Bestselling Author Mark Adams On Machu Picchu

by Dave Seminara on

Mark Adams is the author of “Turn Right at Machu Picchu, Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time,” his bestselling account of his attempt to retrace Hiram Bingham’s groundbreaking 1911 expedition to “discover” Machu Picchu. The book, which is now out in paperback, was a New York Times Bestseller and was named one of the best non-fiction titles of the year by Men’s Journal and the Washington Post. Adams gave us the inside story of what motivated him to take this expedition, shared some tips on visiting Machu Picchu and gave us his take on Bingham’s legacy.

What inspired you to trace Hiram Bingham’s famous Machu Picchu expedition route of 1911?

I was an editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine and working at a place like that, Machu Picchu played the same kind of role there that Tiger Woods might have, pre-scandal at Golf Digest. It’s always in your face; you’re always thinking about it; you’re always trying to come up with new ways to look at Machu Picchu because people love it. They can’t get enough of it.

Why is that, do you think?

It has that little element of mystery. Someone once said that you can’t take a bad picture of Machu Picchu, and I think it’s that iconic shot that’s just so alluring that people are really drawn to it. People think, ‘That’s one of those places I want to see before I die.’ It’s so far out and it’s so exotic and yet, pretty much anyone can do it if they have enough money and time.
You wrote that you hadn’t gone camping since you were a kid, and hadn’t been on any real expeditions, so you had to get in shape to embark on this expedition, is that right?

I was in OK shape. I didn’t quite realize how strenuous this trip was going to be. My guide, John Leivers, had explained to me that I needed to get ready by doing knee bends and other exercises because I’d be carrying a day pack and walking through some pretty deep canyons. But literally 90 minutes into our first day I got a look at a canyon we were supposed to cross and it was essentially like a sub-tropical Grand Canyon. It was a mile down and a mile back up the other side and steep!

This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The last time I’d slept in a tent was when my dad brought a fake teepee home from Sears when I was 7 years old and we put it up in the back yard. That’s another reason why I wanted to take the trip, because I felt like a bit of a fraud working at National Geographic Adventure giving thumbs up or thumbs down to a camp stove based on the color of paint.

You made an investigative trip to Machu Picchu with your son, who was 13, before your big expedition, is that right?

I did. And I’ve been to Peru many times because my wife is Peruvian and her family lives in Lima. But Lima is like L.A. and the Andes are like nowhere else on earth. It’s a weird, beautiful, wild place and Cusco is a little bastion of civilization in the Andes, so I did go on a reconnaissance mission in August 2009 with my son because I knew I needed a guide to recreate the Hiram Bingham’s 1911 expedition.

I met a guy named Paolo Greer, who appears in the book, he’s an Alaskan amateur expert on Machu Picchu, and he suggested I hook up with John Leivers.

How did your son handle the trip to Machu Picchu?

He was there for about 40 minutes and said, ‘I think we’ve done this, can we move on now, maybe get an Inca cola and catch an early train back?’

That was summertime and you wrote in the book that the place was swarming with tourists. So is summer not the best time to visit Machu Picchu?

It is and it isn’t. June, July, August you get the best weather there. But it’s also when most tourists arrive. John and I went on the (first) expedition in October, which is kind of a perfect month. April, October or September are also good.

You were way off the beaten path for most of your big expedition. You didn’t want to do the Inca Trail, at least at first, right?

If I’m honest, I probably thought I was too cool for it. There are so many stories about the Inca Trail, I thought, ‘I’ve got to try something a little more serious here.’ I don’t think I had any idea what I was getting myself into. The farthest we went was, perhaps 60 miles west of Machu Picchu, and in that span, you go from a 20,000-foot snowy peak in the Andes to being knee deep in the Amazon basin.

We met an archaeologist who told us, ‘Mark, if you see some guys in dresses with bowl haircuts, you run, because those guys are natives and they live by their own laws.’ Not far from where we were there are un-contacted tribes.

So on your first visit to Machu Picchu with your son, it sounded like you made a lot of mistakes, right?

I made this same mistake myself the first time I went, but why would people fly all the way to Peru and then fly to Cusco and then take the 3.5-hour train ride and then go up for a couple hours, come down and go back to Cusco? There are plenty of nice little places to stay in Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu. I would recommend taking two days, spending an overnight there. Take one of the first buses up in the morning, and hit that main area of Machu Picchu where all the famous things are – the Sun Temple, the Temple of The Three Windows, and the Intihuatana Stone at the top of the main ruins, you can hit all those before 9 a.m. and they’re pretty deserted.

