Community-based and pro-poor tourism. Great potential but, many buts…
“Do good while travelling!” You don’t just want to travel anymore. You want to see the real world! The time of relaxing on the beach and after a hot and sandy day returning to your hotel has long gone. Travellers want more today, judged by how tour operators market...
Coffee: Healthful and Complex Global Commodity
Coffee is a complex and controversial global commodity, one with significant economic, social, environmental and human health impacts. There’s a lot more going on in that mug than just a boost of energy in the morning. The coffee plant originated in modern-day...
Lessons from My Lai
My time in central Vietnam, where many of the most horrific events of the Vietnam war took place, was fascinating and emotional, especially as a young American. I hired a motorbike to Son My, site of the famous My Lai (pronounced Mee Lai, not my lai, as I had been...
Dr. Narco
I arrived in La Paz for the second time in my travels in late October, 2012. This was at the very tail end of the climbing season in Bolivia, and I had low expectations for finding climbing possibilities and reliable climbing partners. On my second day in La Paz,...
Cambodia: The Depth of a Smile
Cambodia is one of the saddest, happiest, charming, impressive, crumbling, richest and poorest countries I have been to. It is truly a land of contrasts. Recent history, between their undesired role in the Vietnam war, to the horrific rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer...
Fearful Symmetry
Without question, one of the most exquisitely beautiful and powerful animals on this planet is the Malayan Tiger. While I may have nearly been a small supper for one of these critically endangered felines, my adoration and respect does not waver. I was on a...
Candomble
The Animistic Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble is concentrated in the Bahia State of central-coastal Brazil. I decided to learn more about it at its most authentic in Cachoeira, a little visited village a couple of hours outside of Salvador, Bahia, and along the old...