Travel writer Patricia Schultz and Nature Valley join forces to preserve the parks

Patricia Schultz, author of the best selling book 1000 Places to See Before You Die, and spokesperson for America’s national parks, has joined forces with Nature Valley in an effort to raise as much as $600,000 for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). This past April, Nature Valley launched the National Parks Project in an effort to fund three unique preservation projects in some of the most iconic parks in the system, and they’re asking consumers to help out in achieving their goals. Better yet, they’re also giving us an opportunity to win one of three trips to to a park later this summer.

Throughout 2010, the NCPA will continue its efforts to protect the national parks for future generations, but three projects are receiving special attention this year. Those projects include reestablishing plant life in the Grand Canyon, freeing Pronghorn migrations in Yellowstone, and rebuilding coral reefs in Biscayne National Park. Each of these projects hopes to reverse the adverse conditions brought on by a lack of proper funding in the past, increased pollution, and global climate change.

Nature Valley has committed itself to helping the NPCA complete these worthy projects and is prepared to donate up to $600,000 to aid the cause. To that end, for every specially marked Nature Valley wrapper that consumers mail to the company between now and August 31st, the company will donate 10 cents to the NPCA. Additionally, we can also make direct donations to the cause as well. More information on both of these options can be found at PreserveTheParks.com.

The promotion doesn’t end there however, as Nature Valley is also giving away three trips to the Grand Canyon later this summer., Check back at PreserveTheParks.com and the company’s Facebook page for a chance to sign-up for the Nature Valley National Parks Project Sweepstakes, and you could win a trip to visit one of the greatest natural wonders on the planet.

When describing the parks Schultz says “In addition to being great vacation destinations, our national parks provide fun and adventurous educational experiences for travelers of all ages.” That’s why many of the parks are featured so prominently in her book, and that is also whey she has partnered with Nature Valley to work to preserve these majestic locations for future generations to visit too.

[Photo credit: Pescaiolo via WikiMedia Commons]

Talking travel with Patricia Schultz, author of “1000 Places to See” (part 3, plus book giveaway)

Patricia Schultz is a well-traveled woman. She single-handedly launched the mini-industry of travel list books with her 2003 #1 New York Times bestseller, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler’s Life List (Workman), which has sold more than 2.8 million copies and translated into 28 languages. Since then, she’s written a sequel, 1,000 Places to see in the USA and Canada Before You Die, produced a Travel Channel show based on the concept, and was named (as of this week) by Forbes as one of the 25 most influential women in travel.

She was recently a panel member for ABC’s Good Morning America, a judge in selecting the 7 New Wonders of America, and a seasoned writer for Frommer’s, BusinessWeek, “O”prah, Islands and Real Simple. Her next book of the series is in the works.

Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

BONUS

Her publisher, Workman, has kindly offered to give away five book copies and two calendars of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die to Gadling readers (shipping included). See the end of the part 1 interview for details on how you can win.

What projects are on your plate right now? Can we expect more in this series?

I am doing lots of magazine writing and book-touring and I speak at a lot of events. I also just had my apartment painted – the paint has been dry for 4 months now and I still haven’t found the time to move back in and unpack. I think it’s time.

A third book? Maybe! Stay tuned!
What are three over-rated destinations?

Travel is a very personal thing and what might be a great destination for one, can be a trip from hell for the next person. My friend would rather stay home and watch Seinfield reruns than go toLas Vegas, where she’s never been. What?! I think Vegas is a wild only-in-America oasis of incredible talent (Bette Midler! Cirque de Soleil! Barry Manilow!), neon palaces of gaming 24/7 and a roster of restaurants for all palates and budgets. Throw in a sidetrip to the Grand Canyon and you can go home a happy camper. Would I go regularly? No, but a first-time jolt is great fun.

I think the classic beach vacation is overrated – one gorgeous Caribbean beach is not terribly different from one in Mauritius. What sets them apart as memorable experiences is renting a motor scooter to zip around the island and visit the fish markets, eat at a roadside shack and hang with the islanders over a local beer. So it surprises me that a good number of folks never leave their hotel compounds (which can be very gorgeous but have become very homogenized over the years) to venture beyond the rarified world they pay so handsomely to visit. Not discover some of the local color just beyond those gates? You may as well sit and bake in your own backyard, and save yourself the air fare.

Another kind of vacation that has me scratching my head are the regular and routine returns to the same destinations year after year….after year. I understand the importance of family traditions and being lucky enough to find some place (St. Croix, Cape Cod, the family cabin) you know will always be welcoming and unchanged from one visit to the next. But, hey, what about the other 98% of the world? Do you really want to die an authority on St. Croix?

