Field Expedition: Mongolia - Join Explorer Albert Lin's Groundbreaking Search

When we first introduced Dr. Albert Yu-Min Lin in our Adventurers of the Year feature story last November, we were all blown away by his groundbreaking archaeological quest in northern Mongolia—you even gave him the Readers' Choice Award. Now you can literally be part of his expedition team with our new Field Expedition: Mongolia website.

By conducting a noninvasive archeological survey as never before—with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flyovers, ground-penetrating radar, remote sensors, satellite imagery, and even a 3-D virtual reality chamber—the team has redefined exploration and conservation. And while solving the 600-year-old mystery would, of course, be amazing, Lin's ultimate goal is to help preserve the region's significant cultural heritage (see a photo gallery from their previous expedition).

To do that, Lin's crew is currently on the ground in Mongolia's "Forbidden Zone" to continue their search—with some new tech toys, such as their "oktokopter" UAV (see it nearly crash into Lin in this video). But all the technology in the world can not make up for the skill of the human eye, so they are asking for your help. Think of it as a citizen science expedition team of 1,000 or 10,000 or as many people as we can recruit. The potential for discovery is astounding.

On the Field Expedition: Mongolia website you can examine real-time satellite photos to spot irregularities that the scientists on the ground should investigate. Lin's team will then report back with their findings. This crowd-sourcing technique has been used before—perhaps most notably in the search for Steve Fossett's lost airplane. We are hopeful that you will have a hand in helping preserve Mongolia's most sacred heritage. Follow their blog and sign up for newsletter updates.

World Class - Sweden - High Design

After serving five years on the board of the Swedish Ecotourism Society, Håkan Strotz began working with ecologist/designer Ulrika Krynitz to create the perfect ecolodge. The result: a six-cabin wilderness retreat named Urnatur (“from nature”), which opened near Sweden’s Lake Vättern in 2007. From here guests can explore some of the country’s most striking landscapes (think lakeside cliffs and fields of wildflowers) before retreating to their wood-fired saunas and solar-powered showers. Few people outside of Scandinavia know about this off-the-grid forest hermitage, but its luxury-is-simplicity message is catching on fast (doubles from $215, including meals).

  Text by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ; Photograph by Neil Rogers/Nature's Best

Peter Greenberg on Mexico: "It's time to be an intelligent, contrarian traveler"

Text by Alyson Sheppard

Travel journalist Peter Greenberg has been vocal in his support of continued travel to Mexico in the wake of the H1N1 virus scare, and on May 23, he took his crusade to a whole new level—he broadcast his radio show from the abandoned beaches of Cancún.

“I’m happy to report that I am not frothing at the mouth, I’m not glowing in the dark, and I’m not sleeping with a pig,” Greenberg wrote on his blog at petergreenberg.com.

Convinced that travel to and from the country is safe as long as tourists act responsibly, use common sense, and practice basic personal hygiene, Greenberg spent three days in the luxurious spa resort El Dorado Royale in the Riviera Maya in Cancún, Mexico, and joked about the health panic on his weekly radio show, Peter Greenberg Worldwide.

“The point is: Are we going to be intelligent travelers or fearful travelers?” Greenberg said. “It’s perfectly all right; In fact, I insist on an abundance of concern and caution. I also insist on throwing out an abundance of fear and stupidity.”

Greenberg, who also advocated—and did—travel to China during the SARS crisis, said hotel occupancy in the Mexican region is averaging under 20 percent now, and severely hurting the tourism industry.

“It’s time to be an intelligent, contrarian traveler. That’s right. And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you do your homework,” he said.

His three-hour long show, available on podcast, includes interviews with over a dozen experts from the tourism and medicine industries, such as New York Times columnist Michelle Higgins, who says tourists can grab last-minute bargains if they act quickly, and Josef Woodman, the author of Patients Beyond Borders, who gives advice on how tourists can protect their immune systems on the road.

To download a podcast of Greenberg’s tips and read more about his trip, click here. 

