News & More
You may have seen the cover of this month’s National Geographic: a sloth peeks out from behind boards under a headline announcing “The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism.” The magazine’s special report details how an influx of travelers and social media influencers are unwittingly fueling exploitive animal encounters.
Antarctica & Arctic
My guide was dead serious—or, at least, he seemed to be. He told me that there are elves in Iceland.
Conservation
Brilliant and skillful in its storytelling, the emotions Our Planet evokes are all at once awe-inspiring, mesmerizing and heart-wrenching. This gripping portrait of the critical condition of our planet highlights key conservation issues, which can be boiled down to one problem: our world is becoming less wild.
Videos
Last week, here in the Midwest in mid-March, I spotted my first robin of the year. My mother used to say that seeing a robin was a sure sign that spring couldn’t be far behind. We now know that such a notion isn’t exactly accurate.
Travel Tips
What unites travelers is our love of place. Most travelers want to help support the destinations they visit, but don’t know where to start. As tourism developed, emphasis grew around visiting natural sites. By the 1980’s ecotourism as a trend came into the spotlight. Today, a myriad of terms describes a similar approach: travel with the least possible effect on the environment while supporting local communities. For now, we will focus on Conservation Travel.
Travel Tips
Being an inveterate introvert, I avoid large crowds—well, really, even groups of people numbering 15 or more—like the plague.
Conservation
My father never had the “urge for going,” as songwriter-singer Joni Mitchell calls it—the desire to travel. I place the blame for that fact squarely on the shoulders of World War II.
Videos
If you love to travel, you’ve probably collected a lot of stamps in several, worn-out passports. The one you received from the island nation of Palau, however, may be the most extraordinary: Children of Palau, I take this pledge, as your guest, to preserve and protect your beautiful and unique island home.
Conservation
While travel has the potential to positively impact the places visited—infusing money into local economies, supporting local artisans and conservation projects, and promoting understanding across cultures—it also has the capability to destroy the very things we seek to experience and explore.
Conservation
Some scientists, such as American biologist, naturalist, theorist and author E. O. Wilson, say that a majority of wild species will go extinct if humans don’t set aside at least 50 percent of the Earth in conservation areas.
Videos
Encircled in mists and surrounded by emerald, forested slopes, the long-ago Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru wears an even heavier cloak of mystery. Although this World Heritage site, built on a mountaintop in the Andes, was discovered more than 100 years ago, archaeologists have yet to unravel the reason for its existence.
Conservation
The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash per day, and this consumer behavior pattern typically continues while travelers are on vacation throughout the U.S. and around the globe.