What’s your stance on visiting despotic countries like Burma or Iran or North Korea? Go for it?

I try never to politicize travel and think it is paramount to understand that the people of a country are not their government (the US might be a good place for foreigners to put that to the test). I was in Burma (Myanmar) in April, just weeks before the cyclone did such devastating damage to a country whose people have so little to begin with. Our guide was a lovely young (and very up-beat) lady who was surprisingly worldly considering she had never left her country. She had taught herself to speak extremely good English, Spanish and Japanese so she could communicate with the people who come to visit Burma. In her lifetime she is afraid she will never have the chance to experience the world outside her borders: she hopes to know the world through those who visit her country. “Burma is its people, not its junta” she told me. “Please tell your friends to come and visit us.” How could you not?

Do you believe there are any “undiscovered” sites out there, places that are off the radar of even the seasoned traveler? Spill the beans on a few for us?

I think there are millions of them, most of them underrated because they are under our nose – the lesser visited islands in the Caribbean, for example, like Culebra, Dominica, Los Roques or Saba. For those who think Europe is so “done,” ask the hotel staff behind the desk to suggest a town worth an afternoon visit – it may not be an “undiscovered” place to them, but it will be to you. Or consider the peripheral countries of Europe that are new on our radar – Romania, Slovenia, or the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania among others.
I recently visited Zagreb and Split in Croatia (and all the tiny towns in between) – they are not on the average American’s Short List, but the Europeans have been onto them for centuries.

On a more exotic, far-flung note, I visited the northern reaches of Namibia (a country “undiscovered” by Americans until Brad and Angelina put it on the map) near the border with Angola, where we visited the Nimba tribe. We may not have been the first white non-Africans they’d seen, but we were close. We brought soccer balls and a massive bag of rice as a gift to the community. I try to wear my respect on my forehead and hope to never wear out my welcome.

What was your last trip?

I just finished a brief Book Tour to promote 1000 Places To See in the USA & Canada Before You Die – a series of short but great stays in some of my favorite American cities such as Nashville (I caught George Jones at the Ryman Auditorium and spent an evening at the Grand Ole Opry), Memphis (glad to see Graceland has not changed, nor have the ribs at the Rendezvous), and Vegas where we rented a car and drove to Sedona Az and saw The Grand Canyon during a May m
ini-blizzard of 18 inches! I was also reminded that stargazing in the American desert is second to none.

I know people always like to hear that I have just returned from Ghana, or Buenos Aires, but in fact I travel a lot in the US as well, and find it can be every bit as rewarding, and surprising.

What’s your next trip?

My next “big” trips are in the fall – Greece in September, the Baltic states in October and the Arabian Gulf nations in November. I was in Oman in 1978 – I’m curious to see what has changed!

What is the one place you haven’t yet made it to (and why?) that’s tops on your list?

My Short List is very long, but one might be the Torres del Paine national park in the southernmost reaches of Chile – wild, pristine, dramatic. And from there, I’d take an extension to Antarctica. It’s a big and costly trip, and those are the ones where you need to allot a big chunk of time and money. I think most travel is about time and money – there’s no doubt it takes lots of planning and saving.

But there is no guarantee we’ll be around next year – or tomorrow! So Carpe Diem! Life is short – get off the couch.

Talking travel with Patricia Schultz, author of “1000 Places to See” (part 2, plus book giveaway)

Patricia Schultz is a well-traveled woman. She single-handedly launched the mini-industry of travel list books with her 2003 #1 New York Times bestseller, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler’s Life List (Workman), which has sold more than 2.8 million copies and translated into 28 languages. Since then, she’s written a sequel, 1,000 Places to see in the USA and Canada Before You Die, produced a Travel Channel show based on the concept, and was named (as of this week) by Forbes as one of the 25 most influential women in travel.

She was recently a panel member for ABC’s Good Morning America, a judge in selecting the 7 New Wonders of America, and a seasoned writer for Frommer’s, BusinessWeek, “O”prah, Islands and Real Simple. Her next book of the series is in the works.

Read part 1 here.

BONUS

Her publisher, Workman, has kindly offered to give away five book copies and two calendars of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die to Gadling readers (shipping included). See part 1 of the interview for details on how you can win.

Do you book your trips in advance? Wing it?

Serendipity is a wonderful tour guide, and there should always be lots of hours or afternoons left open to wander and explore and let the trip happen to you. But before leaving I generally have a good idea of what’s worth seeing and gage my time accordingly. I always have a hotel booked in advance, even if it is off season. It’s too easy to do these days with the internet possibilities – there’s nothing worse than arriving and blindly picking a hotel out of the blue (and usually over-paying) because you didn’t do your homework in advance. Why run the risk of being disappointed by an uniformed choice of hotel?
What are five overlooked destinations?

