The Everywhere blog

Call it the Travelers Dilemma: When we travel to exotic and out-of-the-way destinations, do we help or hurt the locals whom we see along the way? What role do we play when we visit places that are keen to attract the money that comes from being a hotspot in the international tourist market? Do our tourist dollars (or euros, or yen) improve the lives of local people, or do we alter their environment in ways that can never be repaired?

When I traveled through Peru to reach the top of Machu Picchu, I was amazed. I Iooked around at the entrance to the ruins, which are situated on top of a steep and precarious slope, and I saw a group of weary-eyed hikers, who had made the journey up to the ruins by foot. Nearby was another group of bright-eyed guests with freshly starched linens walking out of the then-new Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, an upscale hotel, with rooms rates that started at $795 a night. I could hardly believe that a hotel could even fit on top of this mountain. But there it was, right in front of me. 

Clearly a shift was happening here. The ruins, which were once visited only by native Peruvians and budget-conscious backpackers in the latter half of the 20^th century, were being developed for a different kind of traveler. What part was I playing in all of this? 

A similar shift happened in the 1960s in the Mediterranean. The demand for development to accommodate the growth of tourism eventually left many disillusioned. A development strategy that was meant to boost southern Europe’s economy is now blamed for pollution, traffic congestion, and coastal sprawl.

All that came to mind when I came across a thought-provoking column in The Economist that considered the risks and potential rewards of tourism development in the years ahead:

"As tourism is about to explode in the developing world, governments should heed such lessons. During the next two decades the growth of tourism in emerging economies will be two or three times that of the developed world. That is something to celebrate. Mass travel is a path to development and one of the fruits of increasing wealth—travel for experience, for food and culture, and for sheer pleasure. Yet it also contains the danger that development will destroy the very thing people have come to enjoy.
 

With the growing numbers of tourism in developing areas of the world, such as Dubai and South East Asia, the historical lesson for developers, planners, and government agencies remains:

Mass tourism needs mass development, but don't pave paradise to put up a parking lot.

(Photo: Manchu Piccu, by Gijs Bekenkamp.)

If you want to see some spectacular scenery in Southern California and Arizona, visit the travelogue of Everywhere member Lorenzo Menendez. Currently living in Vista, California, Lorenzo has been sharing some of his photography from the Salton Sea, Joshua Tree National Park, Tonto National Forest, and more. His photos provide a wonderful perspective on the region's dynamic weather systems and sprawling landscapes. I especially enjoy the moodiness and depth Lorenzo's images convey: 

Everywhere 03 has been landing on newsstands and in subscribers' mailboxes this month, and we've just released a preview of the issue here on the site. Come take a look at just a few of the amazing stories and photos from the themes Slow Travel, Art Tourism, Miami, and Copenhagen. Once you've taken a peek at the issue, sign up for a free trial issue to get a copy of the beeeautiful printed magazine delivered to your home.

Plus, we've got some news about resolution requirements! We are now accepting photos with minimum size of 1500 pixels in length or width (down from our old minimum of 2000 pixels). Our size requirements have always been in place to make sure your photos look great in print. But now that we've gotten the first few issues under our belt, we've realized that some of the photos we publish in Everywhere Magazine work well as smaller images within a larger feature story.

Now, just to be clear: Bigger is always better when it comes to digital photos, so please submit the largest size you have whenever contributing photos to Everywhere. But we also realize that many people take smaller images when traveling in order to preserve space on their memory cards and hard drives. We can still publish smaller images -- although photos at 1500 pixels cannot be used for full-page spreads or on the cover of the magazine. Still, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to contribute to Everywhere, so we hope this is a step in that direction.

Howdy everyone!

Last week, Everywhere had some technical problems with our support email box. Everything's fixed now but there is a chance that we missed out on a few of your emails or notes.

We've now responded to all support questions we received last week and this past weekend. Sooo, if you emailed us or filled in the contact form and haven't heard back, could you drop us another line? We'd appreciate it and we'll get back to you with an answer lickity-split. Thanks again!

As if the airline industry needed any more fuel to stoke the already burning ire of passengers the world over, American Airlines has gone and announced that it will start charging customers $15 for their first checked bag, beginning June 15. The airline company claims the new nickel-and-diming effort is part of a larger strategy to combat skyrocketing fuel prices.

The airline also plans on squeezing dollars out of passengers by implementing fees for the handling of oversized bags and that ever-so superfluous task of making reservations.

It's great news to hear the airline industry is going to target its already paying customers for the redonkulously soaring fuel prices, rather than put pressure on elected officials to do something about obviously lacking regulations regarding the importation of fuel. It's even better news that customers get more fees without any kind of trade-offs. Please note the ironic tone here.

