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Have a hard time remembering Bujumbura (Burundi’s capital) from Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan’s capital)? Try honing your geography skills with the interactive games and quizzes on I Like 2 Learn. The website features quizzes on everything geography related, including countries, capitals, bodies of water, states and provinces.
Pretty soon, you’ll be able to answer the 2006 National Geography Bee winning question (correctly answered by Illinois 8th grader Bonny Jain):
“Name the mountains that extend across much of Wales,
from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel.”
For the answer, as well as winning questions from other years, click here. Good luck!
Last summer, my girlfriend and I returned from a road trip through Provence with loads of stories to tell … and no one wanted to hear them. Sure, people asked the inescapable “how was your trip?” but we’d lose them after “amazing.” We were used to that, and as Rolf pointed out in his book, people who don’t get out much have a hard time relating to your travel experiences — but we still wanted to share them.
Finding fellow travelers to gush about your latest adventures with can be tough (especially after you’ve returned), but this is changing — groups dedicated to bringing travelers together are popping up all over the world. From the Chicago Tribune:
It’s a Tuesday evening, and about a dozen men and women sit around tables in a back room at Goose Island Brewpub in Lincoln Park. Peter Wagner, a professional photographer, talks about his experiences with travel photography. He offers tips on how to use the knowledge of local people to scope out a good vantage point for shots, what time of day offers good lighting and how to approach someone you want to photograph.
The group listens attentively. One woman jots notes. At the end of his talk, Wagner shows a handful of his photographs, with scenes from Chicago and Ft. Wayne, Ind., to Paris, Lucerne and Venice.
After the presentation, attendees mingle, as they had at the beginning of the evening–laughing, asking one another questions and sharing stories.
All in the name of travel.
It’s the monthly meeting of the Chicago Travel Meetup Group, a social gathering for travel enthusiasts. The group is one of many offered through meetup.com, a national Web site that indexes theme-based groups you sign up for online and attend in person.
Not from Chicago? No worries, there are travel meetup groups all over the place. Check out Meetup.com’s Travel portal to see if there’s a group where you live. If not, feel free to start one of your own. Your friends and family might thank you.
Think planning your own round-the-world trip is hard? Try it with four kids (ranging from pre-school to high-school aged) in tow.
The Andrus family undertook just that challenge, which they chronicle in their blog, Six in the World. They began in Utah in May of 2006, and headed west around the world with plans to finish up their journey this August (after using nearly a million frequent flyer miles). Currently, they are in Chennai, India, volunteering at a kids home.
The blog discusses the joys of traveling as a family as well as the difficulties, including the ordeal of getting everyone vaccinated, the difficulty of home-schooling on the road, and kids who get motion sickness on long, windy roads (with photos to prove it).
Traveling to a foreign land can be daunting, even for the most seasoned of travelers. Once you’ve made the leap, however, one of the best ways to get acclimated to a new place, language, and culture is to enroll in a local school.
Many schools that include intensive language training as a part of their curriculum may also offer additional benefits like host family stays, introductory courses on local culture and cuisine, and other activities — a one-stop shop to make your entry into a new country a snap. In the end, you may find that the hardest part of the process is sifting through the countless number of available schools and choosing one over the other.
Luckily, the people at Worldwide Classroom have made this process much easier with their specialized program finder, travel planner, and helpful comments from past students.
Just a few weeks at a language school can get you speaking and understanding the basics of any language, and certainly feeling more comfortable in your new surroundings.
As I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog, college students researching journalism, travel literature, and Americans abroad interview me quite frequently. I rarely see the final result of these academic research projects, but I always find the interview process interesting — and hence I will share some of these interviews in coming weeks.
I’ll start today with this 2006 Q&A from Syracuse student Tatiana Munoz, about the inherent challenges of travel writing:
How long have you been a travel writer? Did you have any experience in any other aspect of journalism before you ventured into travel writing?