Is This the Golden Age of Green Travel? Plus: Five Bargains on Five Continents

Beyond Green Travel is a blog written by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ

Photo courtesy of Black Sheep Inn

Over the last 12 months, a lot of progress has been made in sustainable travel: The World Travel & Tourism Council has issued a ten-point action plan to combat climate change; four international airlines have tested their first bio-fuel supported flights; the United Nations Foundation has launched the world’s first set of Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria; and Americans have elected their first president who equates going green with economic growth. It is tempting to think that, if it were not for the economic recession, we would be entering the Golden Age of sustainable tourism right about now. But here’s another thought: Maybe we already have?

Gone are the days when environmentally and socially responsible practices were the hallmark of just a few jungle lodges and safari operators. Today, we have reached a tipping point where sustainable tourism practices are being more widely accepted across the full spectrum of the global travel industry. (Who would have imagined that Marriott Corporation, one of the largest hotel companies in the world, would be spearheading the protection of 1.4 million acres of Amazon rain forest, or testifying before the U.S. Government to gain support for biodiversity conservation—they are doing both.) The very term “ecotourism”—which was originally coined to describe conservation-minded mom and pop lodges before it was applied to $500-a-night jungle resorts—has also come full circle. Small outfitters are again setting the pace for tourism done right. So, when contemplating whether to shelve your travel plans until the stock market picks up, consider this: Your dollars will stretch farther today, and do more good, than ever before.

Here's a sampling of four places on four continents, that are committed to the Earth, to benefiting local communities, and to offering more affordable travel. See the list >>

Beyond Green Travel with Costas ChristDubai's New Guidelines Restrict Dancing, Kissing, Handholding

Text by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ

Last week, Dubai issued new behavior guidelines for travelers. Since one of the tenants of sustainable tourism is to be respectful of the local culture, this announcement got me thinking about what happens when the local culture tells tourists to respect their way of life, a way of life that the tourists might consider offensive or even morally wrong. Dubai now has told visitors that dancing or playing loud music in public will be banned. Travelers on holiday, or even a couple on their honeymoon, who kiss or hug each other in public—even just momentarily—could face fines and detention. The new rules, which also include no wearing of short skirts or skimpy shorts in public (keep in mind that Dubai is one of the world's top tourism destinations with beaches and luxury resorts), have been issued for visitors "to respect Dubai's culture and values." 

In many places around the world, tourists have been known to act disrespectful to the local way of life, seeming not to understand that they are guests in another country. Last year in Dubai, a British couple were arrested and convicted after having sex on a beach. The new behavior guidelines now make it clear that you might be arrested and detained even if you are just holding hands. Sustainable tourism advocates that a country or cultural community should set the rules that tourists must follow to be respectful to the values of the local people, even if visitors do not agree with some or even all of those values. 

Is this a case of going too far? Let us know what you think in the Comments section below.

Read my previous post on Dubai here >>

Beyond Green Travel with Costas Christ Albania: The Untouched Mediterranean

Text by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ

Albania’s isolation from the rest of the world for decades during the Cold War had an unintended consequence: The country today retains its wild landscapes, uncrowded historical sites, and traditional villages in a region that is one of the most crowded tourism destinations on the planet—the Mediterranean.

I recently joined a group of 64 Albanians in the coastal town of Durres to discuss a sustainable tourism plan, one that would help protect the natural and cultural heritage, while improving the livelihoods of the local people. The fact that Albanians are coming together to talk seriously about sustainable tourism as a means of economic development puts them ahead of many nearby countries that followed the path of mass tourism development, which has left behind damaged ecosystems, polluted beaches, and vanishing local culture (think Santorini in Greece, Provence in France, or the Costa del Sol in Spain). While uncontrolled tourism has already spread to some parts of Albania (the coastal town of Durres suffers from chaotic concrete block hotel development, a glut of tourist bars, and litter in the streets), much of the rest of the country still offers a chance to experience traditional Mediterranean life that has become increasingly rare in the region. 