It's one thing for an airline (or any company for that matter) to reevaluate how its doing business in a time when the country's economy is sliding quite rapidly down the tubes. Or for that matter, how a company can make itself more competitive by completely revamping its image and practices. Most businesses and industries are probably take a long hard look in the mirror these days (eh-hem, mortgage companies) and making very difficult decisions to quickly combat the United States' sinking economy.

What makes American Airlines' latest scheme so damn annoying, however, is charging customers $15 for the first bag is a whole lotta inconvenience without any real incentives. The penny pinching underway at American Airlines isn't about saving its customers money. It's only about saving American Airlines money. This isn't about American Airlines transitioning into a value airline, such as Spirit or Southwest. Fare prices will remain essentially the same, meaning in the long-run, customers will be paying more to enjoy the status quo.

Not only that, passengers are already hollered at quite vociferously by flight attendants for trying to fit stuff into the overhead bins. Guess what? Charging them for their first bag is just going to mean more headaches at take-off.

How this is going to secure American Airlines (and for that matter the airlines that will undoubtedly start doing the same darn thing) more business or customer loyalty is a huge question that someone obviously overlooked. C'mon, give your passengers some credit. They pay good money to fly your airline, and they aren't so bowled over by your free beverage service and pretzels that they won't shop around for a better deal, especially in light of the growing number of travel search engines dedicated to finding people better deals.

(Image above by Everywhere member Alana Jackson)

Hellloooooooooooo Race Fans!

if you're a fan of motorsports, you probably know that the 92nd running of the Indy 500 will take place this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana, USA. If you're not a fan of motorsports, you may be wondering, What's the big deal?

The Indy 500 is one of those spectacles that really must be seen, as words hardly do it justice. By all means, I encourage you to add it to you "Things to See Before You Die" list. I've already checked it off mine, because way back in 1995, Wired Magazine sent me to Indy to cover the race. Here's how I described it:

Each year, some 400,000 race fans and revelers descend upon the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the last Sunday in May like swarms of Middle American pilgrims completing the hajj to the mecca of motorsports. The fans come from all over the country - selling out hotels and motels all over town, parking their RVs bumper-to-bumper in the American Legion field just down the street from George Seymour's house, and creating long lines that zigzag out the front doors of liquor stores for hours on end. Ask a group of them why they've come to Indy and you're likely to hear the same answer shouted back at you time after time: "It's the need for speed!" - as if the answer to the question is so self-evident that you might as well have asked why bears sh*t in the woods.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a veritable temple of speed - an unimaginably huge, two-and-a-half-mile rectangular oval comprised of four quarter-mile turns, two long straightaways five-eighths of a mile each, and two one-eighth mile "short chutes" that bridge the turns. On a hot day, the far ends of the track dissolve into shimmering ponds of heat that disappear somewhere just over the horizon. And yet, despite those incredible speeds, the straights are only 50 feet wide and the turns are banked at a paltry 9 degrees. Put it all together, line both sides of the track with canyons of grandstands, and you end up with a facility that resembles a cross between a Roman amphitheater and an asphalt-paved particle accelerator.

Alas, I won't be attending this year. But if you go, please take a few photos, and submit them to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the Everywheremag website. We'll see you at the finish line!

(Thank you, Lizzie Morrison, for contributing the most excellent photo shown above!)

Today we've added some new features on Everywhere designed to make it easier to get around and find great stuff. Allow me to give you a little tour of some of the new stuff you'll find here on the site:

1. Sharing tools! If you like to share your web discoveries on Digg, StumbleUpon, or Facebook, it just got easier. Now, below the comment box on each Everywhere photo and article, you'll find some buttons to easily share your discoveries. One click and you're off!

2. New navigation up top! We've updated the bar found at the top of the Everywhere site. Now you can access your profile editor and travelogue more easily, and we've added "Photos" to our main navigation bar. Plus there's a quick link up there if you haven't signed up for your free trial issue yet...

3. New ways to find more articles and photos! We've added a bunch of new tools for finding more great Everywhere content. Now, when you're looking at a photo or article on the site, you'll see some new navigation links on the right-side of your screen. These links will help you find more articles and photos within a theme, more submissions by the same member, and will let you know if the photo you're browsing is part of a larger article.

We're continuing to work on new features to make Everywhere even better. We'd love to hear your feedback and comments on the site as well, so feel free to let us know what you think!