I’ve been a full-time travel writer since November of 1998. Apart from a few freelance gigs here and there, I was never formally into journalism before that. I’ve never had a newsroom job.
What countries has your career taken you to?
Over 50 countries around the world, though I’ve done most of my work in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. A selective sampling of some of the countries I’ve reported from is online here.
Some might speculate being a travel writer is all glitz and glamour. However, journalists often argue that couldn’t be farther from the truth. How do you view your job in relation to other journalists in the newsroom?
As I said, I don’t have any newsroom experience, so it would be hard to compare. But the glamour aspect of travel writing is somewhat of a myth. People have this impression that travel writing is a permanent vacation — that you’re out there on some beach, sipping cocktails and writing about it. To the contrary, travel writing is very much a job, and it’s all about the work you do, and how well you do it. You have to talk to people, study the history and culture of the place, have experiences, gather practical information, get into adventures. It’s often fun, but it’s often frustrating. Not everyone can pull it off effectively.
I suppose there is a certain glamour to the job that comes from traveling overseas a lot, but it certainly isn’t leisure travel. You are out in the world investigating, seeking, distilling things into narrative. Travel writing is one of the last great “generalist” professions, where are you integrating all this knowledge — geography, history, religion, language, culture, art, literature, music, architecture, ecology, biology, anthropology, sociology, storytelling, politics, philosophy — into one coherent narrative that communicates place and culture to the people back home.
What are the dangers travel writers face on a frequent basis? What are some underlying dangers the public would never guess you have to deal with?
The dangers depend on where you go, and the terrorism fears one reads about these days rarely factor into the situation. Unless you specialize in war-zone tourism (which isn’t terribly ethical, considering that this implicitly encourages your readers to compromise their safety for thrills), dangers are going to be workaday dangers: common crime, road accidents, bribes, and sickness. Sickness is especially relevant since I often write about adventure travel, and this takes me to remote areas. I’ve had cholera, dysentery, giardia, malaria, you name it. This is much more of a concern for me than is terrorism or political danger.
How, if at all, has your job been effected by the numerous acts of terrorism taking part across the world? Are there places you simply would not travel to right now?
Travel writer Tony Perrottet will be teaching a course at New York University this spring that blurs his two opuses — history-writing and travel-writing. Entitled “The Past on the Page: Bringing History to Life,” Perrottet’s course works on the notion that history writing and travel writing are approached in the same way — that is, exploring exotic worlds, and trying to understand a landscape that is sometimes very familiar but at other times utterly bizarre. The course promises to help students “learn how to bring the past to life in a way that is fresh, vivid, and relevant to modern concerns in genres including creative nonfiction, fiction, travel narratives, and personal essays.”
The class will meet every Thursday from 6:20pm-8:40pm at NYU, starting March 1 and finishing May 10 (no classes on 3/15). More information here.
BootsnAll Rogue Travelers C.J. and Brianne are on their way around the world, sampling wine and learning how it’s produced, and so far they’ve had a great time in New Zealand and Australia since leaving Oregon last fall. They painstakingly researched their trip before they left, and made contacts along the route they’d be taking. They’ve been meeting unexpected travelers and locals along the way, and they’ve also been aided by people they “met” online. They’ve been housed and fed by vineyard owners, and taught some tricks-of-the-trade by wine makers and fellow travelers alike.
As C.J. notes, however, it was inevitable that they’d meet someone unsavory at some point in their long journey. If you’ve ever been screwed over by someone on the road, C.J. and Brianne’s story makes for an interesting read.
After driving “Mick’s” boat (not his real name) across part of Australia for him and repairing a hub on the trailer (they were lucky to have not lost the wheel on the road), they were unable to reach Mick to give his credit card number to the mechanic. They put the repair bill on their own credit card and hoped they’d collect when they collected Mick in Sydney.
