was not lost on me when, last month, a particularly powerful storm caused landslides into the Capilano Reservoir, and suddenly our health authority was asking 2 million people to stay away from the taps.

Destinations

Community Connection to Laos

Cue: bottled water frenzy.

On that first evening, all the local grocery stores and gas stations were quickly emptied of their water. I wasn’t worried. Most of us figured the ban would last, two or three days at the most.

The weekend arrived and neither did a reprieve. The Salvation Army handed out bottled water to the homeless. A fist-fight broke out at a big-box wholesale store. I counted the growing stack of plastic bottles building up under my sink.

The advisory remained in effect for 2 weeks.

I’m not sure how long the residents of Bangkok have been relying on bottled water, but it’s now easy to imagine the day when tap water is no longer readily drinkable in these parts. A resource this valuable should demand the cultivation of good habits before it’s too late.

Luckily, I came across this excellent guide from TreeHugger, entitled “How To Green Your Water.”

Have a read if you get a moment. What you find may surprise you.

What do you think about the whole bottled water phenomenon and the state of water world-wide?

For all those naysayers out there (wasn’t there a few?) who thought Scotty and Fiddy from Hitch50.com couldn’t make it to Hawaii, you’ve been proven wrong. They finally made it through their journey, hitchhiking 50 states in 50 days and have the gratuitious jump shots to prove it.

It’s a stunning turn of events that can only be described as a Hollywood-style ending.

We spent Monday around Los Angeles looking for different ways to get to Hawaii, but it was the guys from Fermata who came through and saved our dignity with only hours to spare.

They organized a big party at Carpe DM, a bar in Simi Valley, just north of Los Angeles for us and arranged a percentage of the proceeds to buy us tickets to Honolulu.

And just like that, the journey was over. Congrats to Scotty and Fiddy for proving something that seems outrageous, for no reason at all other than they can.

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago I interviewed their tech guy Heath Johns about Hitch50’s neat GPS cell phone mapper and travel related theories for the future.

Technorati Tags: hitch50.com, scotty+fiddy

The website is a simple but effective reminder of how little it actually takes to inhabit the top 10% of the world’s richest. If you make enough to live under a roof, to have enough food every day, and to buy small extraneous luxuries once and a while, you’ll be surprised by your spot on the Global Rich List.

Of course, the list deals only with the economic indicators of wealth, thereby ignoring other important factors to a person’s standard of living, including access to healthcare, a strong community, and clean environment. (In fact, if you google “happiest people in the world” it’s the citizens of Nigeria that come out on top).

But the list is a powerful reminder for ordinary citizens of affluent countries, when you realize the very idea of “traveling for pleasure” is beyond the grasp of the vast majority of the world.

And if the excuse “if only I had more money…” is holding you back from what you really want to do in life, then the Global Rich List reveals just how little you need to actually be happy.

I remember quite clearly as our bus pulled into the station at Siem Reap, amid a swarm of tuk-tuk drivers clamouring and clawing to be the first to catch our eye, and thereby claim our business. A few men reached in the window, tugging at the edges of my shirt as I gathered my pack and headed for the door.

Into the melee. An overwhelming chorus of voices shouting the lowest fares possible. Some wanted mere pennies to take us into downtown. I could barely here my own thoughts as it was impossible to tell which of young drivers was sincere, and which would drive us back to their friends’ guesthouse for a commission.

A hand pinched my nipple. That was enough.

My girlfriend Karen spotted another driver behind the crowd, wearing a baseball hat and a holding a sign with the words, Cheap driver, no pressure. We didn’t hesitate.

“Okay, we’ve made our decision!” I shouted back at the drivers. The noise suddenly disappeared, as if time itself had stopped. “We’re going with him.” I pointed to the quiet driver in the back. A wave of momentary anger erupted, but suddenly the men were smiling and patting me on the back. Okay, okay, they said, and the swarm left to find new game.

