He misses the worlds best attractions because there are to many tourists there and the location has lost it’s authenticity.

and I agree with that sentiment.  The anti-tourist is so busy ‘traveling’ that s/he doesn’t see the world that unfolds around them. I think there’s something to be said for avoiding tourist traps which can be disappointing, but you can see a touristed . . . → Keep Going: Tourist/Traveler: Redux]]> Sightseeing can’t compete with miracle of everyday lives, it really can’t. That’s some of what I tried to get across in my previous post on the topic of tourism v. travel.  The Lost Globe cautions against the anti-tourist

He misses the worlds best attractions because there are to many tourists there and the location has lost it’s authenticity.

and I agree with that sentiment.  The anti-tourist is so busy ‘traveling’ that s/he doesn’t see the world that unfolds around them. I think there’s something to be said for avoiding tourist traps which can be disappointing, but you can see a touristed destination while still avoiding the tourist traps.

Some cities I could have skipped but would have missed wonderful moments:

• Sydney – sure some parts of the city are far too crowded and feel like any other city on the planet but there’s something special about walking out to Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair and experiencing sunset with no one else around. Is that Authentic Sydney? Who knows? Who defined authentic?
• Madrid – one of my favourite cities. Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Plaza de Espana…all ‘too many tourists’ but I love them anyway. My favourite spot? The view/s overlooking the city from Metro Buenos Aires.

I haven’t found my Miracle Man yet, but I’ve found other incarnations. The couple in Kawaguchiko who gave Rebecca and I a lift back to our hotel. The locals in Karratha and Port Hedland eager to talk with an American… They’re there, you just have to keep your eyes open!

Was doing my routine browse of CNN.com this morning to see what’s going on in the world since my news exposure is limited to that and 1010Wins reports on my drive to school and that article caught my attention.

The only physical association I’d ever made with Arthur/Avalon/Camelot was Glastonbury Tor even though Tintagel is . . . → Keep Going: Travel: Legends]]>

Generations of visitors, including writers such as Dickens and Tennyson, have traveled to Tintagel to see the place reputed to be a cornerstone of the Arthurian legend. For today’s visitors, its natural splendor may be just as rewarding.: King Arthur’s legend lives on at Tintagel

Was doing my routine browse of CNN.com this morning to see what’s going on in the world since my news exposure is limited to that and 1010Wins reports on my drive to school and that article caught my attention.

The only physical association I’d ever made with Arthur/Avalon/Camelot was Glastonbury Tor even though Tintagel is said to be perhaps the most familiar. The Tor seems far and away to draw visitors in search of a quest of a more pagan nature whereas the article seems to suggest that Tintagel might

Don’t let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief shining moment / That was known as Camelot!

I think the spot matters far less than the legend that lives on after it.

For me, I think the only legend questing I’ve ever done is Salem and that’s not so much legend as history gone crazy in fiction. But I have been to the castle in Segovia where a good chunk of the movie was filmed, although I didn’t know it prior to the guide telling us. Does that count?

Google turns up a million + links for travel to Glastonbury, 275,000 for Tintagel and one million + for Camelot. The camelot results show just how diluted the Camelot brand has become.

I wonder how much of a fan you have to be to travel to one or more of those sites…

I expected to like it, both from some reviews I read and from . . . → Keep Going: Knockabout Girl: Review]]> Last Sunday I was halfway through the book but as happens most weeks, especially this one when I had to go down to NYU x4, there was no time for reading. As a result, I finished the book this afternoon at the gym. It was definitely a journal as I went type of book because I was afraid of losing some of my thoughts. Some times I hate that, I have good thoughts while reading but then when I go to discuss, I draw a blank.

I expected to like it, both from some reviews I read and from others’ journals, but I don’t think I expected to identify with it as much as I did. In a way the transient friendships/relationships that were a fixture of her life were similar to those I experience while travelling. There’s something in the moment that bonds you, but when that common element is gone, I’d find there wasn’t much to the ‘friendship’ after all. Japan was different because these relationships were over a longer term, but I found it very common in Australia.

I found myself trying to relate her Australia of 1990 with the one I saw while traveling, and I found that to be a challenge. I spent my time mostly in the cities and didn’t spent all *that* much time in any one spot. Brisbane was the longest at ~four months but that’s not quite Halls Creek.

In reading through the author’s experiences with the Aboriginal population, I found myself thinking back to my own thoughts. So much of what you feel/think is colored by others’ perceptions and I was glad to see that Pip was able to see through the stereotypes and make her own opinions on who the people were.  Looking back at my own post, I see I’d mentioned Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines then too. I just found a copy the other day at Strand and am looking forward to reading it. Might be a good follow up to this book, though I have a few others pending as well.

