Travel & Environment – Page 2

The Flores Situation

I’m in the middle of Flores, an undeveloped island in Southeastern Indonesia, and I’m surrounded by 50 angry villagers, half of whom are drunk on rice liquor and carrying machetes. This was not in the brochure.

I should have known the road trip was doomed when my guide pulled up lame within the first hour. It was something he ate combined with the relentless twisting and turning Flores Trans-Island Superhighway – a one-lane path of mostly crumbling asphalt that stretches from Labuanbajo to Maumere and traverses volcanoes, skirts the coast and arcs over raging rivers. It can fit two vehicles side by side, but barely. Jacabus, my guide, seemed fine until Ricos, the driver, pulled over suddenly and Jacabus started hurling uncontrollably.

Life on the road – Catharsis at 35,000 Feet

This is a confessional… and it’s fitting that I’m writing it on a plane (JAL flight 079, Honolulu-Tokyo; est. arrival time 4:49pm) because I spend an above average amount of time on jumbo jets, an occupational hazard or novelty, or something… see, I’m a travel writer. For me, the traveling came first. The sweet, endless scent of an Ecuadorian rose sent me off on a six-month journey to, well, Ecuador.

The Ends of the Earth

This was one of the weird days.

Five Ways to Phi Phi Pleasure…

Ko Phi Phi, a drop dead gorgeous, jungled limestone and white sand butterfly is one of Thailand’s signature islands. Just fifteen years ago it was a backpacker’s secret, laced with sandy trails and dotted with a few thatched bungalows. Then it blew up, grew concrete streets, plugged into absurdly loud sound systems, and became the cheesy fire dance Mecca of the south seas.

African Safari Guide

Men’s Journal Magazine – November 2006 East Africa Conjure East Africa in your mind’s eye and you’ll pull up archetypal images of an …

The Last Nomads

The Moken people first caught my attention after the 2004 tsunami. Their village on South Surin island in the Andaman Sea was wiped out, and yet they had no casualties. They escaped to the mountains because their legends about the seasonal patterns of the sea primed them to notice nature’s signs. Since I live in Los Angeles, where nature’s voice is drowned out by the roar of cars, this amazed me — although it wasn’t that long ago when I would hike to a peak in the Santa Monica Mountains and sit for hours, wanting so badly to tap into the great mystery that there were times I swore I could feel nature’s rhythms and read its signs. But as the years have worn on I’ve lost that connection, and my culture lacks the stories and legends to lead me there