Everyone loves to escape the crowds and find their own little slice of paradise, but how many are willing to head to war zone destinations like Iraq? The answer is of course, not many. But, as Marcus pointed out last week, there are some tourists already marking Iraq as a destination.

It’s easy to dismiss such folks as either willfully naive like the Italian tourist who showed up in Falluja earlier this year; and others fall into the “anti-tourists” category, folks who love to chase down the obscure destination (often so they can brag about their own travel superiority).

However, while only the slightly off balance may be booking flights to Iraq at the moment, there is little doubt that, could Iraq improve its security situation, there are hordes of backpackers and other tourists that would love to see the ancient cities (present day Iraq, encompasses most of what was once Mesopotamia, the so-called “cradle of civilization”) and other treasures the country has to offer.

Sounds far-fetched to think tourism will return to a war zone, but foreign investors also seem to believe that Iraq will be a tourist haven once the country settles down — so far those investors have dropped a cool $600 million on the tourism industry.

It might sound a little crazy, but as Elizabeth Dickinson points out over at Foreign Policy.com, the situation in Iraq isn’t all that different from Colombia. “Just a few years ago,” writes Dickinson, “promoting tourism in turbulent Colombia looked like a lost cause.”

Indeed, say “I’m going to Colombia” to most Americans and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. Colombia in the American mind is still a land of fierce guerrilla wars, drug cartels, kidnappings and random violence. While that image was largely accurate during the 1990s when some 3 million people in Colombia fled their homes, today the situation is much different.

Thanks to improved security and stability in Colombia the tourism industry is thriving. According to Dickinson the Colombian Ministry of Commerce, Tourism and Industry says it hopes to welcome 4 million annual visitors by 2010.

Dickinson believes the same sort of turnaround could happen in Iraq, and in fact she seems to think that tourism might be a potential savior for Iraq. “For weak and vulnerable economies, tourism is one of the quickest ways to bring in hard foreign currency,” Dickinson argues.

There is of course the counterargument that tourism also puts undue strain on a country as well, but in the case of Iraq it seems unlikely that even the thickest of tourist hordes could possible put any more strain than the war that has raged there for the last six years.

Clearly Iraq has a long road ahead of it before it turns into even a vagabond hotspot, let alone the resort haven that pulls in massive western capital. Still, as countries like Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Vietnam, and others know, it is possible to transform from the ruins of war to the hot new destination for intrepid travelers, it just takes time and stability.

[photo by ob1left, Flickr

If you are like most people, you enjoy the occasional warm soothing beverage before bed (or during the day, or perhaps in the morning to pry your eyelids open).  If you are like me, you prefer tea to coffee; there’s something about the soothing nature of soaking delicious unfurling leaves in warm water and holding the mug between your hands that makes me happy.

Unless you’re interested in an emergency tea party, you’ll probably have to bring your own tea with you wherever you go.  The two schools of tea are: bags or looseleaf?  Teabags are easily portable (throw a few in your pocket and call it a day) and can be purchased in grocery stores.  They’re often older, and lower quality teas than looseleaf.  Looseleaf teas are a bit harder to transport — especially when their innocuous presence can look like ANOTHER flakey green substance in a small baggie — but not impossible: some strong ziploc baggies with clear labels can help keep your teas separated.  If you like a lot of different teas or want a seriously hardcore weatherproof case, you can sort individual servings of tea into the day slots of those daily pill boxes.  Then you can flip open one “day” and put the required amount of tea in your cup!

You can also get fill-your-own tea bags, usually in either plastic mesh or a papery mesh, and put as much of whatever tea you like into them, for less mess.  It’s fairly easy to find both regular mugs and travel mugs with built-in infusers, as well, meaning you don’t even need to buy an external infuser for making your tea (which can be bought from Target, by the way).

Carrying tea in bags, while it does create more waste (most teabags are individually wrapped, although Celestial Seasonings brand teabags are often not), is so convenient.  You can slide one into your backpack, one into your day pack, one into the sole of your boot while you’re hiking.  If you don’t want the hassle of trying to find a Styrofoam cup at your destination or clipping an unwieldy travel mug to your pack with a carabiner, consider an ORIKASO fold-flat mug, which is super lightweight and can work for both hot and cold liquids (ORIKASO also makes plates and bowls).

Just because it seems like a lot of stuff doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a delicious hot mug of tea whenever you like, and sometimes it might be the one thing to keep you sane, settle you down, or share with a friend.

A reader named Jake recently wrote with a question about kick-starting a music-writing career from the road. “I’ve been a music writer for about two years now,” he wrote, “and before that I wrote often about my European travels during my time studying abroad. I would welcome and appreciate any advice you have on how I could go about developing a niche for myself as a “traveling music writer” in a way that would still enable me to live. I don’t need a lot of money, and I’m not very high maintenance, but I would like to break even during this adventure.”