The short chapters of this book fit their purpose well: short looks into Pip’s life. This wasn’t meant to be a blow by blow account of her life in Halls Creek/Mataranka, and I think it worked well. We got to see brief looks, to get an idea of what life in rural Australia was in 1990. In a way this reminded be of Cold Beer and Crocodiles. An Australia I saw, but in a far different way. That’s why I don’t think I’ll ever agree with people who say “But you’ve read about [X] before…” there are just so many different ways to see a place.

I also agree with her thoughts that in order to fully tell the story, you have to go back. I don’t have as many ‘unanswered questions’ about Australia, but the return to Japan filled some holes for me. Some things came flooding back, but I think some old unanswereds were replaced by new memories. It’s an odd feeling, but one I wouldn’t trade for anything. I’d say it cured me of the ‘need’ to return, but I didn’t have one until I’d made the decision to go. When I left in 2002 I said I would go back to visit but not to work. But then suddenly in Australia, in Perth to be specific when I completed the re-application, I felt the pull. Will I feel it again? Who knows? I already am for Australia, even though I know it will be an abbreviated trip.

This book is also another reason that I love BookCrossing. If not for catsalive’s post on BCAUS, I’d likely never have even known about it!Dark Heart of Outback (The Australian)  is an interesting review. I found the author’s MySpae but it’s apparently friends only (? I don’t quite get MySpace) I like reading authors’ blogs.

For as much as I love baseball, and I do, I haven’t seen nearly enough stadiums. THTRB is my home base and I’ve seen many games there and more than a few at Shea as well. I’ve also seen games at Dolphin Stadium, which was then ProPlayer and been to Cooperstown. I’ve been to, but haven’t seen games at: Dodger Stadium, Tropicana Field, . . . → Keep Going: Now this would be my kind of tour]]>

Last year, Glenn Dunlap started Big League Tours, a baseball-specific tour operator offering not only tickets, but also behind-the-scenes tours of stadiums and a chance to meet former major leaguers. – All the World’s a Road Game

For as much as I love baseball, and I do, I haven’t seen nearly enough stadiums. THTRB is my home base and I’ve seen many games there and more than a few at Shea as well. I’ve also seen games at Dolphin Stadium, which was then ProPlayer and been to Cooperstown. I’ve been to, but haven’t seen games at: Dodger Stadium, Tropicana Field, Candlestick Park and SkyDome. Not bad at all. Haven’t yet made it to Iowa though.

It’s not even so much the behind the scenes tours that draws me so much as the opportunity to meet former players. I must say, the idea of the guaranteed meeting takes some of the fun out of waiting at the players’ exit and seeing who will stop. I’ll never forget meeting Sterling Hitchcock that way outside of Yankee Stadium. Citing his memories of doing the same with his father, he would only sign for the children. When he moved to Seattle and the Yankees faced him in May 1996, I found it hard to root against him. I remember saying I hope they won, but not too badly. He was lucky, it was 2-0 and he was at the losing end of Doc Gooden’s no hitter. 96 was a season of wonderful memories.

For instance, in Boston, where the Red Sox signed the superstar Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, a package at the XV Beacon Hotel seeks to lure visitors from Japan with a Welcome Matsuzaka package, which offers traditional tea service and a Nikkei newspaper, but not tickets to the game.

Coming from a tourism and marketing perspective, that’s a wonderful way to draw international travellers who might not otherwise see a reason to come to Boston. The hotels that take it one step further and package tickets in further encourage the atypical visitor to come experience American baseball. I’d love to speak with a Japanese fan at a Yankees game to see if they find American baseball to be as bizarre as I found the atmosphere at Osaka Dome.

Is this Heaven? No, it’s Iowa

I looked at this distinction as a part of my research paper, and while it applies in some circumstances, it’s less applicable in others. When both are traveling for a short period of time, I don’t think there’s much of a distinction. Neither is getting much of an understanding of the host environment, its culture or the people. It’s what I prefer . . . → Keep Going: Tourist/Traveler and Experiential Travelling]]> As is becoming more and more common lately, Timen at in my All Stars and I seem to be sharing a brain cell. This time, it seems to be about the distinction between a tourist and a traveler.

I looked at this distinction as a part of my research paper, and while it applies in some circumstances, it’s less applicable in others. When both are traveling for a short period of time, I don’t think there’s much of a distinction. Neither is getting much of an understanding of the host environment, its culture or the people. It’s what I prefer to call an overview – you get a taste of the country. Hopefully, this taste is enough to draw you back for a longer visit if time and finances allow. This was exactly the case on my first trip to Australia: three weeks led to eleven months.

