By Roy Stevenson

I’ll never forget my first visit to Paris. After walking around overwhelmed with her collective magnificence and splendor, it took me a few days to start focusing on the individual beauty of her architecture. Elaborately carved creamy pale yellow colored limestone buildings, bridges, sidewalks, monuments, museums and apartments distract your eye wherever you walk.

It wasn’t until I’d made several trips to Paris and finally visited the underground Catacombs that I finally figured it out-it comes from beneath Paris. Underneath Paris, the City of Lights, there is a much darker world. Every year over 150,000 morbidly curious people visit part of a labyrinth of 186 miles of eerie ancient subterranean limestone tunnels and mass graves known as the catacombs.

Walking through this huge underground crypt is like entering another realm where the surreal is normal, amidst enormous piles of macabre grinning skulls and aged yellowed bones. This bizarre necropolis contains the bones of 6 million bodies. Gruesome scenes that even the big budget horror movies would have difficulty creating. And its real.

Everything about these catacombs is unusual. You buy your ticket at a small counter. A nearby sign warns you that this visit is not for claustrophobics, or people faint of heart, or people with emotional problems: you enter at your own risk.

You think “is this just hype to intrigue the visitor”?

More on Paris’s Ancient Catacombs: Subterranean Empire of the Dead

The recent launch of CultureCrossing.net offers a user-built guide to cross-cultural etiquette and understanding for traveling, living, working, and studying in the global community.

Wondering if you should bow or shake hands with your Chinese colleague? Worried that you might have offended your Moroccan hosts by declining that second cup of tea? Want to know the best time to arrive at a Brazilian party? Look no further than CultureCrossing.net; an evolving database of cross-cultural information about every country in the world. This free, user-built reference guide allows people from around the globe to access and share essential tips about how to navigate the world with savvy and sensitivity. An invaluable resource for travelers, businesses, students and anyone living and working in a multi-cultural community, CultureCrossing.net offers its users an opportunity to:

• Access information for more than 200 countries (with new information added daily)
• Add knowledge to the country guides
• Ask questions and chat directly with other users and experts from around the world
• Explore global resources to facilitate any cross-cultural experience

According to CultureCrossing.net founder Michael Landers,

There are many sites that tell you how to book a trip and what to pack, but very few sites offer crucial information about the intangibles like appropriate greetings, gestures, and taboo behavior- tips that will help you stay out of trouble when crossing cultures. Ours is the only site providing free access to this kind of knowledge for every country in the world.”

The resources available at CultureCrossing.net are free to use, easy to navigate and simply organized by country and divided into three distinct categories of information: the basics, business essentials, and student life.

Topics covered include greetings, gestures, taboos, dress, negotiations, meeting etiquette, school rules, gift giving, communication styles, eye contact, and more.
Besides being an indispensable reference guide, the site also offers a variety of additional features such as interviews with culturally conscious celebrities, a humorous blog where you can learn from others’ cross-cultural faux pas, tools to help you explore your own “cultural baggage“, and quizzes so you can test your cultural IQ.

By Jill Irwin

We sit circled around a beach fire, faces lit by the waning flames, entranced by the rhythms of our percussion jam session.  Overhead zillions of stars shine brilliantly in the Baja sky through the diaphanous stretch of the Milky Way.  Five of us remain awake on this vernal equinox to celebrate the coming of spring; together we blend into one chaotic yet strangely harmonic convergence of sound that echoes up the arroyo behind us and drifts back out into the bay.
____________________________________________________________________

When I decide that I simply must go sea kayaking in Baja for spring vacation, it’s so last minute that nobody can join me.  Well, my sister could, but when I say, “camping,” she asks “Where would I go to the bathroom?”  So I check out group trips, uneasy about vacationing with people I’ve never met. But when I talk to Gabriola Cycle & Kayak, they’re so friendly that I sign up.

As I wait to board the plane to Mexico, I eye my fellow passengers, picking out the kayakers with their chunky sport sandals and baggy shorts.  Once on board, I’m next to a fiftyish man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “Ouzo Power.” I’d already pegged him as a sport fisher, but he turns to me and says “Are you on the Gabriola kayak trip, too?”  Jim, who manages a family counseling center, turns out to be a kind man with an unexpected, sly sense of humor. I like him immediately.

As our plane descends into Loreto, on the Sea of Cortez, a stark, dramatic landscape lies below. Jagged peaks slice through the electric blue sky; a moon-shaped bay forms a perfect circle on small island not far offshore. An intricate pattern of ripples covers the azure sea surface.

Our first evening together, we camp at a hacienda run by expatriate Norte Americanos.  I assess our group—a twentysomething couple on their honeymoon, a couple in their thirties, three solo women, two solo men, and two male guides—and decide it’s a good gender balance. 

Morning arrives with sunshine and warm, dry air. As we load our camping gear into the boats on the beach, I snag a single kayak. But our amiable guide Jim says, “You’ll be switching between single and double kayaks to mix it up, so don’t get too attached to your boat.” Mary, an athletic blonde fortysomething who looks great in a bikini, immediately leads the pack as she charges off paddling toward Isla Coronado, our first destination.  Even though I’m a veteran kayaker, she intimidates me.

Our first campsite is on the circular bay I’d seen from the plane. Conversation doesn’t flow easily around the evening campfire—we’re still sizing each other up. I head to my tent early and read.

By the second day, as we begin to relax into the pace of rising early and paddling in the mornings, personalities are revealed.  I’m paired today with David, a former advertising executive, now a Zen Buddhist and volunteer for stroke victims.  He tells me his epiphany to step off the fast track came on a trip to Alaska when an eagle feather spoke to him.  “It was time to be of service to others.” He’s a cool guy.