If you wait until say 11 or 11:30, that’s when the trains from Cusco start coming in, and in a matter of an hour or so, the ruins go from being relatively empty to absolutely packed and for 3-4 hours, they’re absolutely packed. You’ve got traffic jams on all the old stairways and it’s almost like someone pulls the drain out of a bathtub around 3 p.m. All the tourists go draining out and you get this lovely hour or hour and a half at the end of the day.

I got up at like 4:30 a.m. to be there early but that was back when the rule was the first people had to sign up to climb Wayna Picchu. I believe they’ve changed that and now you have to buy tickets in advance.

And what else would you do in that area?

There are lots of interesting things to do on the periphery of Machu Picchu. You’ve got Mt. Macchu Picchu, a climb you can do that’s 1,000 feet up that gives you some spectacular views. You can walk up to the Sun Gate, and take probably the best photos of Machu Picchu from that vantage point. Take a break, have lunch but I do not recommend going to the Machu Picchu cafeteria. Picture those iconic photos of the last helicopters leaving Saigon and you’ll have an idea of what it’s like there.

Visiting Machu Picchu isn’t cheap, is it?

It can be expensive. If you’re really diligent there are ways where you can take local minibuses to save money. Kind of an end-around route, instead of the direct route, but it’ll take you a full day to get there that way.

I think the figure I came up with was, maybe $20-$30 doing it that way, and then sneaking in through the train tracks, which isn’t entirely legal, versus taking the train from Cusco, which can be anywhere from $150 to $600.

There’s a section in the book where you describe a place called Salcantay, and it sounds spectacular and also devoid of tourists, is that right?

Salcantay was one of the two holy peaks of the Inca Empire. Salcantay is the famous one near Machu Picchu, it’s directly due south of the ruins, but you can’t see it from the ruins. You have to take the Inca Trail and then on the last day of your walk, if the clouds cooperate, you get this incredible view of Salcantay, which is this massive 20,000-plus-foot white peak, which sort of springs up above all the other peaks in the Andes, and you can see why it was popular in both Inca times with the Quechua people and now because it’s absolutely spectacular.

The Inca Trail really is spectacular but you have two options. You can do a five-day option or a four-day option and if you do the four-day option you miss Salcantay. I highly recommend the five-day trip and you also have less hiking to do every day with it, so it’s less grueling, and you’re out of sync with the rest of the hikers, so you end up being alone a lot rather than in huge packs.

The Inca Trail is probably sold out now for the whole summer, because it sells out in advance, but you can also get there via the Salcantay route, which comes from a different angle.

How fit do you need to be to do this?

If you can run 3-4 miles at a decent pace, you’re probably fine. The Peruvian porters are in amazing shape; I’ve seen them run ahead with the packs, dump the packs at the campsite and then run back and literally start pushing people up from behind uphill. It’s a lot like the Sherpas and Mt. Everest. I have to ask, are people doing this just to have a photo of themselves at Machu Picchu for their Facebook profile?

What’s a standard 7-10 day trip to Machu Picchu look like?

I’d say a pretty standard itinerary is 1-2 days in Lima, fly to Cusco which takes an hour or so, and depending on if you have 7 or 10 days, you might acclimate in Cusco, because it’s 12,000 feet. It takes 2-3 days to get used to the altitude. Or if they’re in a big rush, they go straight to Machu Picchu, which the town there is only 6,500 feet in altitude.

Some will then take 4-5 days to do the Inca Trail and then go back to Cusco; others spend more time visiting the sites around the ruins.

How long was your big expedition in which you traced Bingham’s route?

It was almost a month. About 24 days, I think.

Of all the off-the-beaten-track places you visited near Machu Picchu, which ones do you recommend?

You can get out to Vitcos on a bus. It’ll take you a whole day but that is spectacular and there’s nobody there. There are two sets of ruins, Vitcos and Yurakrumi, which is this giant Winnebago-sized piece of granite that has all these sacred Inca carvings all over it that’s in the middle of this weird, green, spooky valley.

What about Choquequirao?

Choquequirao is amazing but there is no bus to get there. It’s called the Machu Picchu sister site for good reason, because it’s spectacular. It’s perched on top of this mountain ridge with spectacular views in all directions. But you have to be in good shape to get there because you’re walking up the far side of a mile-high canyon to get there and it’s steep.

