Tourists long for what they have previously destroyed

“New Guineans are well aware that the culture of their fathers is gone forever and can never be reconstituted. They may still respect old traditions, perform tribal rituals, and honor their ancestors, but in an essential sense, the old way is lost, if only because there has been a transfer of political and economic power, and the New Guineans can no longer act in the modern world and in their relations with outsiders as if … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (3)  | April 15, 2013
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

Special April 2013 Fares for Multi-Stop Tickets on BootsnAll

BootsnAll has been publishing RTW Wednesday articles for almost two years now, with a plethora of writers contributing to offer stories, tips, and advice about long-term travel.

We’re excited to announce that Vagablogging contributor Jenn Miller has joined us and will be the sole contributor to the RTW Wednesday column going forward. Her debut article, Lessons from Jakarta, was published this past week. Jenn has been on the road with her family for over … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Special April 2013 Fares for Multi-Stop Tickets on BootsnAll  | April 13, 2013
Category: Notes from the collective travel mind

Reflections at the bookstore’s travel writing section

(Picture credit: Flickr/derekb)

This past weekend I spent a few hours nosing around the travel section at a local bookstore. With nothing much better to do in another steamy Malaysian Sunday afternoon, I got easily attracted by the air-conditioned comfort of the Temple of Vanity (i.e. one of the abundant … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (6)  | April 11, 2013
Category: Notes from the collective travel mind, Travel Writing

Vagabonding Field Report: Camping in Northern Mexico

Cost/day: $40/day

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately?

Our family of seven is camping in Mexico beneath a full moon and enjoying a tranquil evening after crossing the border into this ‘dangerous’ country. Just the day before, we were warned that we were ‘risking our children’s lives’ by taking them to such a lawless place.’ Completely alone in a farmer’s field, we watched the sun peacefully set … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (2)  | April 10, 2013
Category: Family Travel, North America, Vagabonding Field Reports

Vagablogging Field Reporters

Rachel Denning never owned a passport until she had four children under the age of four. Since then, she and her husband have traveled with them to 12 countries on two continents (and added one more to the pack, making it five kids.) A passion for living life deliberately has resulted in a quest to make long-term family travel a reality … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Vagablogging Field Reporters  | April 9, 2013
Category: Vagablogging Contributors

On the corner of fate & Communism: Lessons in Hanoi

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”  –Mark Twain The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

It’s an interesting thing to be a guest in … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (8)  | April 9, 2013
Category: Asia, Destinations

Marshall McLuhan on how the modern traveler has become passive

“The photograph has reversed the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar. Descartes, in the early seventeenth century, had observed that traveling was almost like conversing with men of other centuries, a point of view quite unknown before his time. For those who cherish such quaint experience, it is necessary today to go back very many centuries by the art and archaeology route. Professor Boorstin seems unhappy that … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (3)  | April 8, 2013
Category: Travel Quote of the Day