Get ready to consume a whole lotta good stuff.
How Can I Resist This Title?
Vagabondish is a travelzine I keep my eye on and with good reason, as this week they posted How to Master the Art of Interesting Travel. I'm hooked! Amy Baker describes interesting travel in a way that makes sense, thanks to the crazy Brazilian teacher I met in 2007 who described the gut instinct reaction and identifying yourself with things or places:
You know when someone see’s a gift and exclaims “this has so and so’s name ALL over it”? Well, I believe that in order to truly enjoy your travels abroad, you should organize your itinerary and points of interest to have your name all over them. Planning a trip that caters specifically to your hobbies or curiosities is a rewarding, enjoyable and extraordinary adventure.
Sounds pretty obvious in hindsight, but I need these affirmations often. According to Amy's rules of thumb for this type of travel, here are my directions (what are yours?):
Figure out what you like to do at home: connect with friends, write, be outside and/or camp, get some physical exercise, musical concerts, read...
Get the scoop from those who know: I use twitter, the Thorn Tree Forum, travel narratives, and friends for location info, with a quick glance at the guide book necessities (no longer will I travel with a nose in a book).
Don't be afraid to try something new: Gotta bust out of my aversion to try weird foods and talk to more people. I have no idea why my timid nature is selective.
Savor it while you can: Traveling with fitting travel partners and drinking caffeine will definitely facilitate doing this more often than I do. Though I only coop up when sick, I know my most absorbent experiences come from connecting and savoring with fun travelers and lively locals.
Answer these questions for yourself, and savor this after dinner mint:
Mastering the art of special interest traveling may take time, but be sure to record and track what tools helped to make a trip very successful and what to avoid for the next time around. Traveling is about expanding new horizons while learning more about yourself, so absorb everything around you, stimulate your senses but most importantly do so while still holding onto you core self.
50 People, 1 Question
It's hard not to watch the whole thing.
I'm intrigued by these guys. Where would you like to wake up tomorrow? Comment below. I'd sure like to be in a small Fijian village called Nakavika.
National Novel Writing Month
It's not a novel I wish to write but a non-fiction travel narrative, and with the proclamation of next month's theme, I'm going to aim for 20,000 more words in my Big Journey Book (which is definitely not the title and is already hundreds of unedited pages), and the deadline is November 30th. Because I write with a desire to seclude myself, I often think there's no way I can accomplish a level of quality at home than I could obtain completely apart from society. Frankly, I make myself laugh with that excuse.
I'm mentioning this because if you're reading this blog, you're probably interested in travel yourself and may have your own ambitions of writing as well. Get on it, and let me know how you perform (that gets me motivated).
Tips from Problogger
I scan the work of Problogger.net every week with the same feeling of enrichment and necessity as I do brushing my teeth or getting some exercise. This week, I gave the post 5 Ways to Know if Your Blog is on the Right Track and felt a wee but present pat on the back. My comment and subscriber numbers have grown, but I also know what aspects of my blog I should closely follow to see some quantitative progress. After decades of schooling, I've found it a little difficult to reach that feeling of success with out this sort of verification of a job well done.
Other Discoveries
5 World's Most Dangerous Cities
5 Ways to Make Long Flights More Productive
Update on Nomadderwhere
Added to the Life List this week was a road trip across Mexico, conceived this year by reading On The Road and further solidified as a dream from my cruise two weeks ago. Even though my father immediately mentioned his concerns about the drug wars, I continue to bank on my [usually false] sense of confidence and security abroad. Hopefully, this can happen in the near future as I hate to let these ideas stew and gather dust in my brain.