During my trip, the Albanians I met were friendly, the prices cheap, the local food excellent. Traditional music thrives, and the rugged mountains provide truly off-the-beaten-trail Mediterranean hiking.

Continue reading this story and see recommended tour operators >>

Your Top 10 ADVENTURE Stories of 2008

With 2009 already rushing in, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on your favorite online stories over the past 370 days. So here they are, the most popular stories of 2008. (Over the last year we also revamped our magazine site's RSS feed to include photos, illustrations, and more text to read.)

10. The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro: Apple's Macbook Air
This review of the “sexiest laptop ever” got more user comments than any other article this year. Note: you have to be a tech geek to understand most of them.

9. 6,000 Miles to Moscow
Contributing Editor McKenzie Funk hitchhiked the length of the Trans-Siberian highway to paint a picture of globalization. Photographer Aaron Huey’s images are gorgeous.

8. Peru: Hell and Back
An oldie but a goodie, Contributing Editor Kira Salak's story of her spirit quest in the Amazon is an amazing tale of transformation (and even has something for the hallucinogen crowd).

7. 50 Top Ecolodges
Global Travel Editor Costas Christ (who writes Beyond Green Travel) gave us a list of the most spectacular green base camps on the planet—and, surprisingly, there's something for almost every budget. We made a really handy world map to help you find them.

6. Life’s an Adventure Reader Photo Contest
We love your photos. Here are some great ones.

5. Best of the National Parks
This year, we found the most beautiful places and park adventures to deliver an authentic American summer escape. We also georeferenced each spot so you can find them.

4. Have You Seen This Croc?
As far as we know, Gustave the man-eating croc of Burundi is still on the loose (or the giant, elderly Nile croc died a quite death in obscurity). This true story is quite similar to the fictional thriller, Primeval, which speaks to its ongoing audience. Photographer Bobby Model’s photos of the Rusizi River delta region are quite impressive.

3. Photo Gallery: First In
These are some of the best adventure photos to pass across our photo editors’ desks. They don’t disappoint.

2. Where to Live and Play: The Next Generation of Adventure Towns
Boulder, Austin, Jackson, yep, all great adventure towns. Our picks this year, however, are part of a burgeoning group of great places to live—and they are smart investments in times like these. Plus, our special wallpaper feature will give you instant adventure town gratification.

1. The Best Adventure Travel Companies on Earth
There’s nothing like it anywhere—a travel tool that helps you find excellent tour operators based on our experts' ratings, from quality of service to environmental practices. Search by whatever suits you—activity, destination, ratings categories. We’re actually unveiling the 2009 update this week. Stay tuned!

Was there a story we published this year that you really enjoyed? Let us know.

Beyond Green Travel with Costas ChristTop Ten Worst Green Travel Destinations

Text by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ

When NBC's TODAY Show Travel Editor Peter Greenberg asked me to contribute a list of the top 10 places people should avoid when they travel, to include in his new book, Don't Go There! (www.PeterGreenberg.com), I was a little reluctant at first. I am a firm believer that travel, no matter the destination, can be a powerful learning experience. In fact, some of my worst trips have been among the most interesting. They are the places I still tell stories about. But when looked through the lens of sustainable tourism principles—being environmentally friendly, helping to protect cultural and natural heritage, supporting the well-being of local people—there are some places that stand out, and its not for the better. So here is my top 10 must-avoid travel destinations list (or at least consider this warning so that you know what you are getting into before you go).

Cancun, Mexico -  In the 1970s, Cancun was a small, coastal island with fishermen, local merchants and a few small pensions. Today it is a stretch of high-rises sporting some 30,000 hotel rooms. Mangrove forests were cut to accommodate this megadevelopment, clear-water lagoons were filled in, and wildlife disappeared, along with any sense that you are still in Mexico. Stand on Cancun's miracle mile of tourism and wet T-shirt contests and Jell-o shot bars pass for today's local culture. Mexico is one of the greatest travel destinations in the world, but Cancun is pure generic mass tourism.

