Everybody knows Spring
Breakin’ doesn’t have to encompass drunk half-naked nights on Panama City beach, but of all people to realize this and
offer better alternatives to college students I’m really impressed and surprised with MTV. Bravo! Apparently the network has
joined forces with the United Way’s Storm Corps to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. The program is currently
accepting applications for volunteers to lend their hand from the week of March 11-17, 2006 in the Biloxi, Mississippi
and Foley, Alabama areas. Deadline for submissions is on February 20, 2006 and you can find out more about spending
your spring vaca with MTV by clicking here.
Working in Torres del Paine
Now here is a way to have a vacation in one of the most amazing
places on earth and to do a good deed while you’re at it. First, though, I have to tell you how incredibly amazing Torres del Paine is. Located far, far South in
Patagonian Chile, Torres is one of the loveliest, most adventure-laden places you will ever go. I was there for a few weeks years ago and
did part of the Torres circuit. The trail wanders through a glacier scoured land dotted with cerulean lakes and teeming
with unusual wildlife. We were actually talked by a rhea (a South American ostrich) while hiking and saw herds of wild
guanacos (sort of a llama-like animal) scampering around the hills. So, yes, Torres is unforgettable. Really the
Yosemite of South America…and without the crowds.
But beginning March 18, you can head to Torres and help fix the trails and make the place
even better. Imagine the friends you’ll make? The nine-night excursion is being sponsored by the U.S.
Forest Service and Chile’s park service. You’ll get to explore the park for a couple of days and then hunker down
and fix up the trail system on other days. During the time you’re there you’ll stay in a local hostel with
hot showers and an incredible view of the park. Good stuff. It will, of course, cost you, so you are doing this for the
good of the park. The cost is $2,700 per person, including round-trip international airfare to Santiago from Pittsburgh.
There are also “extension” trips that you can take, should you have not satisfied your travel jones that
take you to Easter Island or Machu Picchu in Peru. Get more details
here.
Live Humans Please!
“Please press #3 if you want to personally strangle someone.”
We’ve all been here before. You have a frantic problem that needs to be solved with your airlines and you turn to their dreaded 1-800 number in search of help. But, instead of reaching the calm reassurance of a coddling, well-trained customer service representative, you instead find yourself trapped in electronic purgatory with only a labyrinth of buttons to navigate your way to an actual human being.
It’s been a long time since I last had a conversation with my airline-or any major corporation for that matter-that involved vowels and consonants instead of zeros and ones. But there is someone doing something about it. The wonderful Paul English, in conjunction with GetHuman.com, has thoughtfully compiled a list of American corporate 1-800 numbers and the steps required “to find a human.”
Now if he could just let us know what country they’ve been outsourced to…
Sex: Who Gets the Most/Best?
Should you trust a worldwide sex survey that was paid for by a
pharmaceutical giant? Or, worse yet, by a pharmaceutical giant that makes a sex enhancement pill? Sure, why not? I
mean, who cares, really, especially when one can glean such pleasure from the tawdry stereotypes about other nations
that the survey alleges to expose.
So here’s the news. An international survey on sex lives was conducted by
pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Co., who, it happens, makes the anti-impotence drug Cialis. The survey, obviously a
marketing ploy timed to Valentine’s Day, and a rather clever one at that, asked some 1,200 married men and women
in South Korea, Japan, France and the United States about their sex lives. Who was happy with how much they were
getting? What is the quality of the getting, and so on. Why they chose these particular countries is a bit of a
mystery. Perhaps they chose them based on size of the market. But why leave out the Brits? Or the Germans? Anyway, it
is perhaps not surprising given the groups selected that the French say they had the best sex lives. Typical franco
boastfulness? Perhaps. But they do tend to have fewer hang-ups that we Americans, who, it should be added, came in
second in this respect. And then way down there at the bottom, and there is a modicum of tragedy here, are South Korean
women.
Adventure Divas: Empowering the Female Traveler
I wish there were more women like Holly
Morris on this planet.
I’ve run into a few on my travels; hardcore female travelers who didn’t let the fact they were a woman
stop them from visiting remote destinations where danger and adventure trump comfort and convenience on a daily
basis.
Women travelers in such place are a rarity indeed. And, I get it. There are backward-assed third world
countries I’ve hitchhiked through which, had I been a woman, would have been the last countries I did
anything in. Travel always has a risk of danger; unfortunately this risk is usually much worse for
women.
Holly Morris wants to change this, however. Or, at least make it easier.
Her small, but rapidly growing travel empire, Adventure Divas, “unites adventure travel and
modern-day heroines” through a series of books, documentaries, online travel advice, and even a travel
bureau—all of which focus on the role of women and adventure travel. Holly herself is the creative force behind most of this, penning a
book (Adventure
Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine), producing and starring in a "fun and entertaining" PBS television series (Adventure Divas), and writing many inspiring, travel
related articles as well. Holly is also a correspondent for various cable programs on OLN, National Geographic
Europe, and the Discovery/Travel Channel.
Is it just me, or are you also insanely jealous?
Well, get over it and check out her site and work.
She’s doing great things for travel, and even greater things for women.