Over the course of a longer trip is where the distinction can become more obvious. I think there’s a difference, I’m just not certain whether traveler/tourist adequately covers it. What I see as the difference is between psychocentric and allocentric travelers. Do I think all allocentric travelers need to seek out every experience? No, of course not. As Litvin pointed out when he sought to revisit Plog, there are factors that pull people at either end toward the middle.

What is important to recognize is the different goals the groups are striving for. There’s a huge difference in a visitor’s view of a country if he or she has spent time interacting with the locals or if he or she has ‘seen it’ from the inside of an air-conditioned tour bus. There’s nothing necessarily good or bad about either, it’s all about personal preference.  I definitely agree with Timen and the sentiments at The Lost Globe that each person thinks he or she is doing it the ‘right way’. It’s human nature.

Personally, I think there’s something special to be gained by truly seeing a country. While I wouldn’t go to the extremes that the authors did in Cold Beer and Crocodiles and The Roads to Sata (Travel Reading), I think the authors saw a lot more than the average traveler did because of the means of travel. It ties back to personal preference – this was what they wanted to gain from their trip. I wanted to see Australia at a more indepth level than plane travel would allow, so I went for Greyhound because I had time time to spare. I really need to dig up and import some of those old posts: there were some gems. My general thoughts on the experiences connected with traveling.

Speaking of experiences, I can’t wait to read Knockabout Girl, which I just got on a bookring last night. Anyone want to find me a 25th hour in the day to get more reading done?

Now this isn’t a topic I know anything about When I was in high school and college I said that my dream was to live and work abroad. I’ll never forget when a student told me, during my first time in Japan, “You need a new dream, you did that one.”* Of course I knew I was living and working in Japan, but it hadn’t really hit me-if that makes sense. While I enjoy the occasional quickie vacation that’s just that, a vacation, I tend to want to travel . . . → Keep Going: Working Abroad]]> The Pros and Cons of Working Abroad (via Backpackers’ Travel Blog).

Now this isn’t a topic I know anything about When I was in high school and college I said that my dream was to live and work abroad. I’ll never forget when a student told me, during my first time in Japan, “You need a new dream, you did that one.”* Of course I knew I was living and working in Japan, but it hadn’t really hit me-if that makes sense. While I enjoy the occasional quickie vacation that’s just that, a vacation, I tend to want to travel for longer periods of time and that’s where the ability to work while travelling comes in handy. This is, of course, a separate issue from moving abroad for the sole purpose of work. I was glad to see this issue being tackled because it’s one I’m also working on for my Applied Research class.**

I found the author’s comments on the issue of the work visa to be quite interesting:

Why get one at all? Well, many “regular” jobs require you to have one in order to legally employ you, your job pool is increased by being able to legally work and the ease with which you’ll be able to find employment will increase with the amount of jobs available to you.

I think this has a definite correlation with work location-not just which country you’re working in but also the region of the particular country. With my limited work visa (good only for four months due to the crazy relationship between the US and Australian governments when it comes to visas) I found it challenging to get office temp work in Brisbane because most of the agencies wanted me to be available for a greater period of time. In the end I found work at a bookstore run by Lifeline. Although I don’t usually care for retail work, this position had a couple of advantages:

• it was a great opportunity to meet people. It was a decently busy store on a main thoroughfare, plus people know the brand. They were often surprised to hear the American accent and we’d talk about why I was in Australia, working in Brisbane, where I should go, etc.
• it paid a living wage. I can’t remember exactly but it was between $17 and $18 AUD per hour.

I was only able to work there for about six weeks before my Visa ran out, but it was a lot of fun. In this case, I needed a Visa. However later in my trip once I was on a tourist visa and ineligible for work, there were opportunities for money to be made. This was most common ‘under the table’ work but I did have several opportunities for office work as well. As the article I indicated, I did get my taxes refunded, in addition to the Superannuation (think FICA). It was a nice amount of cash to have in hand for my departure to Japan.

The following, however, is the central tenet and IMO, should be the focus of a job taken while travelling:

It’s always useful to draw on your experience, interests and talent, but don’t be afraid to leave you comfort zone and try something new.

If nothing else, a weird and wonderful job will make a great story to take back home.

I met several people over the course of my trip who were working 40-50 hours in an office because it was what they knew. Now I don’t knock people for their choice in work, but I can’t imagine travelling halfway around the world to work your tail off doing something you could do at home. You’ve made the choice to move, why not consider other job opprtunities while you’re at it?

Some of what I did in WA led me to the program I’m in now. See, it’s not all just flittering around the world for no good reason!

*New Dream: All 7 continents by the time I’m 30

**My project is nowhere near done, though I may post the Lit Review once I’ve cleaned it up some. I have an extensive list of journals on the topic if anyone is interested.

Me? I’m definitely a jetrosexual! At least a budget one.