This is what I told him:

The good news is that it sounds like a great plan! The bad news is that these schemes are hard to front-load and pitch in advance (especially if you don’t already have a lot of editorial contacts in place) and really require you to have that specific music-travel experience first.

So what I’d do is just save up some money and hit the road on your own dime and your own itinerary. While you’re on the road, pour all your effort into making your blog the best travel + music resource out there. While you’re doing this, you can pitch and write stories for as many freelance venues as possible. After a spell — say, one year, if you work hard — you’ll have the kind of expertise and body-of-work that will make you a go-to guy in this field. And then maybe you can roll it all into a living (but even then it won’t be an extravagant living).

And even if you can’t roll that initial one-year trip into a career, you’ll have a blast traveling the world in the process!

This IHT article narrates the adventures of a U.S. tour group in Iraq.

Considering there is still a war raging there, people who decide to travel to Iraq are either really brave or insane, depending on how you look at it. For people who love escaping the tourist masses, that definitely won’t be an issue in that country.

One traveler in the article was quoted as saying, “I get my best travel ideas from the State Department’s travel warning list.” Adventurous vagabonder, or a possible “anti-tourist”? Rolf described such people in his book Vagabonding. They conspicuously avoid the popular sights, but out of a sense of superiority, not exploration.

Mosque in Iraq, from Pictureninja.com

Have you met any travelers like this? What drives people like this to seek out the “edgier” destinations?

I was really glad to see Tim Leffel’s recent blog “5 Reasons It’s a Good Time to Be an American Backpacker.” For all of the woebegone news circulating about the economy and the reasons to stay home, I think it’s a good reminder that yes, it’s actually a good time to travel. (I think that’s true at any point in time—there will always be reasons for and against travel.)

Listed are (yep, you guessed it) five good reasons, including the increasing strength of the dollar and the fact that it’s a buyer’s market for many things in the travel industry. Plus I’d add my own: if you’ve been recently laid off, why not spend the time traveling? Send out a few job-application emails in between flights and sights, but don’t feel guilty about it—you’d be doing the same emailing if you were at home, but without the enriching cultural experience on the side.

Tim has been mentioned here before, and for good reason: he always posts excellent bargain travel advice on his website “Cheapest Destinations.” Another one of his recent blogs that I liked: “Feel Rich by Going Away.”

A recent study asked professional photographers if they were still using film, and 45% said they had never stopped, even though they also used digital.  Although digital cameras have improved now to the point where a digital photo and a film photo are pretty much comparable in dpi (you know, if you have a good printer), film is still tenaciously clinging on.

What are the upsides to film?  It still gives the best pictures, in terms of sheer quality, by a small margin — you can get tonal ranges from film that you just can’t get from digital, and, depending on the film, you can blow it up indefinitely with only a slight grain.  Want a wall-sized mural of Angkor Wat? You got it, if you can find the printer.

Also, most toy and all antique cameras take film; you can get some breathtaking artwork from these cameras, a truly unique take that transcends the usual picture-of-a-pretty-flower-at-sunset traveling art photography.  Consider the Holga’s dramatic vignetting, the Lomo’s lush coloring, and the Diana’s soft focus. Taking art photography on the road is both easy and appealing, and allows you a new way to look at the world, without worrying about breaking, losing, or having your fancy SLR digital camera and lenses stolen from under your nose.

Finding film and getting it developed also isn’t as hard as you might think; online stores like Freestyle Photo and B&H have discounted film in all sizes (regular 35mm up to sheet film for those cameras you see in car commercials), as well as some cameras, and tools you might need for setting up your own mini-darkroom.  Learning how to develop your own black and white pictures is not that hard, and is a really fun skill to learn — color, unfortunately, you need a giant machine for.

If you don’t want to try and set up a portable darkroom in the bathroom of your hostel, you can mail film to several developing locations, depending on where in the world you are.  You might have better luck with finding walk-in places to develop film in equally developing countries.  Don’t just check drugstores, since their machines are likely to be subpar, but look for photography equipment rental stores, or places that provide slide processing. It may cost a wee bit more to shoot film, but trust me, the experience is totally different than shooting digital; neither is better, but it’s worth trying film and expanding your horizons.

With the rush on “volunteer vacations” — Celine’s Vagablogging article on spring break students comes to mind — there are numerous websites and agencies that, for a fee, will set up your volunteer experience for you.  You pay them (usually between $1000 and the entire costs of everything) and they will find you a spot to plant trees or dig ditches or whatever else you might want to do with your time.  Obviously, the Peace Corps is the most well-known and intense of these options, but smaller options exist (like IVP).