Barely three minutes in Siem Reap is enough to witness the effect of tourists in a country like Cambodia, where a third of the 14 million residents earn less than 56 cents a day. We had arrived like the other 700 thousand would this year, to see the temples of Angkor, architectural wonders “lost” to the Western world until the last century. We climbed into our chosen tuk-tuk and motored into the city.

CNN recently published an article on the boom in the growing Cambodian town of Siem Reap, a sight I witnessed last spring first-hand.

The steady boom has already transformed Siem Reap into a bustling town filled with luxury hotels and vehicles. Its streets are adorned with billboards promoting the latest mobile phones, pizza and burger joints and shopping malls. Several notable old buildings have been razed to make way for visitors’ lodgings, and honky-tonk strips have sprung up catering to low-budget travelers.

“The identity Siem Reap had for centuries is gradually disappearing, or maybe almost disappeared,” said Teruo Jinnai, director in Cambodia of the U.N. cultural organization UNESCO, and a 10-year resident of the country. “You have restaurants, massage parlors, hotels, and it’s very sad to see that.”

I felt the clutches of “modernization” as I arrived at my hotel ($10/night, expensive by Cambodian standards) who’s owners also owned two upscale restaurants on the “tourist strip” a few streets away. The hotel owners must have taken a lesson in brand marketing as my girlfriend and I naturally (almost unconsciously) ended up dining at their restaurant, even though it was decorated with imitation Khmer artifacts that wouldn’t have been out of place in Las Vegas.

As far as I could tell, the food was authentic. But then again, so were the child beggars in the street nagging you to buy their stack of postcards, in exchange for $1 and hearing how much they knew about your home country. (”Oh you from Canada? Big country, lot’s of snow!”)

Along with significant energy, garbage, and pollution problems, the burgeoning hotels are tapping unregulated into the groundwater to meet the rising demand. There’s speculation of how this put the Angkor monuments at risk:

“Water is being drawn from 70-80 meters (230-260 feet) underground by hotels and treated for use,” warned the World Bank, noting that no one was quite certain how this affects the aquifers, or underground layers of rocks and sand, from which it is pumped.

Already though, “one of Angkor’s temples is reportedly falling into a sinkhole, suggesting that the underground aquifers may be rapidly disappearing,” said the report.

Meanwhile, the tourist hordes (of which I was one of them) continue to explore Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples of Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Bakheng, largely oblivious to the effects of our visit. Though you have to wonder, as I did, when you see hordes of buses pull up to each temple like clockwork, proceed to unload an impossible number of aging vacationers, lead them throughout the grounds, then motor off before any locals have a chance to earn much from the “tourist boom”.

Ticket sales at the Angkor gates provide salaries for a number of Cambodians, along with a source of revenue to maintain the temples. Yet huge amounts of people arrive via these package tours and exist largely in their own bubble – their buses, hotels, and restaurants are all owned by the same (usually foreign) company, which means little money “trickles down” towards local infrastructure and development.

I’ll bet this story is familiar for many developing countries. They struggle to develop other sources of income, yet must accept the consequences of visitors along with the benefits.

It appears the Cambodian tourism minister Thong Khon is ready to accept a Japanese development plan for managing the tourist boom, which includes tapping underground water from a site further away from the temples. According to the CNN article,

He sees a bright future for Siem Reap, in which the province won’t just be a destination for touring the temples but will also become a hub providing air links for tourists to enjoy the sandy beaches of southwestern Cambodia and ecotourism in the jungles of the northeast.

He envisions that by promoting a diversity of destinations, the crowds will be distributed around the country, and the Angkor temples won’t get “too jammed up.”

It’s a nice thought.

Having also visited these sandy beaches in southwestern Cambodia it may be slightly optimistic to believe the same problem won’t be visited upon these diversified areas. In Sihanoukville, chatting with locals revealed a similar trend: developers pushing off locals to make way for their beach hotels, using such tactics as intimidation and “strong-arming” anyone who stood in their way.

Tourism: a mixed blessing just about anywhere you find it.

What do you think? Just the way tourism works? Or have you come across any examples of tourism benefitting the local populations and preserving the host environment?

A big shout out to Travelistic.com for featuring me (and Brave New Traveler) in their User Spotlight yesterday as well as their new travel show “The Map.”