Now, if I owed someone a reasonably large sum of money, I’d either mention it or pay it back as soon as I saw them again. Mick did neither. Not at the Sydney Airport, not once we were on the highway, and not when we reached Yass, the town where we would be staying that night. So I was forced to breach the subject first, handing Mick the repair receipt while checking into our hotel in Yass. Mick told me that we’d settle up in Albury, but since he’d earlier said that we’d settle up in Sydney, I insisted that he pay us back in the morning. Mick’s unreliability was troubling, but I still wanted to believe that he’d honor his word. Brianne and I went to sleep that night cautiously hoping for that.
Round One began as soon as we got in the car the following morning. As soon as I suggested that Mick find an ATM on our way out of town, it was on.
You can read the rest of the story here.
Especially these days, when travelers are more apt to make connections via the Internet (before it’s truly possible judge whether these people are trustworthy), it’s a good idea to be aware of how much you’re willing to lose for the chance at what you’re hoping to gain.
We’ve all seen the look. Eyes glazed over after attempting to see too much great art at one shot in a major museum. By that time even the greatest art is overwhelmed by the desire for physical, intellectual, and emotional rest. I have seen the same look in those who backpack or travel by any mode across the world, attempting to “do” as many cities and countries as they can. You can almost feel a sort of pity–not condescending, but empathetic–for those who attempt to take in too much at once.
My experience is that one can enter into the unique space and time of a particular city or region of the world by taking one’s time and not attempting to impress others with all the cities, sites, and places you have “done”–as though it is genuinely possible to take in centuries of history, culture, and customs abroad in a rush of superhuman energy.
Whether staying in youth hostel, homestay, bed and breakfast, agriturismo (farm stay), or short-term rental, there is no reason not to make longer-term reservations in order to allow a deeper immersion into the local culture, life, and their unique experience of time.
Rather than attempt to see all of Italy in one trip, for example, try to find a central hub from which to plan one’s exploration. When staying in Tuscany, why not make Florence or Siena a home base and take day trips to the hundreds of local and regional sites?
By staying in one location, you can:
TransitionsAbroad.com has compiled some great lodgings and locations to stay a while. Check them out and give the slower life a chance. The experience will likely leave a deeper impression on you than those you might wish to impress at a cocktail party in some "Amazing Race" across the globe.
Luke Vaughn returned home to Eugene, Oregon earlier this month after a 10,743-mile automobile round trip to New York, during which he bummed car rides and crashed on the couches of over 300 strangers he met on the Internet. The idea originated on the website of popular vlogger Ze Frank, and Luke was soon nicknamed The Running Fool as he was passed along like a human baton. From The Oregonian:
People from high-school age to retirement age offered not only rides, but also food and lodging. He spent Christmas in Connecticut, complete with presents sent through an Internet gift drive. A group of Seattleites pitched in to pay for the plane ticket Vaughn had to buy to get from Missoula, Mont., to Spokane, when snow closed Interstate 90.
Total out-of-pocket cost: $150, including $95 for hotel rooms.
[...]
Vaughn said he was never bored or scared during the journey. And though he’s shy, the long rides with strangers didn’t bother him.
“I actually liked it when people told stories the whole time,” he said.
It’s heartening to see such a show of generosity and community in these days of increasing personal isolation. It gives one hope that neighborliness is on the rise, and that new travel friends are only a mouseclick away.
Sometimes the best travel writing isn’t called “travel writing,” and chances are you won’t find it in the travel section of your local bookstore.
Autobiographical works such as Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies and Maya Angelou’s All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes – aside from being personal favorites – are beautifully written stories of journeys, both physical and metaphysical. Although these works aren’t likely to be found under the heading of “Travel Narratives,” they’re compelling travel stories nonetheless.
Luckily for readers, editors Lucy McCauley, Amy G. Carlson, and Jennifer Leo have included excerpts from these works, as well as many other unexpected gems, in their anthology, A Woman’s Path: Women’s Best Spiritual Travel Writing (Traveler’s Tales, 2003).
