School Hero Antoinette Tuff’s Next Move: Getting Underprivileged Kids To Travel

by Elizabeth Seward on

It was just another day at work for Antoinette Tuff on August 20 when the routine work scene rapidly changed at the hands of a young gunman who intended to murder the students of the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Georgia.

Tuff courageously talked to the shooter and convinced him not to follow through with his plans to wreak havoc on the school and surrounding community. Her inspiring story has been told through news outlets repeatedly since the incident and just two days after the would-be shooting, Tuff decided to use her public platform for good.

She launched a fundraising campaign here in an effort to help inner city kids travel and see the world. Her initial goal for the project was set at $1,500 but she has so far raised a staggering $105,868 (at time of publication).

Travel provides knowledge, compassion and context for those who embrace it. We’re excited to see this campaign do so well.

Best Places To Visit Civil Rights History In The U.S.

by Reena Ganga on

It has been half a century since the historic March on Washington, when the nation’s citizens converged on the capital calling for civil and economic rights for African Americans. To mark the 50th anniversary, we rounded up several great destinations where you can retrace the steps of the Civil Rights Movement.

Montgomery, Alabama. This city is packed with significance and there are a number of civil rights sights for history buffs to absorb. You can see the bus stop where Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat, visit the Freedom Rides Museum housed on the site of an early confrontation and witness the site of the 1965 Voting Rights March, to name but a few options.National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee. This museum, which traces the history of the Civil Rights Movement, is housed in a complex of buildings including the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. You can even visit King’s room — 306 — which has been recreated to look exactly like it did on that fateful day.

Selma, Alabama. Visitors to this town can see the site of the Selma to Montgomery marches, including the 1965 protest that ended in a bloody clash with police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Don’t miss the National Voting Rights Museum, which recounts the story of the marches and the campaign to end voting-related discrimination.

Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia. This historic site recalls the life of the civil rights leader, including the home in which he grew up, a museum, the church where his father preached and his tomb.

Egypt’s Ancient Heritage In Peril As Turmoil Continues

by Sean McLachlan on

The political instability in Egypt is taking a heavy toll on the country’s ancient heritage.

Thieves have taken advantage of the chaotic situation to steal artifacts to sell on the illegal antiquities market, while vandals have been satisfied with simply destroying them.

Both groups recently struck at a museum in Mallawi, about 190 miles south of Cairo. When supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi held a protest in the museum’s garden, thieves took advantage of the police being distracted to break in and steal more than a thousand artifacts. When vandals saw the museum was open and unguarded, they rushed in and smashed up the place.

National Geographic has published some sobering pictures of the destruction. The museum has put up a Facebook page detailing what has been stolen in the hope that it will make it harder for the thieves to sell the artifacts.

Looting has been reported at numerous museums and archaeological sites around the country. Instability and lack of income from tourism also means many archaeological sites are suffering from neglect. There may be a political motivation for some of the thefts. Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram quotes Mokhtar Al-Kasabani, professor of Islamic Archaeology at Cairo University, as saying the thefts are to raise money for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya. The Muslim Brotherhood is Morsi’s party, and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya (Islamic Group) was allied with him when he was in power.

Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya claimed responsibility for a 1997 terrorist attack in Luxor that killed 62 people, mostly tourists. So it appears fundamentalists are destroying Egypt’s past in order to raise money to endanger its future.

Given A Map, A Lot Of People Have No Idea Where They Traveled (Or Where They Live)

by Reena Ganga on

While early explorers may have spent countless weeks plotting their journeys on maps and charting the best course to get to their destination, it seems many modern day travelers don’t have a clue about where they’re actually going.

A new study has found massive numbers of travelers can’t find their vacation destination on a world map. When asked where Cyprus was located, 53% of respondents were stumped, pointing to countries like Greece instead. This is despite having traveled to the Mediterranean island within the past year. Turkey also had recent visitors scratching their heads, with around half of those surveyed hard-pressed to locate the nearly 1,000 mile long country on an atlas.What’s most bizarre, however, is those people who seemed to have trouble locating their own country on a map. When asked where France was, a surprising 14% of French respondents pointed to their northern neighbor Belgium.

But perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on the French. After all, remember this famous gaffe a few years back, when a Miss Teen USA contestant was asked why a fifth of Americans couldn’t locate the US on a world map?



But it’s not just beauty pageant contestants that are stumped by geography. Even politicians can get tripped up, like in this interview where John McCain refers to the problems at the Iraq/Pakistan border…which doesn’t exactly exist.


And then there was the time that President Obama managed to visit all corners of the US, including “about 57 states”.



Do you think it matters that so many people are confused by world geography? Or is understanding maps irrelevant in this day and age of GPS and technology?

5 Prisons for Law-Abiding Citizens

by Meg Nesterov on

In this lull between fun summer TV like “True Blood” and the fall premieres of network television shows, many people have been binge watching the Netflix comedy, “Orange is the New Black.” Set at a women’s prison in Rockland County, New York, the series has generated new interest in jail. (From the outside, at least.) Here are five notable prison museums around the world with flexible visiting hours for an easy escape.

Alcatraz, San Francisco, CA
Built as an “inescapable” prison on an island off San Francisco, Alcatraz has had quite a few famous inmates, including Al Capone. The federal prison was closed in 1963 and has been a museum for several decades. In addition to the prison museum, it also has the country’s oldest lighthouse and a permanent exhibition on the historic Native American occupation. Tickets are a steep $30 and up per adult, but they include transportation, since you can’t make it off “the Rock” alive.Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA
Another stop on Al Capone’s “jail tour,” this Center City Philadelphia jail has been the set for several films including “Twelve Monkeys” and the Transformers sequel, and many TV shows about ghosts and jails. The self-guided audio tour (narrated by Steve Buscemi!) details the history of the prison, active from 1829 to 1969. Regular tickets are $14, and look out for special events; the Halloween Haunted House is especially popular.

Gestapo Headquarters and Pawiak Prison, Warsaw, Poland
Telling another part of the Holocaust, these two related historical sites in Warsaw show what it was like to be interrogated and imprisoned in the gruesome Nazi occupation. Part of the Polish city’s excellent collection of museums, they are free to visit and well-maintained, though very somber.

Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa
The isolation of the small island near Cape Town made it a fitting site for a leper colony, a military training station and a place for political prisoners. Nelson Mandela was the most famous of former inmates for 18 years; he was one of dozens imprisoned during apartheid. Tickets are about $22, including ferry transportation to and from the mainland, a bus tour of the island and “interaction” with a former prisoner. President Obama visited the island and museum this summer, and was “deeply humbled” by the experience.

Tuel Sleng, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The secret prison of Pol Pot, dictator of Cambodia in the 1970s and leader of the Khmer Rouge, Tuel Sleng is now a museum cataloging the genocide perpetrated there. The museum contains the 6,000 detailed photographs and records of inmates left by prison staff, though as many as 30,000 were said to have been detained, tortured and murdered there. The museum is preserved as it was found in 1979, and is an important site, along with the “Killing Fields,” documenting and memorializing the victims of this dark regime.

Would you visit a prison?