For those not in the know, Travelistic.com is a recently launched video sharing website dedicated sharing travel clips, films and videos. They’ve been getting some great publicity over the past few weeks, and it’s not hard to see why.

I like the site for a number of reasons:

• the video compression is better than most video sharing sites (like YouTube)
• the site is clean, user-friendly, and quick loading
• it’s run by some pretty cool people

They also started producing “The Map” — a Rocketboom inspired travel vodcast that collects various uploaded content and strings them together in an entertaining show. In this edition, they’ve chosen to feature a clip I shot back in Bangkok with a few friends as we chew on some street-roasted grasshoppers.

The funny part is that we had to shoot the scene twice. My fiance forgot to click the ‘record’ button in the first take, which I figured was the last. (It’s possible the 1 litre Beer Changs had something to do with her mistake).

You may think you’d get used to roasted grasshopper after the first one. But sadly, that’s not the case.

Here’s a sampling of the some of the more recognizable names:

18. Easy Rider (Southwestern US)
17. Crocodile Dundee (Australia)
16. Indiana Jones (the world)
14. Swingers (Los Angeles)
9. Moonraker (outer space)
7. The Lord of the Rings (New Zealand)
5. Before Sunrise (Vienna)
3. Lost in Translation (Tokyo)
1. The Sound of Music (Austria)

Quite the eclectic mix.

Some of the choices make sense, such as Lord of the Rings showcasing New Zealand (it didn’t take long before their tourism commission starting showing ads before the films in the movie theaters), and Before Sunrise which could be said to romanticize anything European, rather than simply Vienna.

Crocodile Dundee is probably the most-loathed film by actual Australians. As I found out when I visited a few years ago, they LOVE when foreigners have too many pints and start quoting Paul Hogan in a butchered Aussie accent.

Surprisingly, The Beach was a distant 24th on their list. While in Bangkok last spring, it briefly crossed my mind to locate the nearest snake’s blood seller, though I confess I decided against it. The sway of the southern beaches portrayed in the film were the must-visit destination.

No matter what you think of the film, the scenery was pretty mindblowing (even if you forgive the fact that their “hidden paradise” was half created with CG effects). The enclosed lagoon is actually the national park of Phi Phi Le, which caused some controversy when the film crews arrived to set up shop.

Almost from the start they were causing controversy with their plans to bulldoze two sections of the beach in Maya Bay and plant 60 palm trees. Unknown to Fox, a war had been waging here for a long time, and their arrival just put it onto the international stage for the first time.

Fox and their representatives found themselves in the spotlight and they received a lot of un-wanted media attention. It seemed they were being attacked on many sides. The most outspoken, of course, were the environmentalists.

While the island was quickly restored to it’s pre-filming grandisity, it’s a reminder of the damage these types of films can wreak during production, and perhaps even more so when the tourist hordes come looking for the fantasy. In which case, perhaps sticking in an Aussie pub and working on your accent may be a better idea.

Do you agree/disagree with Budget Travel’s list? What travel films would you add to your own list?

“Ko Lanta” by backpacklife.com

The Good: This short film features a unique style that I almost found unfit for sites like YouTube — with the average attention span of less than four seconds. This isn’t necessarily the nature of the person watching, but instead, a reflection of how we want our clips on the net. Fast edits, cut to the punchline, “I’ve-got-to-sneak- this-in-between-actually-working” kind of clips.

Instead, this film decides to take it’s time.

It follows a few divers they make their way through the stunning blue water. Slow fade to staring up at the roof of a bungalow, Bob Marley wafting in through the window. Followed by a lazy afternoon conversation at a bar.

Then suddenly it’s evening and we’re being mesmerized by fire-twirling instead of ocean waves. (Nice use of shorter-frames-per second) with another slow fade between the full frame footage. Then we’re shown a shot of a bar, with the bartenders mixing drinks to the music. They have nowhere else to be except enjoying themselves.