This is an excellent way to volunteer if you aren’t sure how you want to start or what you might be interested in.  But if you have specific skills and don’t want to go through an agency, consider DIY volunteering.  While in Guatemala, I met a gentleman who was working at an orphanage in the boonies; he found it by looking for work with children in Guatemala on Google, and then picking the first place that said they were looking for help.  The Banyan, a women’s mental health rehabilitation clinic in Chennai, has job and volunteer listings on their website, and I heard about them on CBC Radio.

Think about what you might want to do: teach English? Help third world women learn business skills? Bring fresh water to an African village?  Preserve cultural heritage? Then think about where you might want to do those things.  Are there any businesses or nonprofits that you know of that have affiliates in areas you’d like to go?  Planned Parenthood has affiliates all around the world; consider sending them emails to see if they need volunteers.  If you are already working for a nonprofit, consider seeing if they will send you overseas to educate or train; offer to pay your own way.

You can find assistance in books such as “World Volunteers,” from We Care Guides — a directory of listings for both individual groups and larger agencies that need volunteer help.  Ask around to your friends; perhaps they know someone who needs help, or have a friend.  I have one friend who lived in a Guatemalan village for nine months, building their library, and another whose best friend just started a women’s health collective in Panama City.  Ask for letters of recommendation.  Write out a volunteer resume.  The internet and email are your friends for setting up volunteering opportunities on your own.  Consider using Facebook (yeah, I know) to network potential locations.

Most of all, pick something that YOU want to do, that matter deeply to you.  If you care enough to put down your time and money for it, it should be something that makes your heart sing.

(Photo from Flickr: sofauxboho)

“Travel, of course, is far from being the privilege or prerogative of modern times. It is one of the earliest and oldest of man’s activities, its history coexistive with that of the race itself, a primary impulse of the human species and a major determinant of history. Whether as migration or exploration, science or pleasure, enforced displacement or irrational wanderlust, it has figured as a condition of every race and age, era or culture. So far it is a recognized fact of human record and experience. But two other facts soon appear: that there are as many kinds of travel as there are men and occasions, and that throughout its long history travel has had not only a mixed reputation but what may be called a mixed press. In some periods its repute is high, in others surprisingly low. In some times or societies it becomes a criterion of the cultivated life, a standard of civilized action and purpose. In others — of which obvious contemporary instances suggest themselves — it falls under the reproof of patriots, nationalists, and xenophobes as a demoralizer of states or a threat to the integrity of races. If it has been praised for its civilizing value, it has also given large scope to moral self-righteousness and warning, and it has required of its chroniclers a great deal of apology and justification. Some have made a science of it, others a means of survival or rehabilitation, still others a function of politics and propaganda. The one ambition that appears always to have animated the civilized traveler has been to make an art of it; and to many people even today it is one of the few means of art or creative action they find open to them.”
–Morton Dauwen Zabel, intro to Henry James’ The Art of Travel (1958)

Planning and then taking a RTW trip is often talked about in sweeping generalizations. It’s all about the big picture, about embarking on an adventure of either very long or even perhaps unknown duration. But it has to start somewhere, right?

BootsnAll member Skylab is hitting the road for his first RTW trip in a few months, and has posted this question on the BootsnAll boards – what was the first stop on your first RTW trip?

Mine will be Beijing in 3 months.

I wanted something completely different from my everyday life. And hopefully thats what I’ll get. I really don’t know much about China and it seemed like the perfect first place to go and just start traveling south.

It’s turned into an interesting discussion, with people chiming in about the first city they stopped in after leaving home, or the city their upcoming RTW trip will begin in. In addition to it being a growing list of cities, however, perhaps even more interesting is why each traveler chose that city to start in. Some of the reasons are logical, some are fanciful.

What about you? What was your first stop on your first RTW trip, or your upcoming trip? Join the conversation on the BootsnAll boards and let us know.

One long-time vagabonder told me, “At best, even current guidebooks are already 2 years out of date. The writer probably went there 2 years ago, and the publisher took a year to ready it for publication.”

When doing pre-trip research, finding a good website feels like striking gold.  This happened to me when I discovered Leif Pettersen’s travelogue.  I was planning a trip to Myanmar (Burma) at the time, and it was hard finding good info.  His long, detailed posts were a godsend.

As I travel around Southeast Asia, I notice lots of backpackers using Travel Fish to look up guesthouses.  The only problem is that it’s so good that I wish it covered more countries, like Malaysia and Indonesia.  Rick Steves, host of the travel show, has lots of Europe tips at his website.

Some of the best websites are run by frequent visitors/long-time expats to that region or country. ReidOnTravel is a fantastic resource for Vietnam, as is BrazilMax for that country. Anyone going to India should take a look at IndiaMike.  Check out Andean Travel Web for Peru info.

To be fair, most guidebooks will mention a few pertinent websites for a destination, so don’t skip them entirely.

Got any good websites you’d like to share?  Please post them in the comments. You could be helping a vagabonder have a better trip!