Lake Atitlan in Guatemala

Whenever we travel, we don’t feel like writing about travel – ironic, no? 

So, since we just got back from a nice road trip in Chile, we’ll leave you with the following two articles from this week’s New York Times:

1.    An opinion column on the nastiness of slum tourism.  We’ve written about this before but this article really captures the essence of why slum tourism is wrong-headed in so many ways.  A snippet:

Slum tourism has its advocates, who say it promotes social awareness. And it’s good money, which helps the local economy. But it’s not worth it. Slum tourism turns poverty into entertainment, something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. People think they’ve really “seen” something — and then go back to their lives and leave me, my family and my community right where we were before.

I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.

When I was 18, I founded an organization that provides education, health and economic services for Kibera residents. A documentary filmmaker from Greece was interviewing me about my work. As we made our way through the streets, we passed an old man defecating in public. The woman took out her video camera and said to her assistant, “Oh, look at that.”

For a moment I saw my home through her eyes: feces, rats, starvation, houses so close together that no one can breathe. I realized I didn’t want her to see it, didn’t want to give her the opportunity to judge my community for its poverty — a condition that few tourists, no matter how well intentioned, could ever understand.

2.    The Frugal Traveler (yo, Kugel bro!) stays with a family in a tourist-friendly but not tourist-heavy lake town in Guatemala.  Makes us want to head on over there ourselves!  A snippet:

San Juan La Laguna is a captivating place to run such a program. Its 10,000 or so inhabitants are almost entirely Tz’utujil, one of the Mayan peoples who make up a significant part of the population of modern-day Guatemala. They maintain their own language, most still use traditional dress, and despite strong attendance at the Catholic and evangelical churches in town, many still depend on Mayan priests to give spiritual guidance and perform traditional ceremonies. The people are touchingly friendly to outsiders, and the streets are cleaner than those in just about any other town I’ve been through this summer.

And most importantly, unlike San Pedro and some other towns on the lake, it hasn’t been drastically reshaped by foreigners. The town has cultivated a gentle sort of tourism, fueled in part by the presence of nongovernmental organizations staffed by a mix of local residents, Guatemalans from the big city and foreigners.

Cooperatives have flourished. The fishermen have one and the coffee growers have another, for example, but the most noticeable are those of the traditional weavers. Among the results has been a return to the use of natural dyes, not the bright, synthetic colors you see on fabrics sold at touristy markets around the country. The shops run by the cooperatives have boutique-like feels, and you’re liable to be invited to the back to see women at work, either weaving or extracting dye from natural sources like willow bark or pomegranate seeds.

There is also a homegrown tourism organization called Rupalaj Kistalin, which organizes a ton of activities – a town tour, fishing tours, coffee- and corn-themed tours, and a hike up to the “Mayan nose” (the highest point of a face-shaped mountain overlooking the town), to name a few.

More on our own travels in the next couple of weeks!

Angelina and Brad will most likely NOT be guests at our lodge. Did their pictures get you to click on this post? If so, maybe we should invite them! Hmmm...

As you may know from our previous post about this super-exciting Life Pivot (new phrase – expect it to be all the rage on Twitter for a day), we are embarking on a quest to buy some land and develop our own humble eco-retreat center.  Our plans have changed just a bit from what we wrote about earlier but the overall gist remains.

While we have the whole thing mapped out in our head, the first step remains: Find and buy the land.  We have narrowed it down to one region in one country but aside from that, we’re open to suggestions.

What we need from you, Dear Reader, are your deepest desires in a travel destination.  Do you want a beach within walking distance?  A ranch-like quality where you can see for miles?  Or is close proximity to shops and restaurants more important?  River, hiking, cities, museums, what?  We have an idea of what we ourselves would like but that doesn’t mean others are on the same page.  Later, we’ll be asking you about other details related to our project, like internet capability and televisions vs. “getting away from it all,” etc.

For now, will you help us narrow down possibilities for our eco-retreat location?  Either send us an email at mindfultourist@gmail.com or write in a comment below.  Thanks for your help!