From reading the book, it sounded like you struggled to adapt to the Peruvian work ethic, just as Bingham did?

Absolutely. I’m uptight about being on time and that is not the way things are done in Peru. Even among South Americans Peruvians are known to show up hours late. They had a national campaign to try to address this a few years ago but it didn’t work.

What was the hardest part of your expedition?

All we drank was boiled water, so every time we stopped to take a drink, I’d be so thirsty. It was 85 degrees and you’d be presented with a giant bowl of steaming hot water. It’s the thing you want most but the last thing you want to put to your lips at that moment.

After doing the trip though, I can now see the allure of sleeping outdoors, but that said, I haven’t slept in a tent since.

Would you still have done this trip if no publisher were interested in the story?

I would have wanted to do it regardless but I’m not sure if I could have convinced my wife to let me take the trip. And there’s the cost as well. I think the whole thing cost me less than $10,000 including everything but it still adds up. Peru is one of those places where you can do things dirt bag cheap or spend an awful lot of money.

If someone wants to hire your guide, John Leivers, is he available?

He is. People can go to my website, www.markadamsbooks.com, and if they’re interested in hiring him, I’ll get ahold of him.

Bingham’s legacy is mixed. Some call him an intrepid discoverer, but others scoff at the notion of him “discovering” Machu Picchu and consider him a grave robber and a thief. Where do you come down?

The title of “discoverer” of Machu Picchu was thrust upon him, though he didn’t do much to escape it. In Peru, he was a hero for 90 years, until 2001 or so, and then people started saying he stole credit and took artifacts. I started with the attitude that he was a punk who took all these things from Peru, exploited the people and so on.

But the more I looked into the history and the three expeditions he did in 1911, 1912, and 1914-15, he did a lifetime of work in four years and had he not gotten to Machu Picchu in 1911 when he did and publicized the ruins, they wouldn’t be preserved as they are today. I think treasure hunters or vandals would have knocked them down. And that is the glory of Machu Picchu, the fact that you have these gorgeous stone buildings that are basically in the same state they were built in 600 years ago in this natural setting, and the fact that that exists is largely thanks to Bingham.

Mark Adams is working on a book about the search for Atlantis, which will come out in 2014. He lives near New York City.

8 Languages You’ve Never Heard Of (And Who Actually Speaks Them)

by Kyle Ellison on

As anyone who follows my articles here on Gadling knows by now, I don’t travel to relax poolside at a resort or sip a fancy drink with coconut oil. I travel because this world is a fascinating place.

While everyone has their own travel philosophy and reasons for wanting to get away, I know that for many travelers, one of the greatest joys of travel is experiencing other cultures and peeking into corners of the world, which are far removed from our own. This could range from immersing yourself in a culture with a different religion, cuisine, or something as simple as driving on the other side of the road.

More often than not, however, one of the largest indicators that we “aren’t in Kansas anymore” is traveling to a place with a language that is different from our own. With linguists estimating there are over 7,000 languages spread across the globe, there is little to no chance of any traveler ever having the opportunity to properly experience them all. Furthermore, as Gadling blogger Kraig Becker points out, there are still uncontacted tribes in parts of the Amazon where we don’t even know what language they speak yet.

Though situations like these are encouraging, the sad reality is that the majority of indigenous languages is critically endangered and will most likely not survive the next generation. According to the United Nations and UNESCO, not only does an indigenous language go extinct every two weeks, but up to 90% of the world’s languages are likely to disappear in the next century if current trends continue.

While the Economist reports that recent advances in technology may actually be able to aid in the rescue and rebirth of languages, the fact of the matter remains that thousands of global languages are dying at a terrifying rate.

So, in a nod to the fascinating beauty of global tongues, here is a rundown of eight languages that you’ve probably never heard of, and are lucky if you ever hear.

Sámi

Where it’s spoken: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia
Approximate number of speakers: 25,000

More than just a single language, Sámi forms an entire family of languages, which are spoken in the northern reaches of Scandinavia and northwestern Russia. While neighboring groups of Sámi speaking peoples may be able to understand the sub-family spoken next door, Sámi speakers separated by hundreds of miles are considered to be mutually unintelligible. That being said, nearly all Sámi speakers are fluent in their native tongue as well as the national tongue of their home country, i.e., Norwegian. Once referred to as Lapp, the name is now considered to carry derogatory connotations.