Flashpacking has been a word much thrown about lately. I think I first heard the word in my TPD class, but it’s what I’ve always done. When I first went to Japan in 2001, I was one of the . . . → Keep Going: Glamping, Flashpacking and Jetrosexuals]]> Travel has evolved over time, so it’s only natural to assume that backpacking would evolve as well. While there will always be questions raised by the purists as to whether a true backpacker would carry a laptop, it is possible that flashpacking and the newer glamping are here to stay.

Me? I’m definitely a jetrosexual! At least a budget one.

Flashpacking has been a word much thrown about lately. I think I first heard the word in my TPD class, but it’s what I’ve always done. When I first went to Japan in 2001, I was one of the only teachers I knew with a laptop. I took the laptop with me to Australia, but not to Korea or Hawaii, I don’t think. It was in Japan that I got my first real digital camera.

I did the same for the class in Spain in Fall 2002, and the trip the following January to Prague and Spain. At that time, it was still quite odd. When I left for Fiji and then Australia in 2004, the laptop was still somewhat of an oddity, though the cameras were commonplace. In Japan, I think it was more common to have laptops than not to.

Now it seems that so-called Flashpacking has completely exploded. I find having the laptop makes for easier communication, but I can’t speak to the WiFi issue as my old Thinkpad which travelled round the world with me on the latest trip had finnicky WiFi.

Flashy Way to Backpack

Unlike backpackers in their late teens or early 20s, tramping the world looking for cheap digs, flashpackers come a little older and a little wealthier – and prefer not to rough it.
And the world’s hostels are meeting their demands for economical accommodation that provides facilities such as ensuites rather than a toilet down the hall, air-conditioning, an internet cafe and a TV room.

I’m not sure it’s entirely so clearcut as that, at least in my case. Ensuites don’t bother me one way or another, and I don’t watch enough TV. However, access to free broadband was a big factor in choosing this hostel in Sydney. At various times throughout the trip I was tracking internet access costs as much as food costs. I’d much rather spend less on a place to sleep and have the money available for other pursuits, including internet access. I do agree, that NOMADS Skylodge was well above and beyond what I expected from a low-cost hostel in Fiji.

Are you a flashpacker? hit the nail on the head with the flashpacking issue:

But unlike your average gap-year student, they can afford to splash out on some luxury when the going gets tough — and just as importantly, they will spend what it takes to get the experience they’re after. That back-country tour of Laos costs £500? No problem. The hot-air balloon bungee jump is £200? Light the burners — we’re taking off

I think it’s more a question of what’s worth the extra expenditure in a traveller’s eye: internet access, a warm bed, or a fly-in tour of the Bungle Bungles. For me personally, it’s about the experience–and the fact that it was likely my only opportunity to visit WA. It’s far cheaper to spend $500AUD to visit than to return.

Flashpacking, the new way to backpack made me laugh – if 1/3 of the stuff carried is technology related, then another third for me is books. Does that make me a bookpacker?

Glamping was something I hadn’t heard of until today. I can say that it definitely appeals to me: my idea of camping is the first floor of a hotel with the window open. I have camped, but I don’t particularly enjoy it. Bugs, mud and I are not friends.

However, some of the options discussed in that articles are not camping and decidedly not budget. If I were going to spend that kind of money, I’d be in a hotel.

On the jetrosexual thing, it’s not so much about the shopping trip but you’re talking to the person who flew to New York from Japan for a long weekend. *Shrugs* It’s why planes were invented, isn’t it?

In connection with the official campaign, the Japan booth at the NYT Travel Show was heavily promoting Kiyomizudera. A worthy candidate, even apart from my love of Japan. it’s a . . . → Keep Going: New Seven Wonders]]> I’d been aware of the campaign to elect seven new wonders, but in the last week or so I’ve heard a lot more about it. It first came up on Thursday night’s reception when the Minister and Ambassador were talking about Olduvai George and the NgoroNgoro Crater. This is not one of the sites officially being considered for the honour, but it is well regarded as a World Heritage Site.

In connection with the official campaign, the Japan booth at the NYT Travel Show was heavily promoting Kiyomizudera. A worthy candidate, even apart from my love of Japan. it’s a site with historical and cultural significance that continues to draw both Japanese and foreign visitors on a daily basis. In my opinion, nominations such as the Statue of Liberty and Sydney Opera House just cannot compare with sites such as Petra, Easter Island and Christ the Redeemer. The Founder’s blog mentions the campaign’s goal to “bring emotions to the man-made monuments”, which is understandable, but it’s hard to believe some of these even could fall in the same category as others. To me, the Statue and the Opera House represent icons moreso than wonders. Thoughts?

It should be interesting to see how/if my perspective changes once I’ve taken Cultural & Heritage Tourism Development.

On an unrelated note, the photos at the Founder’s Blog are beautiful!