 For Immediate Release:

Innovation Award: Best Practice Examples in
Sustainable Tourism Innovation Wanted

The International Ecotourism Society’s New Award Recognizes Innovation Leaders Uniting Conservation, Communities and Sustainable Travel

The Innovation Award has been created by TIES to recognize those individuals and organizations who demonstrate leadership in innovative actions that effectively promote sustainable tourism and bring tangible benefits to communities and conservation. The Award winners – one individual and one organization – will be honored for their best practices and innovative actions, judged based on one example of an innovative project, product, or program developed in the previous year that supports the goal of uniting communities, conservation, and sustainable travel.

WASHINGTON, July 13, 2010 – The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), as part of a series of initiatives commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the world’s oldest and largest association dedicated to promoting ecotourism, has launched the annual Innovation Leadership in Sustainable Tourism Awards to recognize and honor accomplishments by sustainable tourism leaders and pioneers.

 “Throughout the history of TIES,” says Dr. Kelly Bricker, Chair of TIES Board of Directors, “we have been working with our members from around the world towards the goal of uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. TIES Innovation Award offers a unique opportunity to share tangible examples of the importance of this goal, and to honor those who are driving positive change through leadership in conservation efforts and travel product development. It really is a wonderful opportunity to honor those making a difference.”

Nominations are being accepted now for the 2010 TIES Innovation Awards. Nominations must be received no later than Midnight Monday, August 2, 2010 US Pacific Daylight Time. The winning two finalists will be honored at the Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference (ESTC), being held from September 8-10, 2010, Portland, Oregon, USA. The Innovation Award Presentation Ceremony will be held annually during the ESTC, to be hosted by TIES and ESTC sponsors. More information on TIES Innovation Awards and nomination instructions are available at: www.ecotourism.org/innovation-awards.

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Here is our planned schedule for how to celebrate the fourth in a fun yet socially conscious way:

Location: Beach in the Mid-Atlantic U.S.

7am – Get woken up by douchebags who decide a good time to practice setting off the night’s fireworks is before anyone has had their morning fair trade espresso.

7:15am – Go back to sleep.

9am – Stumble out of bed, scratch bed bug bites from rental house mattress, but feel content that we’re not pouring money into overpriced, fancy, amenities-laden, internationally-owned hotel down the street.  With a pool.  And tennis courts.  And air-conditioning.

9:30am – Salt-water taffy for breakfast.  Don’t judge. 

10am – Ride bikes to beach.

10:15am – Curse the fact that seemingly all families with five or more kids who live within a 300 mile radius have now descended upon this particular small stretch of sand.  They have also brought their cell phones on which they loudly direct all their friends to where they’ve laid out their massive towels and ask them to join them.  “No, I have on a red, white, and blue t-shirt – and I’m next to the fat person.”  Helpful.

10:30am – Take a dip in the ocean and try to remember this moment in case the next time we see it, it’s oil-laden.  Moment of silence for the Gulf.  Moment of rage for BP.

11:30am – Air is too hot and water is too cold – back to the house.  Do one of two things:

1. Watch a repeat of yesterday’s World Cup match in which Argentina hands Germany their culo on a plate.  (Yes, we called it – take that, Europe.) Bollocks!
2. Watch Hot Tub Time Machine in which we feel like a smugly superior insider when the background guy on the phone walking by Adam says “I want my two dollars,” when realistically, everyone and their mother gets it. 

1:30pm -  Go to Assateague Island, hike around a bit, get bitten by monster mosquitos, and see some wild ponies.

3:30pm – Roll eyes as we hear for the third time today, “Mom, does Canada have a fourth of July?”

4pm – Check out and do one of many activities promoted by Delmarva Low-Impact Tourism Experiences – sea kayaking, bird-watching, or going to a local art gallery, perhaps.  

7pm – Spread out newspaper on a picnic table, dump a half bushel of blue crabs on it, and start picking away.  Eat some silver queen corn and wash it down with Dogfish Head locally brewed beer. 

