Intro to Volunteer Vacation: Very Unusual Packing Lists

by Adrienne Wilson on

When my team leader sent over an additional list of items needed for our trip I raised an eye-brow. Oh, great! Something to give TSA a little excitement. Paint brushes? Rubber gloves? Safety spectacles? I’m sure they’ll flip out. This also means extra thinking when putting the final touches on packing my luggage – a task I’ll be busy with all weekend long. Am I complaining? Not at all – volunteer vacations are the greatest! While I’m finding a good place to store the paint brushes and gloves I’ll be thinking of my mission: Turning hope into homes.

Building homes with Habitat for Humanity and their Global Village program was one of the most rewarding travel experiences I’ve had to date and I’m sure this new venture into Tajikistan will be equally rewarding. Going into these projects I’m never quite sure what part of the home building process I’ll be lending my hand to, but the paint brushes are cluing me into something. Hmm… Whatever the case may be, I’ll have the opportunity to work side-by-side with Tajik locals, families, and homeowners in a two-week project that will go a long way.

So as I prepare my list (hammer, level, mask…) and prepare to pack, the excitement continues to build. More to come on volunteering while vacationing, Habitat for Humanity International and the intriguing Central Asian land of Tajikistan. Stay tuned.

As of March 2006 HFH had built 106 homes between the two affiliates in Khujand and Dushanbe. In Tajikistan there are several half-built homes which volunteers and families will work together in completing or they will build houses from the foundation to the roof. The average cost of a home in Tajikistan is $4,864 USD.

(Photo: Group shot during Cluj-Napoca, Romania HFHI build in June 2001. I’m the one with my arm towards the sky.)

Bang Bangs You’re Dead

by Erik Olsen on

I have to say, this is really quite a bummer. It looks like after just a single year from launch, that Yahoo is canceling Richard Bangs Adventures, a great online video travelogue that we blogged about a few times here.

They said that the program, which featured Bangs, a hardened veteran explorer, travel writer and business person, had failed to build “a large and loyal audience”. The reason cited was that there were roughly month-long gaps between new installments and this turned people away.

Um, hello. Can I also raise my hand here?! No one in my building could see video on Yahoo for some stupid reason on their end (we can see YouTube, Google video and most other types). The video would just stop there and turn and nothing would ever come up, so to enjoy the program I’d always have to watch it at home. But you can be sure if I was having this problem, so were thousands of others. Maybe Yahoo should have done a bit more beta testing.

Anyway, it’s a big loss for several reason, but tops is that it makes it less likely that big companies will experiment with original content…I mean nicely produced funded stuff. And that is a huge shame. Anyway, I wave a fond farewell to Bangs and Company and only wish they’d figured out the technical probs before they went and pulled the plug.

Budget Travel Online on Istanbul

by Adrienne Wilson on

My flight departs from Istanbul into Dushanbe at 8:30 PM next Thursday so I doubt I’ll be able to experience the nighttime splendors discussed in this Budget Travel Online piece. Bummer. My travel agent tried his best to convince me to stay in Istanbul for a few days before going into Takjikistan, but I told him another time. Part of me is wishing I hadn’t. The article compares the Bosporus megaclubs to Beyoglu’s European charm on the opposite of the Bosporus.

The Beyoglu area was once a scary, filthy part of Turkey where the story states people often came in groups of four since traveling as a pair to the area wasn’t a sufficient safety measure. Today the Beyoglu is home to various art nouveau buildings, galleries, restaurants and upscale boutiques. Travelers looking for a new taste of Turkey may want to visit this piece and later stop in to places like Araf (pictured) where a Turkish clarinetist, Selim Sesler plays atop of the roof on Tuesday nights. Drinking, laughter and one jammed-packed dance floor make this spot sound like one of many happening nighttime Istanbul places and space.

Party for me!

Traveling Food Festivals

by Erik Olsen on

Few things go better with travel than food. Isn’t that a big part of the whole reason we travel? I mean, one of the great wonders of the human race is how, over all the centuries and millennia we’ve been around, we’ve managed to create so many different cuisines, from the greasy, hyper-fattening, bland awfulness of British food (fish and chips excepted) to the mouth-searing, but divinely delicious bliss of Thai food.

So this lumbering preamble is to say that I think you should check out this post over at Slashfood that looks at some of the big food festivals around the country this year. Yes, I was talking in a more international sense, but here in the US we have all sorts of regions with their own specific cuisine or product worth celebrating. take, for example, the Gilroy garlic Festival. Sure, the town stinks (literally), but the festival, I have heard, is a really interesting and yummy experience. So pack your bags, warm up the car, and plan on hitting one of these festivals.

High Tech Himlayas

by Erik Olsen on

If you don’t know the name Xeni Jardin, then you probably don’t spend much time reading blogs…not the best ones anyway. She’s been all over the place in the last few years, penning pieces for Wired, Boing Boing, etc. She’s also got a few gigs on NPR and this one on traveling to the Himalayas is definitely worth a listen.

Entitled Hacking the Himalayas, she takes us on a tour of this high-elevation nation and talks about how technology is changing the culture and way of life there. Filled with history and color and vibrant sound, it is superb, as fine an example of multi-media journalism as I’ve seen in a while (there are lovely photos and print versions as well). I would love to see more pieces like this, stories about the transformative powers of technology around the world in far-off places.