Santorini, Greece - One of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean has become a text book example of paving paradise. Sure, it has amazing views and spectacular sunsets—just be prepared to share them with as many as 15,000 cruise ship passengers, all off-loading at the same time during the summer and pushing past each other for the best spot to take a photo. Condo, hotel, and tourist sprawl are spreading like a fungus over the landscape. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg—find your Greece island inspiration elsewhere.

Orlando, Florida - It really is a small world after all. Every family in America would do better to experience it first hand by having a genuine cross-cultural experience of learning and discovery, rather than get taken for a ride by the marketing engine of overdeveloped and environmentally unfriendly theme parks.

Kuta, Bali - Take an unspoiled tropical beach, add a vibrant ancient culture, cap it off with friendly local villagers eager to share their rich heritage, and then trample it all with a parade of western brands such as Hard Rock Cafe, T.G.I. Friday's, and KFC. Certainly, tourism destinations change over time, but that does not mean they should be trashed beyond recognition. Skip this one and instead consider Bali's artistic capital, Ubud, where a more balanced path embraces the local culture rather than conquers it.

Dubai City, United Arab Emirates - Just one of Dubai's golf courses requires a million gallons of desalinated water a day to keep the grass green under the scorching desert sun. And it takes more than a gallon of crude to make one gallon of desalinated water. And that is before powering the air-conditioned indoor ski slopes, the gilded shopping malls, and the giant man-made islands shaped like palm trees just off shore that are causing sedimentation runoff onto fragile coral reefs. Is this really the way to make the desert bloom? Seek an alternative.

Myanmar - Aung San Suu Kyi, the only Noble Peace Prize winner living under house arrest for courageously opposing one of the most brutal military regimes in history, has called for international travelers to boycott Myanmar. Nelson Mandela did the same while under arrest during the height of apartheid rule in South Africa. Some tour operators run trips to Myanmar (formerly Burma) with the justification that giving the local people an opportunity to interact with the outside world is a good thing;  meanwhile, they are making a business profit. Follow the real leaders and respect the travel boycott.

Antarctica - This is a "must see" on everyone's travel list, and that's the problem. Rapidly increasing tourism—some 40,000 tourists in 2008—to one of the most fragile and untouched environments on the planet could have a devastating impact. For instance, 49,000 gallons of fuel spilled into the waters of Antarctica when one cruise ship sank. (No one was hurt.) Another ship ran aground. Now major cruise companies want to bring in even more tourists on ever larger ships—Princess Cruises' Star Princess carries 3,800 passengers to Antarctica in one voyage. Time to call on the 46-nation Antarctic Treaty System to set limits before it's too late. Until then, think twice before making the trip.

China Beach, Vietnam - Local and foreign investors have scooped up nearly the entire vast tract of beautiful China Beach in central Vietnam, including ancestral burial grounds found there. Villagers have been forced to break open the coffins of their ancestors and take out the remains before the bulldozers level and bury the place, all in the name of building a parade of new mass tourism resorts. Do you really want to sleep in a hotel built right on top of a traditional burial ground where villagers honored dead ancestors for centuries and then, grief-stricken, were forced to remove their remains? Things did not have to go this route, so let's not reward it.

Costa Rica's Over-Developed Coast - There is a battle going on in Costa Rica, once the darling of ecotourism. The battle is between those who are working overtime to make the country a true green travel destination, and unscrupulous developers who like marketing the green label, but couldn't care less about practicing the principles. The latter are winning in Tamarindo, Jaco, and a string of other coastal areas that have succeeded in carving up the landscape into large condos and megahotels. Your travel choice makes a difference in this struggle. The Costa Rican Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST)  helps identify the good guys.

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania - Definitely stay on the crater rim in one of the great safari lodges and sip a gin and tonic while looking down into what naturalists have called the Eighth Wonder of the World—an ancient, unflooded, collapsed caldera that forms a natural zoological garden—if it survives, that is. Don't drive into the crater, unless you like your wildlife viewing in a parade of 4x4 vehicles.  Save the up-close wildlife encounters for the 5,700 square miles of neighboring Serengeti National Park and let the inner crater have time to heal from tourism's wounds.