8:45pm – See fireworks at boardwalk – get skeeved out by so many sweaty people (“People, what a bunch of bastards”) but think it’s worth it just the same.

11pm – Try to sleep while same and more douchebags light off more fireworks.  Ambulance sirens ensue.  Drift off to sleep with smiles on faces.

Happy De-Colonization Day, friends.  May your travels and celebrations be as laid back and fun as ours promise to be.

Here’s the conundrum: Slow Food USA is holding slow food cooking demonstrations in three American cities.  So far, fine.  They are being held at Fairmont Hotels in Miami, Dallas, and Chicago.  The press release notes Fairmont is “a global hospitality brand known for its warm and engaging service and culturally rich experiences” and “Fairmont is also committed to responsible tourism and is an industry leader in sustainable hotel management with its award-winning Green Partnership program.”  But, to describe itself as a hospitality brand and to know the company operates 95 hotels around the world, well, they’re not exactly local travel, are they?  And isn’t the slow food movement related to the locavore movement?  So, wouldn’t a more appropriate place to hold the events be at a local hotel?

But, that not all that’s causing our head to hurt, folks.  In addition to the local and slow food that will be made and consumed at the Fairmont, Finlandia Vodka is also sponsoring the event and so will offer vodka cocktails to be paired with each course.  Wha?

Is Finlandia Vodka part of the slow food movement?  Aren’t they from, like, Finland?  (Actually, it’s owned by an American company with over 4,000 employees around the world but made in Finland.) Not to knock our Nordic friends and if we were involved in the Finland Slow Food movement, we’d be all for these cocktails (vodka martini, please, extra olives) but we’re here in Miami, Chicago, and Dallas. 

It seems that the mighty dollar has reached even the peace, love, and patchouli-reeking kids at Slow Food USA.  Coming from an industry that has been all but bought off by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, we have a bit of advice for the slow foodies: watch it.  Be very careful who you let sponsor your events because there’s a fine line between sponsorship and influence.  Next thing you know, Monsanto will be giving you hemp bags to distribute at your conferences.

• Bring your own sunscreen and pain relievers from home. In tourist-heavy areas, stores charge an arm and a leg for those items.
• Most of us don’t normally eat a big breakfast – like the ones you’d get at a sit-down breakfast joint on vacation.  Skip paying for breakfast and bring with you a box of granola bars – eat one each day with a cup of coffee.  Instead of spending $10 per day on breakfast, you’ll pay $3 for the whole week.  This will also help you avoid the dreaded “vacation five pounds!”
• Make sure to read up on the tipping culture of your travel destination.  If it’s not expected and maybe even viewed negatively, why tip 20% at a restaurant or for a cab ride?  Of course, if it is the norm, don’t be stingy and give the rest of us a bad name.
• If you’re walking around sightseeing, hiking in the wilderness, or just lounging on the beach, you need to hydrate.  Instead of buying bottled water every day, invest in a water filtration bottle that you can fill with tap water.  You’ll save money in the long run and you won’t be contributing to landfills with all those plastic bottles.
• Find out from a trusted source what the average cab ride fare should be for where you want to go.  Then tell the cabbie you need to get to “such and such place” and will pay that amount.  That way, there will be no surprises or cabbies who try to charge you an exhorbitant fee.

What are your tips to save money while vacationing?

According to the Guardian, Bostwana’s Kalahari Bushmen (a culture literally tens of thousands of years old), after winning a court battle to return to land they had been banished from in order for the government and private companies to expand a game park, are now going back to court to protest the fact that “the government capped a borehole close to their villages and is refusing to reopen it, or to allow companies to be contracted to sink pipes for fresh water sources. Instead they are forced to truck in water from the nearest settlement with a public borehole, 300 miles away.”

Survival International, a British organization, states: “At the same time as denying Bushmen water, the government has drilled new boreholes for wildlife and allowed the opening of a tourist lodge in the reserve, complete with bar and swimming pool.”