Allow me to introduce Jane Keeler, a travel photographer, avid blogger, and ESL teacher living in Bishkek, Kyrgystan. She grew up in Lake City, Florida but had an inclination to travel the world. On top of living in Kyrgystan she has also resided in Russia and South Korea and has an array of images from all over the world documenting life the way she sees it.

If you've never been to Kyrgystan and really want to know how the lifestyle is out there then checking out her images would be worth your while. She captures everything from architecture to landscapes to animals to the lovely people that reside there.

We asked Jane a few questions about herself, her life, her passions, and inspiration. Check this inspiring lady out.

"The foothills surrounding Naryn are also home to quite a few traditional Muslim-Kyrgyz cemeteries... with some of the most spectacular views imaginable, also where I want to be buried!" (on The hills above Naryn, Naryn, Kyrgyzstan)

What is one dream place you would like to see included in Everywhere?
I'd love it if you featured Russia or South Korea—since I've spent so much time in those places and have so much to contribute. Plus, I'd love to see how the experiences other people had in those countries were different from mine.

"The tour was very quiet, and everyone was very serious. You could feel the tension in the air, especially as armaments and security procedures were discussed." (on Panmunjom, Joint Security Area, Korean Demilitarized Zone, Seoul, South Korea)

Did you have any previous travel writing or reporting?

Nothing professional. I'm an avid blogger and I blogged at From Russia with Blog while I was in Russia. My Korean, American, and Kyrgyz adventures are chronicled at Janes Daily Blah's.

What's the favorite travel adventure you've chronicled at Everywhere so far?

Ooooh, that's a hard one. I have so many favorites! I'd say my post and photos from my trip to Siberia in May 2006 are probably at the top of my list as that trip was one of my most exciting adventures to date.

"Somewhere on the more than three day journey between Vladimir and Irkutsk, my friend Joanna contemplates the plains of Siberia." (on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Russia)

"Transportation in Siberia consists mainly of ancient vans. This van brought us from the village of Sakhyurta to the shore of Lake Baikal." (on Siberian transportation, Sakhyurta, Russia)

"In order to reach Olkhon Island, we had to cross Lake Baikal. In early May, the lake is still frozen, but it is starting to thaw. As such, the ice is not strong enough to support cars and trucks. We had to walk." (on walking on thin ice, Lake Baikal, Sakhyurta, Russia)

"The waters of Siberia's Lake Baikal had only just begun to melt. Only my friend Joanna, a native of Minnesota, was brave enough to test them out. She didn't stay in for long!" (on testing the waters, Lake Baikal, Sakhyurta, Russia)

"At the end of Karl Marx street, you will arrive at a nice park along the Angara - an excellent place to watch the sunset." (on Angara River, Irkutsk, Russia)

What inspires you most about Everywhere?

I LOVE the internet and the rise of sites including Everywhere and JPG, that involve user created content and the fact that they both combine UCC with traditional media print. I think it's the next step in the evolution of both internet and traditional media and I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of it!

Thanks Jane!

Be sure to check out Jane's travelogue for more of her great adventures.

I hate admitting this. I really do. But there are parts of the world that I've put off seeing simply because of the local insect population.

Ok, I can feel the numerous pairs of eyes rolling already, but I swear this fear stems from a real place. It's not the lame trials and tribulations of a prissy chick who is sent into cardiac arrest because she sees a Daddy Long Legs on the kitchen ceiling, or "eeeek" it's a house fly.

No, what I'm talking about is how I've consistently put off going to Koh Samui in Thailand, where my pal's dad owns a resort, because the stories she spins about the ridiculously enormous spiders that like to hang out in the town power lines gives me the willies. (She estimates their diameter spans at least one foot.) The worst, she says, is when she's venturing out at night, and she can't see the arachnids hanging out, but she knows they're there.

And just writing that last little passage, by the way, has made my entire body itch. Quite literally, I am sitting here scratching every part of my body. If I wasn't at work, I'd probably stand up on my chair.

There's also the story of a pal who went on an absolutely breathtaking trip to New Zealand. I especially liked the parts where she talked about a spelunking expedition. Until she got to the part about New Zealand's very famous insect, the Giant Weta. Some of these bad boys grow to be as large as rats. Holy hell! In fact, a little research reveals that New Zealand overall has a rep for harboring the world's most giant insects, ever, on earth. She was cool when the tour guide pointed out the constellation of glow worms that blanketed the cave's ceiling. But further along in the tour, it became crystal clear that the ceiling was kind of moving, and when the tour guide explained that all that vigor was actually an enormous population of cave weta, an incredibly common, incredibly harmless, but oh so terrifying, insect all over New Zealand. She got out of there faster than a rocket.

Yikes! 