As can be expected from a language rooted in northern Scandinavia, the Sámi language reputedly has over 300 words for snow. Though there is a movement to rejuvenate the language amongst the Sámi youth, some of the Sámi dialects such as Southern Sámi are feared to be on the verge of extinction.

Xhosa

Where it’s spoken: South Africa
Approximate number of speakers: 7.9 million

Ok, I’ll admit it. If you’ve traveled to South Africa then you’ve probably heard of this language. You’ve probably even heard it spoken. As one of the major languages of South Africa, Xhosa has been spoken by such recognized dignitaries as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Nevertheless, what makes Xhosa such a fascinating language is the inclusion of pronounced clicks, which seem to emerge effortlessly from the mouths of those who are speaking. Even though Xhosa speakers appear to be in the midst of rapid-fire dialogue, they simultaneously are able to create a sound birthed somewhere between the throat and the tongue, which is impossible to get tired of witnessing.

Melpa

Where it’s spoken: Papua New Guinea
Approximate number of speakers: 130,000

With over 800 languages, Papua New Guinea is officially regarded as being the most linguistically diverse country found anywhere in the world. Out of the 800-plus languages in the country, Melba is a tongue that is spoken in the western highlands and centered around the town of Mount Hagen. One of the most widely spoken languages in the tribal highlands, less than 100 years have passed since the Melpa and their fellow highland people first came into contact with Western outsiders.

Plus they have an unbelievable YouTube video that makes me want to buy Jams pants.

Ket

Where it’s spoken: Russia (Siberia)
Approximate number of speakers: 600

An isolate language which, like the Basque language in Spain, is unrelated to any neighboring language, the Ket are such an obscure and unfathomably isolated group of former hunter-gatherers that many Russian people don’t even know they exist.

Located in south-central Siberia, just north of the border with Mongolia, Ket has begun being taught at the lower grade levels in the handful of villages that still host native Ket populations. With the Russian language infiltrating all forms of daily life, however, many fear that the Ket language is on a clear-cut path for extinction.

Anus

Where it’s spoken: Irian Jaya, Indonesia
Approximate number of speakers: 70

Yes, I’ve included this here for no other reason than its wildly sophomoric name. All joking aside, however, the Anus language is spoken by the Anus people, indigenous residents of an island off the coast of Irian Jaya, Indonesia. As classless linguists like myself will point out, the Anus language is not to be confused with the Anal language spoken by the Anal people of India. A language with roughly 14,000 native speakers, Anal is spoken in portions of India and Myanmar.

Yoron

Where it’s spoken: Japan
Approximate number of speakers: 950

If you, like me, thought that only Japanese was spoken in Japan, then allow me to introduce you to Yoronjima, a tiny island in the Ryukyu island chain in the waters of southern Japan. A subtropical island that looks more akin to Fiji than Japan, Yoronjima is a haven for vacationing Japanese who flock to the island to scuba dive the turquoise waters and bake on the white sand beaches. Although mainstream Japanese is the de facto language of commerce on Yoronjima, about 950 of the island’s 6,000 residents still speak the native tongue of Yoron while privately gathered or while in the home.

Silbo Gomero

Where it’s spoken: Canary Islands, Spain
Approximate number of speakers: 22,000

Spoken on the rugged and mountainous island of La Gomera in Spain’s Canary Islands, Silbo Gomero is officially known as the world’s only language consisting entirely of whistling. Derived as a means of communicating across the island’s steep and precipitous ravines, Silbo Gomero uses whistles meant to mimic the sounds of four vowels and four consonants, which, when used in conjunction, are able to create a vocabulary of over 4,000 intelligible words. Though linguists debate over the exact root of the language, some theorize that it may derive from the Berber languages found in nearby Morocco.

Able to be understood at a distance of up to two miles, the advent of mobile phones has created a sharp drop off in the necessity of Silbo Gomero. Nevertheless, in an effort to retain the island’s culture, Silbo Gomero is now taught in state run schools at the elementary level in an effort is foster its use amongst the island’s youth.

Taushiro

Where it’s spoken: Peru
Approximate Number of Speakers: 1

Amadeo Garcia is the last person in the world who speaks Taushiro. A native tribesman of the Peruvian Amazon who also speaks Spanish, Amadeo realizes that as soon as he dies, the language will forever too die with him. As of this writing, Amadeo is 57 years old.