Citing the lack of human rights in this water case, Survival International also condemned a decision by the world travel and tourism council to present a prestigious award to the Botswana tourism board for “a programme of sustainable tourism management.”  Human rights and sustainable tourism cannot operate in the same area.  Sustainable tourism must also include local peoples; if they’re not provided basic rights like water, food, shelter, and jobs, how can any tourism venture claim to be sustainable and responsible?

Graham Land (possibly most awesome name ever) is an environmental writer who we knew back in the days of his straight edge youth, which incidentally served us well when we were locked out of our house one day in college, went to the house next door to hang out until the landlord came, and ended up looking super cool to the group of young straight edge musicians who lived there.  Me, looking at CD featuring Graham and his band: “Huh.  I think I know this guy.”  Them: “You know Graham Land???” Me: “Yeah, we were friends in high school.”  Them: “Oh my god, this is amazing.” Me: “Um, yeah.”

What?  Oh yeah, back to work.  Graham is now living in some socialist European country (aren’t they all though?) and writing about the green movement. 

He’s also recently begun a podcast called El Pod of Cast – why does it remind us of El Cid every time we see it? 

The most recent is about Graham’s “green peeve” regarding polar bears.  A green peeve, according to Graham and his partner in crime, Saci Lloyd (British accent – must be a socialist), is a pet peeve related to the green movement.

Brilliant!  We have many of these, some of which relate to socially conscious tourism.  Here they are:

• Carbon offsets
• Cards at major hotel chains asking US to conserve water and hang up our towels – what are YOU doing, major hotel chain, just printing out tens of thousands of little cards?
• The fact that the best local lodging possibilities are hardest to find since they’re actually taking care of customers instead of creating great websites, marketing themselves, etc.
• Mice, bats, and creepy crawlies we’ve found in ecotourism lodging – hand to God, a roach the size of the palm of our hand.  Don’t ask what we did with it.  Okay, you asked.  We put it in the freezer of the cabin (the humane way to kill bugs, we’re told) and smuggled it home in a Pringles container to add to the bug collection. Illegal?  Unethical?  You be the judge.
• Few swimming pools, spas, tennis courts, and other things that once in a while you’d just like to have on vacation.

There are more but we’ll stop here.  Graham, thanks for introducing us to this new term, one which considering our penchant for snarkiness, will surely appear on this site again.

The Bodhi Tree Foundation was founded by Jena Gardner, founder of JG Black Book of Travel, a consulting firm that “provides expert marketing, promotion and sales services to the world’s finest travel providers.” JG Black Book of Travel prides itself on working with only the top travel companies in the world, including various hotels, resorts, villas, tour operators, cruises and yachts, although “top” is not defined here.  Gardner appears to be a highly successful businesswoman, with a background in luxury hotel management and a winner of various marketing and sales awards.

The Foundation is “dedicated to mobilizing travelers and the tourism industry to support underserved communities and endangered places, saving them for future generations to experience.”

The board and advisory positions are overwhelmingly filled with representatives of luxury hotels, resorts, and others that may or may not be in the sustainable tourism business.  While we’re sure these folks are smart as a whip, business savvy, and probably connected to potential donors, we are not convinced they are the best people for a foundation dedicated to the conservation of underserved communities and endangered places. (To the foundation’s credit, its leadership can also boast Costas Christ of Conservation International and Brian Mullis of Sustainable Travel International, among a very few other non-business types.)

Look, anytime that someone with money decides to use it to form a foundation, it’s a good thing.  (Well, save for the cra-zazies who want to do stuff like bring Glenn Beck on a tour to every elementary school in America.)  So, overall we think the Bodhi Tree Foundation is a good idea.  But we also think it could use a bigger injection of research, academia, and the input of people most affected by tourism, the host communities.  These are some of our de-snarkified ideas to improve the design of this foundation:

