Posted in Daily Photo | 
cultural travel, culture, Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal, photography, street vendor, Travel | 
5 Comments | |
After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs I detested, I felt like the proverbial "hole in the donut" - solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in my life, I abandoned my successful but unsatisfying career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world to pursue my true passions of travel, writing, and photography. My blog features stories about the destinations I visit, people I meet, the crazy things...Read more here.... 
Posted in Daily Photo | cultural travel, culture, Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal, photography, street vendor, Travel | 5 Comments
Posted in Daily Photo | cultural travel, culture, Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal, photography, street vendors, Travel | 5 Comments
Posted in Daily Photo | cultural travel, culture, Kathmandu, Nepal, photography, Thamel, Travel | 2 Comments
Posted in Daily Photo | cultural travel, culture, Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal, photography, Travel | 2 Comments
When I look back on the years when I was immersed in the culture of corporate America, my biggest regret is that I didn’t do more to help others. Though I earned a healthy income, I am ashamed to say that I never volunteered and rarely gave to charity. Strangely, now that I am a struggling travel writer with barely enough income to keep me on the road, charity and volunteer work have become a much more important part of my life. More often than not, my philanthropic efforts occur when I am in Nepal, since that is the country where I spend the most time each year. After months there last year, I discovered that many of the orphanages and programs that place volunteers into the schools were totally corrupt; in many cases not a penny of the money donated actually reached the children who need it the most. I learned that the most important part of giving is choosing a worthy organization and began writing a series of articles about agencies that provide voluntour opportunities or raise money for charitable organizations, both the good ones and the corrupt ones.
Help PwP build libraries in Zambia
One of the programs that I have been most impressed with is Passports with Purpose, the joint effort of travel bloggers who raise funds once each year around the holidays. In 2009, we raised almost $30,000 to build a school in rural Cambodia and last year we raised over $58,000 to build a village in India for “untouchables” who might otherwise never have a place to call home. This year our goal is even bigger and I am even more excited by it. We hope to raise $80,000 for Room to Read, an agency that builds schools, bilingual libraries and provides scholarships around the world. Communities receiving schools or libraries must pay for a portion of the materials or provide “sweat” equity to build facilities. Why am I so excited this year? Because I have personally witnessed the effects of Room to Read. During a home stay in the high mountain village of Puma, Nepal, I toured schools that had been the beneficiary of a Room to Read library and spoke to kids who were learning to read in Nepali, Gurung, and English as a result of the reading material supplied. I believe that education is the single most important thing we can provide our children, and that education creates the best and longest lasting benefit to our world.
A library in Puma, Nepal, built with the assistance of Room to Read
Plaque in Nepal school broadcasts the efforts of Room to Read
So lets get down to the nitty-gritty. Am I asking for a donation? Well, yes, in a way. But there’s a twist in this campaign. Travel bloggers around the world have solicited prizes and gift certificates from travel related companies around the world, which are being offered as prizes in this year’s effort. The impressive list of prizes can be found here. Donors choose which prize or prizes they want to have a chance to win by Continue reading
Posted in Travel General | book, charity, fundraising, libraries, Nepal, Passports With Purpose, room to read, Travel, Zambia | 10 Comments
Some years ago an elfin man approached me as I walked along a boulevard in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He could see I was puzzled and wanted to help. What did I need? Holding out my handfull of trash, I pantomimed dumping it, then shrugged my shoulders and swept my hand in a semicircle to indicate my search for a trash bin. He pointed to the street pavement. No! I shook my head. Yes! he replied with a nod. Springing forward, he grabbed the trash from my hand and threw it on top of a pile at the curb then, flashing a huge grin, turned on his heel and ambled away unconcernedly. Had it not been tossed upon a fetid, stinking garbage heap I would have picked it back up.
Trash on the street in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam
Later that same afternoon I came back to the same neighborhood after a day of traipsing around old Saigon and noticed a woman clad in a green smock and conical straw hat pushing a two-wheeled cart. Every few feet she stopped and bent to the asphalt with her hand broom of twigs to sweep up piles of trash and deposit them in her bin. The pile that had horrified me earlier in the day was long gone, and I suddenly realized that my trash was her job security.
Flash forward to 2010 and my four months of travel around Mexico. A beach bum from way back, I was stunned by the dazzling white sands and crystalline turquoise waters of the Yucatan. The beaches of Tulum and Playa del Carmen are among the most magnificent in the world. As I traveled further south to a largely undeveloped part of the peninsula, mile after mile of exquisite beaches stretched as far as I could see. Unfortunately, so did piles of rubbish. Shampoo bottles, shoes, needles, plastic containers of all kinds had washed up just above the high tide mark; where there were no houses or resorts there were no efforts to clean it up and in places the trash was a foot deep. At the southernmost point of the Yucatan I rolled into Xcalak, a sleepy town best known for its diving and deep sea fishing, and put down roots for a few days.
I brought up the subject of litter with the managers of Casa de Suenos Resort, who insisted that it did not originate in Mexico. Although some claim it comes from cruise ships that dump their trash at sea, current regulations for the cruise ship industry require weighing of the trash when ships return to port. Using available data about the average number of pounds of trash generated per person at sea, a formula is applied according to how many passengers were aboard. If the load is light, the cruise line is subject to severe financial penalties. The more commonly accepted explanation is that currents wash trash up from Central and South America and as evidence that the theory is sound, the resort manager produced a yellow hard hat he had picked up on the beach. Scrawled across the front were the words “Panama Canal.”
Trash on beach in southern Yucatan, Mexico
More trash on beaches in Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
For the past several months I have been back in Asia, where the problem is as severe as anywhere in the world. To a large degree I have learned to look past the garbage; though I still cringe each time someone leans across me to toss their trash out of a bus window, I find myself reasoning that even the plate is made from biodegradable palm leaves. Rather than being appalled, I am Continue reading
Posted in Travel General | blogsherpa, cultural travel, culture, garbage, Ho Chi Minh City, Kathmandu, Mexico, Nepal, Organic, Pokhara, recycling, rubbish, Saigon, trash, Vietnam, waste, world travel, xcalak, yucatan peninsula | 50 Comments
Best Budget Destinations
80% off. Pay at checkout.
