February 28, 2003
Rolf Potts on the contradictions of "budget travel"
"Few things are more ridiculous than the spectacle of a "budget traveler" losing his temper at a rickshaw driver over...Read this article
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February 27, 2003
Dean MacCannell on why tourist attractions are tourist attractions
"In the establishment of modern society, the individual act of sightseeing is probably less important than the ceremonial ratification of...Read this article
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February 26, 2003
William Sutcliffe on the journey v. the destination
"I had assumed that traveling was the crap bit you had to tolerate in order to get to the places...Read this article
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February 25, 2003
Pico Iyer on quitting
"Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn't agree with you, but...Read this article
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February 24, 2003
Davydd J. Greenwood on the commodification of culture
"Worldwide, we are seeing the transformation of cultures into 'local color', making peoples' cultures extensions of the modern mass media....Read this article
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February 22, 2003
A Moorish travel proverb
"He who does not travel does not know the value of men." --quoted in Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines (1987)...Read this article
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February 21, 2003
Rolf Potts on the tourist/traveler distinction
"In reality, travel is not a social contest, and vagabonding has never represented a caste on the tourist/traveler hierarchy. Depending...Read this article
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February 20, 2003
Charles Kuralt on working overseas
"If you really want to learn about a country, work there." --Charles Kuralt, A Life on the Road (1990)...Read this article
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Mergui sea gypsy story in Destinasian
My story about the Moken sea gypsies of southern Myanmar, which originally appeared in Conde Nast Traveler last summer (under...Read this article
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February 19, 2003
Tony the Beachcomber on traveling slow
"What I find is that you can go anywhere, you can do just about anything, if you're not in a...Read this article
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February 18, 2003
Tanya Shaffer on the kindness of strangers
"Here's what I love about travel: Strangers get a chance to amaze you. Sometimes a single day can bring a...Read this article
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February 17, 2003
Erve Chambers on tradition and "authenticity"
"Richard Handler and Jocelyn Linnekin have contended that our tendency to judge authenticity in terms of the faithfulness by which...Read this article
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February 15, 2003
T.E. Lawrence on the ambiguity of "going native"
"In my case, the efforts for these years to live in the dress of the Arabs, and to imitate their...Read this article
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Vagabonding debuts on Book Sense bestseller list
The American Booksellers Association has released its Book Sense Bestseller List for the month of January, and it looks like...Read this article
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February 14, 2003
Erla Zwingle on Westernization
"Critics of Western culture blast Coke and Hollywood but not organ transplants and computers. Boosters of Western culture can point...Read this article
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February 13, 2003
Rolf Potts on ethno-tourism
"As isolated cultures come into closer contact with modern visitors, they naturally become more and more likely to seek modern...Read this article
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February 12, 2003
William Gibson is neglecting his book tour blog, too
Well, despite having racked up eight very enjoyable Vagabonding book events on the West Coast and in the Midwest thus...Read this article
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Vagabonding a Bay Area bestseller
Today’s Travel Quote of the Day is "Miracles" by Walt Whitman, and it would seem to be a small miracle...Read this article
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Walt Whitman on miracles
"Why, who makes much of a miracle? / As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, / Whether...Read this article
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February 11, 2003
Thomas Friedman on globalization
"The writer Thomas Wolfe said, 'You can't go home again,' but I fear he was wrong. In the world of...Read this article
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February 10, 2003
Henry Miller on life as a mysterious journey
"No one takes a straight-cut line through life. Often we fail to stop at the stations indicated on the timetable....Read this article
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February 08, 2003
Douglas Coupland on why so few people go vagabonding
"option paralysis: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none." --Douglas Coupland, Generation X (1991)...Read this article
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Vagabonding Q&A in World Hum
The current edition of World Hum features an interview with me about my new book. World Hum takes travel seriously,...Read this article
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February 07, 2003
Finding a prison in wealth: a warning from the Bible
"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless."...Read this article
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February 06, 2003
Edward Abbey on the importance of going on foot
"Look here, I want to say, for godsake fellas get out of themthere machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and...Read this article
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February 05, 2003
Rolf Potts on vision
"'Seeing' as you travel is somewhat of a spiritual exercise: a process not of seeking interesting surroundings, but of being...Read this article
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February 04, 2003
Lewis Lapham on why the media will never give a balanced view of the world
"The media is based on personality, it's based on celebrity, and it's based on a world that never was. At...Read this article
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February 03, 2003
Walker Percy on "spoiled" places
"The problem is to find an "unspoiled" place. "Unspoiled" does not mean only that a place is left physically intact;...Read this article
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February 02, 2003
Rolf talks to Moon founder Bill Dalton
This month at RolfPotts.com, I feature an interview with indie-travel guru Bill Dalton, who founded Moon Handbooks back in 1973....Read this article
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February 01, 2003
Dave Eggers on isolation
"But dropping out of touch is still possible. It's so easy. It doesn't take long, just about anywhere, to get...Read this article
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