Adventure travel meets faith: cycling to Mecca for the Hajj

by Sean McLachlan on


Two Muslims from South Africa mixed adventure travel and spirituality this year by cycling to Mecca for the Hajj. Natheem Cairncross, 28 and Imtiyaz Haron, 25, cycled through South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Turkey, Syria and Jordan. Visa problems with Sudan and Ethiopia meant they had to take a plane from Kenya to Turkey, but that doesn’t lessen their achievement.

In an interview with the BBC, Cairncross said the 6,800-mile journey was a life-changing experience. Both had to sell possessions to raise money for the trip. Cairncross even sold his car. Yes, he had a car and he decided to go by bike.

The Hajj is the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim should do at least once in their lifetime if they are able. Currently the Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai is exhibiting photos and recordings made by Dutch explorer Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje in 1885. Check out the link for some amazing early images and eerie recordings made on wax cylinders that had only recently been developed by Thomas Edison.

[Image courtesy Ali Mansuri via Wikimedia Commons]

Afghan archaeologists race to study Buddhist site before destruction

by Sean McLachlan on

We all remember the Bamiyan statues, those giant stone Buddhas the Taliban blew up in 2001. One of the 1,500 year-old statues is pictured here. Pictures are all we have left of them.

Now another Buddhist site in Afghanistan is under threat of destruction. This time the danger isn’t the Taliban, but a Chinese mining company. The site of Mes Aynak in eastern Afghanistan was home to a thriving Buddhist monastery in the seventh century. It’s also right next to an abandoned Soviet mine that may have the world’s second-largest reserve of copper. A Chinese mining company has invested $3.5 billion to exploit the mine and Afghan officials are eager for work to get underway.

A team of Afghani archaeologists is busy excavating the site and has found an entire monastery complex with more than 150 statues. They were originally given three years, a woefully inadequate length of time for a team of barely forty people, and now they’re being pressured to finish by the end of this year. The archaeologists fear that once the miners move in, the monastery will get wrecked.

The mine will bring much-needed jobs and wealth to Afghanistan, which is also courting adventure tours, so the in the rush to yank copper out of their land they might want to think about preserving some of their past.

[Photo courtesy Marco Bonavoglia via Wikimedia Commons]

Americans are least adventurous travelers

by Mike Barish on

Americans love stories about great adventurers. I grew up wanting to be Indiana Jones (as evidence by the destruction I caused when I repurposed a jump rope into a whip). Bear Grylls has become a celebrity simply by surviving. Andrew Zimmern went from drug addict to chef to celebrity because of his iron constitution. Why, then, are Americans not as adventurous as the people they celebrate? In a recent survey commissioned by Intrepid Travel, Americans lagged behind Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians when it came to pushing their limits.

1,000 people were surveyed from each of the countries listed above and the United States. Respondents were asked how likely they were to eat fried tarantula, stay with a local family, haggle at a local market and other activities. Americans were the least adventurous while Kiwis seemed game for almost anything.

The survey offers insight into the adventurousness of people in various regions within the United States. Californians were the most adventurous US respondents. Texans were a mixed bag with Dallas residents being the most likely of any Americans to stay with a local family while folks from Austin were the least likely to eschew hotels for some home cooking.

While by no means a definitive study, the survey does seem to quantify something that many travelers have already noticed: Americans lag behind others when it comes to living on the edge. Maybe it’s our litigious society. Could it be our puritan history? Perhaps it’s just simply our lack of vacation time as compared to Western Europeans.

What do you think? Are Americans more adventurous than people think? Would you eat a fried tarantula? Is the whole idea of being adventurous overrated? Sound off in the comments.

Ancient cave art discovered in Somaliland

by Sean McLachlan on


Somaliland is little-known as an adventure travel destination. The breakaway region of northern Somalia isn’t even recognized as a nation, but traveling in Somaliland I found it to be a fascinating and friendly country. Its biggest draw for visitors is the well-preserved cave art at Laas Geel, shown above.

Now Somaliland has even more ancient attractions with the announcement that archaeologist Dr. Sada Mire has discovered rock art at almost a hundred more sites in Somaliland. The Somali-born archaeologist says the paintings date to various periods from two to five thousand years ago. Images include animals, the moon in various phases, and a remarkable four-thousand-year-old depiction of a mounted hunter.

Ten of the sites are so outstanding that they’ll be candidates for UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites list. Her findings will appear in the next issue of Current World Archaeology.

I met Dr. Mire last year in London, and while she was anxious to promote archaeological tourism to her country, she warned that a lack of funding and education meant ancient sites such as Laas Geel were under threat. Perhaps her spectacular finds will encourage UNESCO and other organizations to take an interest in Somaliland and help foster a sustainable tourism that will be protect and showcase the caves.

New online tool, AvidTrips, offers adventure travel options

by Kraig Becker on

AvidTrips, a newly launched website, is giving adventure travelers a new option for finding unique places to explore and connecting them with tour operators that can help them do it. The site is currently in beta form, and still lacking a lot of travel options at the moment, but the interface shows a great deal of potential, which bodes well for the future.

Upon visiting AvidTrips for the first time, you’ll notice that it has a nice clean design that is approachable and simple to use. The site offers the ability to search by location and activity, with such options as cycling, climbing, fishing, and more. However, for even greater control over your search, you’ll want to use the advanced features of the “Trip Finder”, which allows you to filter by a variety of criteria including the dates you would like to travel, duration of trip, difficulty level, price you want to pay, and so on. Scrolling further down the page, you’ll also find AvidTrips’ top rated options for the week, as well as new additions to the site and special discounted offers.

Selecting a destination brings up a brief, but well done, overview about the country that includes climate information, currency type, time zone, and more. The destination page also allows you to see the various activities that are available there as well. For instance, visitors to Nepal can choose from trekking, climbing, safari, and world culture options. Clicking on any one of those activities will display a list of tour operators that offer those adventures in the particular destination you are browsing.

The main drawback at the moment is that the database for destinations is still a bit lacking. For instance, when you click on Africa, the only two options are Kenya and Tanzania, despite the fact that there are at least a dozen other great adventure destinations on the continent. Similarly, South America only offers Argentina and Chile, while North America doesn’t list any options at all. Given some time however, this can easily be rectified. After all, it takes time to build such an extensive database, and this project is still listed as being in beta after all.

The potential is there however, and perhaps given some time to mature, this will grow into a very useful site for adventure travelers. Once more options are available, it may even be useful for finding destinations that are a bit more under the radar, but for now, it is mostly offering up the places you would expect, albeit still some of the top adventure destinations on the planet.