About five months ago I wrote the post “startup and the simple life” committing myself to bring some ideas, concepts, business plans and even a moderate budget on my next vacation.
My family and I have been in Mexico for the last four weeks, an unusually long vacation for us. Aside from some important family time in key moments of our lives, we’ve had the opportunity to visit this great country at what has clearly been its lowest point as a tourist destination in a very long time. The result has been a magnificent journey that has taken us from the essential beach destination to the magnificent and desolated landscapes of its mountain ranges, to remote and forgotten ghost towns in the process of being re-conquered by entrepreneurial ‘gringos’, to the most glamorous wilderness experiences.
But I also devoted time to put in motion a small idea that in less than four weeks has taken a live of its own and now has a chance to become a worthy enterprise, something I’ve started calling the Global Culture Tour. Here is the account of that little project.
The Global Culture Tour is a collective creative experiment to document special [...]
For many travellers one of the sacred rituals before leaving on a long trip is the search for good books that can be taken on the road as companions on those long rides across vast landscapes or lonely nights in foreign grounds.
Pointed out to students that good travel books, a la Farley & Grann, have themes (quest, identity, history), beyond “my summer vacation.”
Posted on Twitter at 7:56 AM Jul 23rd from web
by Big World Magazine
I need recommendations for GOOD books that will keep me entertained during my 15 hours of travel to Berlin!
Posted on Twitter at 9:29 PM Jul 21st from TweetDeck by CharlestonVal
Help! Suggestions on good YA books that involve cross-country or cross-continent adventures? Bonus points for travel by train.
Posted on Twitter at 8:26 PM Jul 20th from TweetDeck by Whitney Miller
Lapham’s quarterly on Travel
I’m finding Lapham’s quarterly anthology on travel a top candidate: it compiles a great number of timeless short pieces written by travellers without necessarily being a travel guide. As I told a friend a while ago, any anthology that can bring McLuhan, De Botton, etc to talk about travel has my attention. Its format is travel-friendly: compact without being a [...]
The following is an adaptation of the post by the same title appeared in el-oso.net, with a few of my own conclusions. In the original post “oso” explores some of the common patterns in the evolution of cities.
Chapter 1: Make-shift Slums
As Kevin Kelly rightly points out, “every city begins as a slum … a seasonal camp with free-wheeling make-shift expediency.” Cities are founded on economic opportunity, spontaneous slums, and lawless saloons. Eventually gender ratios equal out, churches move in, government takes shape, and urban planning is institutionalized.
Chapter 2: Hegemony Rules
During the transition from slum to civic center some social group usually takes power and dictates policy. It tends to be the ethnic majority though in the case of colonized countries that was almost never the case. In most cities in the United States power lied among the WASP community. Ethnic minorities were pushed out to the edges while the elite built Victorian homes around the downtown business districts and plazas.
Chapter 3: Suburbanization or scalability of the dream
This is the chapter that takes on different manifestations depending on the ethnic and class make-up of a city, but the basic concept is still generally applicable. During WWII in the United [...]
A while ago I started to collect city rankings, but more than anything else I was creating the foundation for what would eventually be the greatest destination. If I’ve learned anything throughout this process is that no city can claim such honour. Depending on who you ask, each city will have a unique array of features and advantages that are hard to qualify, let alone compare. But more importantly, the city itself is such a large entity in our mostly urbanized world that trying to generalize any qualities may result in a gross generalization of certain attributes that would be better appreciated if we could localize them.
But since we’re hopelessly lost in this quest for our ideal place, I thought a great place to restart the quest is the latest attempt from Monocle magazine to design the perfect city block. As it seems now a tradition, along with their Quality of Life index, they also look closer and generalize what they’ve learned through the process of ranking cities to put together a theory of “smart urban living”. Without trying to discredit the effort (I really think they are onto [...]
Hiring travel writers with a passion for discovering destinations, plenty of travel experience, able to work independently, equipped with computer and digital camera and with sound knowledge of a foreign language
Courtesy Vince Alongi @ Flickr
You just arrived to your destination. First walk out of your quarters to explore the neighbourhood and this traditional fruit shop is the first thing to get your attention. More than a convenient shop for your immediate cravings it is an icon of the type of neighbourhood to which you’ve arrived. Things are going to be interesting. Now, how do you say ‘apple’ in Spanish? ‘Manzana’.
Thanks to all the conversations that have made this possible. A revamped Global Culture site gets closer to reality as we get a first draft of our new Creative Brief and start to move content around to give it a purpose.
Here is are some relevant fragments from the document:
Global Culture enables memorable experiences through the continuous exploration of regions that provide a culturally rich environment for the urbanite on a livability quest.
What started as a blog about Global Culture and its actors has evolved into a source of great travel experiences.
Sustainable
There is a new generation of discerning travelers that have already seen the world and are aware of the myriad of frivolous options that plague the industry. They are looking for meaning in every opportunity they have to interact with the world and want to make sure they leave the best of themselves at each destination.
Memorable
An experience will have a lasting impact if it proves to be unique and authentic. But its discovery starts way ahead of the trip and requires the traveler to get acquainted with the story of a destination, using for that purpose any means of interaction available.
Livable
In opposition to mass-tourism and [...]
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