Imagine being able to speak a language that no one else on Earth understands. At first I’m sure there would be some novelty, but after time that novelty would simply turn to loneliness. While the above video is entirely in Spanish, it explains that Amadeo speaks Taushiro only to himself. Around his village, a remote town where he lives in a one-room, wooden shack, Amadeo speaks Spanish with his fellow villagers. In the jungles, however, when paddling his dugout canoe or hunting for birds with his traditional blow dart gun, he will occasionally break into song or speak to himself in Taushiro.

A sad reality to be sure, Amadeo personifies the plight of indigenous peoples and native languages in every corner of the world. From Native Americans in North America to ethnic minorities of the high Tibetan plateau, how many more people like Amadeo are out there, mumbling to themselves in the jungle in a language the world will never hear again?

[Cover photo credit: LivingOS on Flickr]

Torture Museums Look At The Dark Side Of History

by Sean McLachlan on


Ah, the Good Old Days, when everyone lived in a perpetual Renaissance Festival quaffing ale and shouting “Huzzah!” It must have been wonderful.

Not!

People died young, the cities were filled with rats and open sewers, and God help you if you ever got arrested. You’d be taken to a torture chamber in order to “confess” while being subjected to various imaginative torture devices, like the rack shown here in a photo courtesy Jan Mehlich. It’s from the torture exhibit in the Lubuska Land Museum in Zielona Góra, Poland. A victim would be tied to it and stretched until his limbs popped out of their sockets. The spikes on the cylinder would add an extra level of agony. This museum stands out among torture museums in that many of its objects were used in the local area.

Germany was a pretty rough place back in the Bad Old Days, and this has spawned several good torture museums in the country. The biggest is the Medieval Crime Museum in Rothenburg, with 2,000 square meters of displays on torture, execution and medieval law. Nuremberg has a preserved torture chamber underneath city hall.

Italy was a rough place too, and you can find out more at the Criminal Museum in Rome, the Museo della Tortura housed in the Devil’s Tower in San Gimignano and the Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin. The latter museum is interesting because it reflects the 19th century belief that a person’s physical features, especially the shape of the skull, could show criminal proclivities. Hundreds of skulls, brains and death masks from executed criminals are on display, as well as the weapons they used in their crimes and the instruments of their demise.

%Gallery-155223%Many torture museums are found inside castles. The Tower of London has some nasty instruments on display, as does Gravensteen in Ghent, Belgium. Like Poland’s Land Museum, most of the items are locally sourced in a kind of Slow Torture Movement. Check out my post on Muider Castle, which offers a peek at a medieval dungeon that’s an easy day trip from Amsterdam.

If you’re in Amsterdam and don’t feel like a day trip, check out the cheesy yet interesting Torture Museum. Also in The Netherlands is the Prison Gate Museum in The Hague, which may be the world’s oldest torture museum, having opened in 1882. It offers glimpses of such fearsome places as the Jailer’s Quarters, the Interrogation Room and the Judge Chambers. One interesting detail they tell you on the tour is that imprisonment was not considered a punishment, just a way to take a criminal out of circulation until the trial. To really punish an evildoer, they had to be tortured, publicly humiliated, or executed.

In Lima, Peru, you can visit the underground prison and torture chambers of the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition Museum is a sobering look at what happens when a single religion gets to dominate society.

As you can see, most of these museums display the horrors of the past. One museum that doesn’t shy away from more recent crimes against humanity is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which shows what the Khmer Rouge did to systematically destroy Cambodian society. Gadling blogger Jessica Marati said it’s “one of the most maddening, saddening, and intense places you’ll ever visit in your life.” When visiting torture museums, it’s good to remember that these barbarous practices are still used by many governments today.

The Inca Rally: A Road Race Through South America

by Kraig Becker on

Looking to add a little excitement to your summer? Then look no further than the Inca Rally, a new road race that is set to get underway in August and promises to offer plenty of adventure to those crazy enough to enter.

The three-week long event begins in Lima, Peru where racers will first barter for a car that is utterly ill suited for the roads they’ll be driving on. Once they’ve acquired their sacrificial vehicle, they’ll hit the road on August 1, driving across Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana. What route they take along the way is completely up to the drivers, they simply have to reach the finish line in time for the blowout party at the end of the three weeks.