• Rewrite the mission statement, leaving out the paternalistic “saving underserved communities and endangered places” and substituting something like “mobilize travelers, the tourism industry, and host communities to work together to ensure that endangered places and cultures are sustained for future generations.”
• Increase the number of conservationists, humanitarians, anthropologists (currently none as far as we can tell), and others of that ilk to be at least 50% of the executive board, leadership council, and advisory board.
• Include country or community leaders in sustainable tourism areas for the board and council positions.
• Form another (or replace one of the ones they already have) board or council called something like the Community Council, comprised of only activists who can speak for the host communities.
• Be upfront and transparent about how grantees are chosen.  As of our last perusal of their website, the foundation has seemingly already given out grants but there’s no information on how grantees are chosen or the application or selection processes, save for the ambiguous “deserving charities are carefully vetted by The Bodhi Tree Foundation’s executive board.”
• Consider establishing a fellowship program for masters or PhD level students in relevant disciplines to use in their research on responsible and sustainable tourism and communities.  Being connected to innovative research by young people is a great way for the foundation to make a unique name for itself.

The other foundation that has been in the news recently with spokesperson Usain Bolt, is the Zeitz Foundation, which we will discuss in a soon-to-be-published post.  Stay tuned!

As a reader (and full disclosure, sometimes contributor) of their longstanding blog, we had been looking forward to reading this book detailing three women’s travel together around the globe.  It’s a great story – who among us hasn’t wanted to quit our job, leave our hectic life behind us, take a year to travel around the world and in the process learn a little something?  That’s what Jen, Holly, and Amanda did in real life and this book is their journey.

The way they structured the writing with each woman writing separate chapters from her own point of view as they move from country to country, is creative and allows the reader to understand the differences among the three, not getting bored with just one voice.

They start out in Peru and then move to Brazil.  Truthfully, we thought the South America leg of their trip was the least compelling – maybe because they’re just getting started and as Holly notes, there’s a little too much partying and shades of spring break.  Yes, there’s also trekking on the Inca trail but the interesting thing is that the fact that this part of their trip doesn’t excite us is exactly part of why this book works.  As they become more and more seasoned travelers, they also become more mature people and it shows in their writing and experiences.

Each woman has her own internal struggles – Amanda and her workaholic tendencies, Jen and her need to control, and Holly and her boyfriend back home – and the reader gets just enough details that we feel like we know the authors, but not too much so that it becomes tedious and banal.  The women’s experience volunteering in Kenya is a turning point and clearly makes a mark on them but our favorite parts of the book were their travel through Asia – the Indian ashram, Laos, and of course, since we’re suckers for romance, Jen’s (NOT Amanda’s) fun time in Thailand.

Each woman’s own personality, quirks, issues, and writing style are different and that helps the book become a fun read with some occasional introspective nuggets.  Inevitably, the book will be compared to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, especially because of the time spend in Ubud and at the Indian ashram.  Yes, if Gilbert were three people instead of one, twenty-something instead of thirty-something, had traveled around to more than a dozen countries instead of three, yada, yada, yada, there might be a connection.  Some themes are similar – love, finding yourself – but these are found in so many books, travel and otherwise. 

As far as mindful tourism goes, Holly, Amanda, and Jen did a fairly good job on the budget they had.  They discussed how tourism affects native Americans in Peru, danced and let go like the locals in Brazil, wrote a play about a Kenyan environmental hero and worked with Kenyan girls to produce it, and met with complementary medicine healers in Laos.  However, the backpacking life, while cheap, does not lead itself in all ways to cultural tourism.  Staying at hostels is probably the cheapest choice but they were also surrounded by other foreigners instead of locals.  Amanda describes the sometimes orgy-like atmosphere at the hostels – yuck.  We understand the appeal of $5/day but wonder if there are less well-known alternatives, like renting rooms from local families, for example.

The travels end in New Zealand and Australia but the epilogue is fun to read also.  We find out how their lives change (and remain the same) based on this one year of travel.

All in all, we recommend this book and hope that maybe the lost girls’ courage, realizations, and transformations by the end of their travels can rub off in small ways on all of us.  Buy it from the lost girls site and some of the price goes to charity - happy reading and daydreaming!

See more of our book reviews here.

See our Lost Girls posts here.