Almost all of South America – Europeans go there in far greater numbers than Americans; our wonderful neighbor Canada to the north, from Newfoundland off the east coast to the hinterlands of Vancouver Island off the west coast; incredibly gorgeous islands in the Indian Ocean (the Maldives, Seychelles, Madagascar, Zanzibar) that can seem like light-years away for American travelers; the Balkan countries like Albania, Slovenia, Croatia, etc. where it often feels like the Mediterranean of a hundred years ago; any of the Greek islands beyond the predictable Grand Tour of Mykonos, Santorini, or Crete.

What are your top three favorite cities? (I know you have an Italian bias!)

I have the inordinate good fortune to say I live in one of them – NYC. I know, I know, I am hardly neutral, but I do maintain that there is nothing like it anywhere on this earth. I love Rome because where else can you find a city whose 25 centuries of history are ubiquitous, with an ancient Roman archway imbedded in the façade of a chic Fendi boutique? Or whose wide open squares such as the opera-set Piazza Navona have acted as the market place and meeting grounds of choice for millennia? “Rome, a lifetime is not enough” they say.

And Rio de Janeiro! Not only one of the most beautifully-sited cities anywhere (up there, perhaps, with Cape Town and San Francisco), but one with an infectious Carneval-like spirit year round, and populated by the very spirited cariocas – some of the nicest people I’ve ever met anywhere.

Jet-setting across the world must get expensive. Do you have any cost-saving tips?

I have been writing travel guides for decades, with deadlines that always had me traveling off season. It didn’t take long to understand that not only does one enjoy discounted hotel and air rates in the off months, but I found the local people to be less harried and more welcoming as a result, and there were fewer disadvantages such as long lines at the museums or crowded restaurants to contend with. On the other hand, you don’t want to spend precious time and money and find yourself in Thailand during monsoon season, or at a coastal destination like France’s Juan-les-Pins where half the town is depressingly shut down in the cold-weather months.

If your lifestyle is such that you can leave with just 1-3 weeks notice, there are remarkable deals to be found online that specialize in last-minute travel. I can’t tell you how many times the irresistibility of a deal determined the destination of my next trip.

And I have always been intrigued by the possibility of home exchange. My serenity-seeking friend recently traded her small Sex-and-the-City condo in Manhattan for a 2-bedroom farmhouse outside of Vence in the south of France to a couple seeking some urban (and urbane) excitement abroad. My friend now swears she’ll never stay in a hotel again (as I imagine the French couple does as well).

What was the experience of writing 1000 Places like? How much on-the-grounds research did you do? How’d you hear about some of the more obscure places and sights?

It took me 8 years to write the first book – and I could have kept going! Many of the experiences were pulled from trips prior to that period, but I researched them to make sure they were still as special as I remembered them to be. And about 20% of the places I have not visited – but I just knew (and was assured by a network of friends who work in the travel world, or by careful research research research) that they belonged in the book.

I purposefully sought out lesser known and more obscure places – whether by physically traipsing there myself, or picking the brains of others. It was important to me to create a real mixed bag of destinations, from the world-known places to the off-the-charts gem, and everything in between. This is the way I travel, mixing it up – enjoying the obvious and accessible while always searching out the various layers and facets and secrets a destination reveals.

Not everyone will agree with my choice of these one thousand possibilities, but one would be hard pressed not to find a few hundred places to keep you busy for some time to come. For travelers who are rusty, or who are too comfortable in their armchairs, this book is the perfect tool to understand the countless possibilities the world offers…and how to get there. Just close your eyes and pick!

What’s your all-time favorite restaurant?

My friends harass me because I rarely go back to the same restaurant twice. It is said NYC has some 20,000 possibilities – why would you deprive yourself of sampling that kind of diversity by returning to the same one, regardless of how wonderful it is?

Multiply that times a few
bazillion to imagine the riches the world’s restaurants promise! (I’m sure there’s some kind of connection, but I’ve never been able to sit through the same movie twice, either.) Memorable eating has nothing to do with the money spent. A stop for chicken jerky in Montego Bay, roasted oysters alfresco in Pt. Reyes outside of San Francisco, the “food circuses” of Singapore where you can stall-hop for a song – all these can promise a meal every bit as memorable as The French Laundry in the Napa Valley or Taillevent in Paris.

And sometimes it’s just because the tavern owner came over and sat down to talk and offered a glass of his homemade liquer that he saves for special quests. Or because you somehow got swept up in a local wedding celebration and made to feel like family.