This is pure adventure at its finest. There will be no support crews, few directives and plenty of freedom on the open road. Teams can choose to make their way through the Andes, visit the Amazon Rainforest, follow the scenic coasts or get completely off the beaten path. They can visit large, bustling cities or remote villages; they just have to get to the finish line in Georgetown, Guyana.

While the Inca Rally is meant to be a spirited adventure it will also help shine the spotlight on local charities and help raise funds for those organizations. You can find out more about the event and those charities on the Rally’s official website, where you can sign up for the race as well.

We definitely need a Team Gadling in this event!


Where Would You Travel Just to Eat?

by David Farley on
It’s a question that comes up again and again. Even more so in the last few years, as the industrialized world seems to become food obsessed. Not just with eating in general but also where it comes from (is it local?) and how it’s grown. Our preoccupation with provenance is almost an existential crisis: it seems we have this growing need (no pun intended) to touch our food, to get closer to it, because technology is alienating us in an unprecedented way.

And so now, more than ever, we’re traveling just to satisfy that craving – a simple desire and a deeper one. Okay, this is getting way too serious. The point is, when I attended a couple food-centric events recently for the Lucky Rice Festival and the James Beard Awards, both in New York, I asked the participating chefs and mixologists the question: where would you travel just to eat? Not surprisingly many of them were looking to Japan and Spain for their inspiration.

Here’s how they all answered:

•Ted Allen, author of “In My Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Discoveries for Passionate Cooks“
I’d go to Tokyo. I was there once – just for three days and I ate at a workingman’s place that was just great. It’s one of the world’s great cuisines.

•Chai Chaowasaree, chef/owner of Chai’s Island Bistro and Singha Thai Cuisine, Honolulu
New York. Wait! I think I’d go to Las Vegas. All the top chefs are there. I’ve been there over 100 times. The restaurant I would go to frequently was 808 but, sadly, it closed. I also really like eating at Joel Robuchon and Michael Mina’s place.

•Garrett Eagleton, the Beagle, New York City
Vietnam. It’s so different from anything else and I love pho. It would be a cheap and amazing food adventure.

•Vikram Garg, chef at Halekulani, Honolulu
That’s a very challenging question. I think I’d go to Spain. It’s all about the ingredients. Plus Spanish chefs are so progressive and so ahead of the time. In terms of where I’d go, I’d call up my chef friends – Ferran (Adria) and Jose Andres – and they’d tell me where I should go. It wouldn’t have to be Michelin-starred restaurants.

•Stephanie Izard, executive chef at Girl & the Goat, Chicago
India. I’m not exactly sure where I’d go but I’ve been reading a lot about Indian cuisine lately and it just sounds great.

•Matt Lambert, chef at Madame Geneva, New York City
I’d go to Bangkok. Specifically I’d eat at David Thompson’s place Nham. He’s doing some really special stuff over there, including reintroducing some heirloom vegetables to the Thai food landscape. He’s a really great chef.

•Joseph Lenn, chef at Blackberry Farm, Walland, TN
Spain. They’re doing some of the most creative food there right now. I’d check out Etxebarri, near San Sebastian, as well as Mugaritz.

•Paul Qui, executive chef at Uchiko, winner of “Top Chef Texas,” Austin
San Sebastian. It has the most Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain. I’d hit up Mugaritz and Arzak, for sure. I’m sad I wouldn’t be able to head down to elBulli anymore.

•Julie Reiner, mixologist at Lani Kai, New York City
Japan. I love Japanese food. It would be interesting to eat in such an authentic way. I think I’d eat mostly sushi.

•Steve Schneider, bartender at Macao Trading Co. and Employees Only, New York City
I’d go to Peru and eat anticuchos, a meat stew that a lot of slaves and Chinese laborers used to eat. I’d just eat this and at the same restaurant every day. It’s so good.

•Alan Wong, chef/owner of Alan Wong’s, Honolulu
Japan. Specifically, I’d go to Hakaido. I love it there. They actually have dairy there – milk and cheese – and it’s really good. The seafood is abundant. The ingredients and cuisine are very inspiring to me. I’d spend a lot of time at an onsen relaxing and eating.

•Roy Yamaguchi, chef/owner of Roy’s, multiple locations
Japan. I’d go to an onsen in Hakone, which is about an hour from Tokyo. I’d take a hot spring bath and then eat a meal based on all the fresh seasonal ingredients that are available.