Putting the 'F' Back in Adventure Travel

by Adrienne Wilson on

Even if you swore you never saw it
before, chances are you’ll be seeing it more these days. And you’re probably thinking words like ‘funk’ or
‘free-spirit,’ but what I’m talking about is FAMILY. You heard right, according to this Cleveland.com
piece agencies are seeing an increase in adventure packed family vaca’s and I’m not talking about riding the Kinga Ka at Six Flags, folks. Think more towards a
Heli-Hiking tour like those offered by Chilko Lake Resort located 150 miles out of Vancouver. The story touches on the
author’s family fun-filled times bushwacking down a mountain and intense hiking up rocky ridges with her two teenage
daughters. Quite impressive.

Of course putting the ‘F’ in adventure travel is going to require you put the
‘dough’ on the table and these types of trips are certainly not cheap. Parents scraping to take their children on a
pricey trip to see Mickey Mouse at Disney World may be
tempted to look away, but the truth is some far-more incredible destination may only be a few extra hundred dollars.
When you’re talking about the kind of experiences Ogintz mentions like
kayaking along whales in Alaska, it’s soo worth it.

To start planning your own adventure travel family
vacation check out some of the sites found in the story listed below:

Rolling Stone Banned in China

by Erik Olsen on

Poor
Jann Wenner. Here the magazine magnate went to all the trouble to print and develop a Chinese version of his
uber-corporo-hip magazine Rolling Stone for the gazillions of Chinese youth, and the government goes
and shuts it down. Curses! You mean Chinese kids will be deprived of yet another Green Day cover (gasp!…and, of
course, we used the Britney cover here be cause we knew it would be harder for you to click away…clever devils we
are). Anyway, The LA
Times has the story. Tragic or who cares? You decide.

Word for the Travel Wise (03/30/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Thank goodness I found the fortune cooking
left-over from the Chinese take-out two nights back. Without it we could have very well been without a word or I would
have to have done some hunting. I wasn’t in the mood to hunt.

Today’s word is a Mandarin word used in Taiwan:

hao – good

Mandarin is the most widely spoken of the Chinese language and can be a bit
difficult to learn, but there are many sites online that can help get you started. The best will probably cost a small
amount of money and the links are many so for sources pointing to additional sources check out About and Mandarin Tools. Mandarin tools is good if you’d like to add pinyin tools and
other Chinese text files to your computer. Zap
Chinese is free and has small dictionaries of common words with audio. Mei Wah
is an awesome and funny site on becoming more aware as an eater and learning Chinese by way of menus and
restaurant signs. China Language online is another excellent site I
recently stumbled upon providing info on Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka. In addition to these past recommendations
check out the Hong Kong Language Learning Center (HKLLC) for study abroad in Hong
Kong or Beijing. Qi
Journal has a section dedicated to Chinese culture and language study.

Past Mandarin words: zhu ni hao yun, guo nian ha, mu di di

New Korean Passports

by Adrienne Wilson on

Here’s a scene you’ll probably never catch sight of at the post office here in America. Apparently the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and Trade adopted a new
system of printing, where photos are printed through a digital printing process using laser or chemical treatment.
The process limits the number of passports issued to 600 a day. If you look closely you can see at the time this shot
was taken they were on number 372. How I would hate to have 416, 402, or even 390 and we all know if the lines ever
looked like that in the U.S. Americans would probably stop doing the little bit of travel we do all together. This
picture also makes me wonder if having a passport is mandatory in Seoul or does the world really do that much more
travelling than Americans do?

via Korea.net

Free Ways to Travel

by Erik Olsen on

The first
hindrance for most of us when it comes to travel is the matter of time. How can you get the days/weeks/months off work
to do a trip right? The second issue is money. Face it, to get anywhere really good, you usually need to hop aboard a
plane, and while JetBlue and other carriers often have good deals to get you where you
want to go, you’re not always certain there will be flights available for your price range.

But what if
you could travel for free? Pretty sweet idea, eh? Well the Budget Travel people have got some suggestions for you. Their
Ultimate Guide to Free
Travel, part of the April issue, is full of pointers for the penurious. From drive-away car rentals, to home
exchanges and house-sitting opps, there are free travel possibilities out there. One of the suggestions they provide is
the Rotary Ambassadorial Fellowships, which yours
truly did for a year in Chile. And let me say it was one of the best experiences of my life. You have numerous
obligations to fulfill as part of the experience, but they are all in their own way fulfilling, and actually help you
fit into and become a part of the culture in your temporary home country.