Having been to Ko Lanta myself, it took me a second to realize the film is all about adjusting to Ko Lanta time. This isn’t the land of “hurry up”. It’s a place to stay awhile, to watch the sunsets bleed on the horizon, and contemplate why we never do these things back home.

What did you think of the film? Anything that stood out? Anything that could have been improved?

Says the Wired blog:

“The data — which includes all the information you give to an airline such as medical conditions, frequent flier number, special meal requests, home and email addresses, payment information and your travel agent’s names — will be held for up to 40 years. The data can be shared with any government agency or local law enforcement agency for civil or criminal matters, and can even be shared with foreign governments as data to test other data-mining programs, even ones not related to border security.”

In essence, it’s a secret database that is even immune from the Privacy Act. The government will know as much as they want about you, and you aren’t allowed to see it. Granted, much of this data is already collected so it’s not totally new.

As if that wasn’t enough for travelers to deal with, beginning Jan 14, 2007 the Department has also proposed all airlines be required to obtain clearance for every passenger leaving or entering the US.

Traditionally, a U.S. passport would have been enough to qualify for the right to enter our leave, anytime the holder wants. With these new regulations, all passengers would have to wait for specific clearance.

From Friends of Liberty:

“Why might the HSA deny you permission to leave-or enter-the United States? No one knows, because the entire clearance procedure would be an administrative determination made secretly, with no right of appeal. Basically, if the HSA decides it doesn’t like you, you’re a prisoner – either outside, or inside, the United States, whether or not you hold a U.S. passport.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized there is a constitutional right to travel internationally. Indeed, it has declared that the right to travel is ‘a virtually unconditional personal right.’ The United States has also signed treaties guaranteeing ‘freedom of travel.’ So if these regulations do go into effect, you can expect a lengthy court battle, both nationally and internationally.”

Some people believe this isn’t really cause for alarm. As one commenter left in response to the Wired post,

“This has got to be the most stupid ostrich head-in-the-sand fearmongering I’ve ever heard of. You might as well be horrified because when you walk in a bank the tellers use their eyes and observe whether you’re carrying a gun and wearing a black mask or not, and make decisions accordingly.”

But does it reflect a deeper way of looking at society, by viewing a person as you suspect, instead of as they are? Another commenter wrote, “The bigger trouble isn’t within the secret databases: It’s being judged to be your past sum of electronic records, rather than an ever changing person living now.”

Now it begins to sound eerily like the only thing between you and a “suspected terrorist” is a typo. And those that believe this would never happen should look into the story of Maher Arar.

What do you think? Further invastion of privacy or a necessary tactic in the fight against terror?

Grab your digital camera or mobile phone and shoot on the hoof – or dig through your existing footage. Hi-fi, lo-fi, we don’t care – just give us your “Great Moments in Travel” in the form of a snappy short film lasting less than three minutes.

The compensation is not too shabby either:

First prize is a AUD$10,000 journey comprising of one Round-The-World economy flight, an STA travel voucher, and the choice of either hanging out in Melbourne, Australia with the folks from Lonely Planet Television for four weeks; or spending that $10,000 on a dream trip.

I could certainly go for for a dream trip.

If you’re interested in applying, the contest runs until mid-January. But during the weeks leading up to the date they are featuring their favourite entries in their archive. My advice is to judge those films to see the types they’re looking for, then go shoot something better.

Granted, three minutes isn’t quite enough time to pull off an epic. But it’s enough to experiment with a few different themes and edits before settling on your final cut. Good luck!

Have any ideas tips for shooting short films? Share them in the comments!

“The Nature” by Tensing

As part of a new series, (actually everything here could be considered a new series), I’ve decided to highlight interesting travel films from around the web. The first is a short montage of Tibet, with its people, landscape, and culture captured beautifully.

The Good: Nice mix and composition of shots, including people, animals, and mountains. Editing is thoughtful, with slow fades guiding the viewer throughout the country.

The Slightly Annoying: The opera music adds an interesting tone to the film, but after a few minutes it begins to grate on the nerves a little. May have been better to try another track intead of using the same throughout, or supplement the music with more “on location” audio, which is used a little.