Do you agree with these selects? Do you have destinations to add? Let us know by posting your comments below.

Beyond Green Travel with Costas ChristGreen Dictionary: Navigating the Eco-Lexicon Jungle

For the green-minded traveler, it's easy to get lost in the jungle of new terms. Ecotourism, geotourism, voluntourism, sustainable tourism—more names keep popping up all the time, threatening to confuse even the most savvy globetrotter. By focusing on the well-established terms listed below, you can understand what really matters in the global movement to make travel an opportunity for protecting the Earth's cultural and natural heritage.

- Ecotourism
- Sustainable Tourism
- Geotourism
- Voluntourism
- Agrotourism
- Responsible Travel
- Greenwashing

Read the definitions of these green travel terms >>


Photograph by Stephan Brueckner/Courtesy of Namibrand Safaris

Beyond Green Travel with Costas ChristPaving Paradise For a Better Future, Donald Trump Style?

Text by Global Travel Editor Costas Christ

Photograph by Jim and Sheila Glavine

During hard economic times, how do you convince rural communities living next to unspoiled natural areas to see a brighter future? If you are Donald Trump, who wants to build the world's "best" gold course on wild sand dunes along the coast of north Aberdeen, Scotland, or Plum Creek Timber Corporation in USA, who are seeking rezoning approval to carve up more than 400,000 acres of wilderness for resort development and vacation houses around Moosehead Lake in Maine, you prey on local economic fears in a down economy. Although unrelated, both mega-tourism development projects have more than golf courses in common. They need special permits to proceed and they have argued that denying them that approval translates into economic stagnation.

Trump was recently in Scotland, where he decided to personally face off against those nagging gadfly's of progress - environmental groups. Conservation organizations, including Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, among others, have raised serious concerns over Trump's plans to build two 18-hole golf courses, a 450 room hotel, conference centre, spa, golf academy, 950 holiday homes, 36 golf villas and accommodations for 400 staff on fragile sand dunes that are an officially designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and home to thousands of migrating birds. Trump has said that if he does not get approval for his plan the way he wants it, he will take his multi-million dollar investment someplace else (apparently where his generosity will be appreciated). He referred to Scottish opponents of his development plan as "imbeciles". In fairness, Trump described himself as "an environmentalist" during questioning in the three week public inquiry held last month on the project.

Across the Atlantic in Maine, home to the largest remaining wilderness expanse east of the Mississippi - the North Woods - Plum Creek Timber Corporation is locked in a heated battle with local opponents and conservation organizations, including Maine Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, in an effort to gain rezoning approval to build more than 2000 resort rooms, condos, and vacation homes, in addition to a golf course, marina, restaurants, gift shops, staff housing, service buildings, etc. in the heart of back-country forests, lakes, and rivers. That it also happens to be in an area of abundant wildlife, including moose, bear and endangered species like the Canadian Lynx, doesn't seem to matter. Like Trump, Plum Creek has threatened to take their economic investment elsewhere (where it will be better appreciated, no doubt) if they cannot get the zoning approval they want. The approach represents hardball fear tactics during hard economic times. In both cases, project opponents have sought compromises, but bottom line issues, like not building on the wild dunes of Scotland, and not putting a 400 room resort in the Lily Bay wildlife corridor of Moosehead Lake, where the endangered Canadian Lynx roams, have been met with firm resistance by the corporate real estate giants.

How much actual economic gain to local communities comes from mega-tourism projects like this in largely unspoiled natural areas? Historical experience points to a small pool of investors reaping large profits, with locals getting the crumbs from the economic table while ever-dwindling wilderness is destroyed in the process. At a time when global tourism trends show a growing interest among travelers to experience more nature, along with cultural authenticity and "sense of place", over-blown development projects like these are throwbacks to tourism's poorly planned past, and not the new sustainable tourism vision needed for the future.