Our guides are low key yet helpful.  During the four-hour crossing to Isla del Carmen, they paddle up to each of us occasionally to see how we’re doing. Their attitude helps the group settle into an easy camaraderie.  Guide John has brought a bag of percussion instruments for campfire entertainment, and Jim engages anybody willing in a game of dice.  (Next Page, click link below…)

More on Whales, A Witch, and Wonderful Weather: Group Sea Kayaking in Baja

The Traveler has been away for awhile, but we’re back and we just heard some great news from our good friends at the American Writers & Artists Institute. Jen Stevens and Steenie Harvey will be hosting a Get Paid to Travel Teleconference this coming June 30th.

If you’ve ever dreamed of living the life of a freelance travel writer, you owe it to yourself to find out more at this live event. For less than $20 you’ll find out what it takes to get started and discover some real-world strategies for success as a travel writer.

If you’ve never heard Steenie Harvey talk of her adventures as a paid travel writer, globe-trotting all over the world, you’ll be amazed and amused – Steenie’s experience and sense of humor are second to none!

Along with Steenie is Jen Stevens, a professional writer, editor, and architect of the AWAI travel writing course. Jen is one of the best people I know in the business (and out) and her guidance and support has helped The Traveler and countless scores of others get started as freelance writers.

Seriously, if you have any interest at all in finding out more about the life of a freelance travel writer you need to be on this teleconference on Monday June 30th!

Sign up for the Get Paid to Travel Teleconference now!

 

 

The Traveler Recommends:

The Traveler enjoyed a quiet and peaceful few days this week exploring Pt. Reyes National Seashore. Just an hours drive from San Francisco, Pt. Reyes is the quintessential landscape of the north coast – rocky shoreline, tall redwood forest, and crashing surf.

There are several options for places to stay around Pt. Reyes, but staying in the quiet and tiny little hamlet of Olema is perfect. The Olema Cottages will serve as your home base while exploring the natural beuaty of Pt. Reyes.

 

 

 

Many travelers are becoming more concerned of the environmental “footprint” their travel leaves, especially when they fly.

Many airlines and other travel service providers are offering choices for purchasing carbon offsets for their booked travel, and now Travelocity is making it even easier to help lesson your carbon footprint.  

By making conscious choices, travelers can make a difference and help promote sustainable travel in the marketplace. We can all do our part to help preserve a beautiful world for future generations.

Offset Your Carbon Footprint with Travelocity

To find out more about the specifics of carbon offset, check out The Skinny on Carbon Offsets.

There are many things to learn about Uganda and Rwanda that extend far beyond their tumultuous history. These are places with lands that are fertile with exotic wildlife and stunning beauty. One of the most interesting aspects of this area are the many different forest ecosystems in the western rift valley area which are home to some of the most endangered great ape species in the world, notably the gorilla and chimpanzee, two of man’s closest relations.

Volcanoes Safaris is a unique great ape ecotourism business specializing in mountain gorilla and chimpanzee safaris to Uganda and Rwanda, and was founded in 1997. Volcanoes Safaris has created an unrivaled and integrated set of eco-tourism services that introduce clients to the great apes of Africa and the stunning beauty of this area of Africa. Volcanoes has built three ecolodges near the gorilla parks, which are sensitive to the post-conflict context, the culture of communities, the fragility of the environment and the need to use resources in a sustainable way.

Gorillas are undeniably the most unique primate that survives in the forgotten forests of Africa. Sadly, there are only some seven hundred Mountain Gorillas left on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo.  Man poses the most serious threat to the populations of Great Apes in these areas, but something can be finally be done, and for tourists, getting to see the gorillas in their natural habitat is an awe-inspiring event.

Volcanoes Safaris organizes tracking in Bwindi and Mgahinga in Uganda or in Parc National des Volcans in Rwanda, housing guests at unique eco-lodges located in these parks. Visiting gorillas and chimpanzees in these parks helps fund conservation and community projects - schools, roads, clinics, community centers, and helps the people of local communities understand the value of their continued survival.

In post-conflict Rwanda, the Volcanoes Safaris BLCF Project, backed by the British government, has helped improve hotel infrastructure, train local people in hospitality and guiding, increase income and develop new skills. The project has brought over 1.5 million US dollars to the Rwandese economy. In Uganda, the company is setting up a partnership project near Kyambura Gorge, home to a group of threatened chimpanzees.  The team at Volcanoes Safaris believes that long-term partnerships between ecotourism companies, local communities, conservation organizations, governments and donors are essential for the survival of primates.

The Earthwatch team pooled their video and photo resources to help document their activities assisting Dr. Peter Kershaw’s ongoing work monitoring environmental change in the sub-arctic/arctic transition zone along the western coast of Hudson Bay in northern Canada. (Many thanks to Will for risking his equipment in the harsh environment and taking such excellent videos, especially given the circumstances.) Here is just a sampling as The Traveler begins to chronicle the team’s adventure in the arctic.

 

CNSC technical coordinator Carley Basler describes the team’s mission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A snow crystal expert. He looks the part, but what’s really going through Tom’s head right now?

 

 

 

 

 

Arctic headshot. Wind chill is approximately -50C.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom and Janet showing enthusiasm for their work.
(Note that preserving energy is an important aspect to keeping warm)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom heading back with the Ram Penetrometer and Snow Corer.
The site’s met station in the background

 

 

 

 

When Nino rolls, you know he’s ready…