Have you encountered creepy-crawlies during your travels?  Did you take any pictures of 'em? If so, follow this link to contribute to everywheremag.com. Please write descriptive captions to go with your photo so we can get a sense of what we are looking at, how it all came to pass, how you reacted to the creature at hand. Tag your stories/photos with the label Bugs. Looking forward to the squirming!

Photo courtesy of New Zealand's Department of Conservation

One of the best sources for snappy commentary on world travel has to be Everywhere Member Sloan Schang (on the right, getting better acquainted with a fellow traveler). Sloan is currently sharing his travel photos and stories from Mongolia, Miami, Ireland, Graceland and beyond. I'm particularly fond of Sloan's tongue-in-cheek photo captions.

See for yourself! A great place to start is the articles section of Sloan's travelogue for stories on his adventures from eating tamales in Oaxaca to traveling cross-country in a 1977 Volkswagen . Sloan also took a few minutes off from his rambling ways to share a bit more:

What's the favorite travel story or place you've shared?

I'm pretty proud of being the first person on Everywhere to "discover" Pie Town, New Mexico, but I'm also fond of the "How to Get an Indian Haircut" story that was included in Issue 2. I like to use barber shops as an immersion into local culture when I travel, both in the U.S. and abroad. My first haircut in India was so shockingly exotic that it may forever be my favorite travel experience.

Do you have any previous travel writing experience?

I write for a living, about travel and everything else, but it's a fairly recent pursuit. Everywhere has been a great help in gaining exposure.

What is the one dream place you would like to write about?

Calcutta (Kolkata), India

Anything else you'd like to share?

I'm really looking forward to this presidential election. Also, I think Everywhere is pretty neat. I hope it lives a long and happy life.

Thanks! Here's a sampling from Sloan's travelogue:

"Go Barefoot: It doesn’t take a zen master to realize that the big, stinky pile of loafers outside the temple means you should take yours off too."- (from the story Don’t Be A Devadatta: How To Behave Yourself In A Buddhist Temple)

"Mao Zedong's cult of personality has long outlasted his reign as one of China's most notorious rulers. As a result, his legacy is greater than just questionable national social policies - it also includes a nearly bottomless treasure chest of tacky and hilarious souvenirs."

"Mongolian driver, Balaara, diagnoses trouble with his van. Surviving the wilderness roads of Mongolia requires patience, luck and a very large box of spare parts."

"It's almost 2 acres in size, 25 feet deep, filled with catfish and turtles and ringed by views of the Davis mountains. And the water temperature is always 74 degrees, just right for swimming on this sunny (and delightfully deserted) February day." (on swimming at Balmorhea State Park, New Mexico, USA)

Look what the delivery guy brought us today: a few boxes packed with hot-off-the-presses copies of Everywhere 03!

I know you probably expect me to say that this is our best issue yet, but... really, honestly, this is our best issue yet! And the truth is, we have the Everywhere community to thank for that.

That magnificent cover image? It was taken by Henk Goossens, and we love how well it represents the idea of Slow Travel. Inside, the featured themes for Issue 03 were MIami, Copenhagen, Slow Travel, and Art Tourism. The submissions we received were just fantastic.

Here's the opening spread to the Miami feature, with the stunning photograph by Heather Jacobsen:

This layout from the Copenhagen feature talks about how bike-friendly the city is, and how it got to be that way:

Here's a layout from Slow Travel, all about getting from here to there by river, with pieces by Hilary Heuler, Julien Simery, and Chris Bamber:

Art Tourism turned out great as well, as you can see from this layout, which features pieces by Jeff Marlow, Jon Brack, and Will Hindmarch:

Elsewhere in the magazine, Audrey Kanekoa-Madrid submitted this gorgeous story about Arizona's Antelope Slot Canyon:

Liz Bogus took us on a Trip to New Zealand to explore where some of the most famous scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were filmed:

For our "My Obsession" page, Aron Danburg shared his meticulous documentation of the airline meals he's been served while jetting over Asia... for better and for worse:

And just in time for roadtrip season, Sloan Schang comes through with his Essentials tips on how to pack a vintage Volkswagen Westfalia camper for trans-America travel:

That's just a sampling, of course... there's so much more in Issue 03, and we hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed producing it. If you're a subscriber (hint! hint!), keep an eye on your mail slot in the weeks ahead for the issue to arrive. Otherwise, look for Issue 03 at Barnes and Noble or Borders bookstores and a major newsstand near you.

Most of all, thanks to everyone in the Everywhere community for all your submissions. Next up: Issue 04, with our featured themes of Barcelona, the Jersey Shore, Festivals, and National Parks. Bring it on!