Get The View

Traveling it seems is turning a corner. While they will never be expunged entirely, the world of hyper luxurious, all-inclusive resorts is being confronted more and more by a different, more organic form of travel.

Enter ‘volun-tourism.’ For the same price as a ritzy, expensive resort, families and the stray traveler can visit the same countries, often for far cheaper, sleep in much more modest conditions and even lend a hand to struggling local populations. It is a very noble goal on the part of travel companies and volunteering organizations, a goal no doubt meant to quell the trampling feet of the ignorant tourist into a soft patter.

The website www.responsibletravel.com offers an wide range of such trips features various locales, volunteer opportunities and family bonding experiences. These trips would surely put Sandals to shame.

A goal of travel should always be to give as much as you take. The traveler is the eternally blessed, blessed to be able to see the sights, visit the places and smell the cultures that inhabit this world. It is our duty to help leave a positive mark in our wake and a volunteering trip offers just that experience.

I for one am always a little grated by the constant schedules and strict parameters that most package trips offer (Or at least most of the ones I’ve ever been on), and having never taken such a trip, I can’t really delve with any certainty as to the “tour guide” nature of the trips. It seems to me that any trip that has you (or you and your family) building sand dams in Kenya, or monitoring coral reefs in the Caribbean is going to be a trip out of the ordinary.

So next time you’re eying your calendar and planning that next unbelievable get-away, consider a trip in the volunteering industry. It is a rewarding and beneficial way to traipse the globe and who know, maybe you’ll live on in history after a certain sand damn or library is named after you!

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I sense surprisingly little hostility from my local neighbors, not even when they tell me that all of the big properties in this swank neighborhood are owned by Americans. Further, there really does not seem to be any festering resentment towards white colonialist types; more than one Senegalese has said to me: “I may be black and you may be white, but if we are cut we will both bleed, and our blood will be red.” (Such conversations, by the way, are invariably conducted in French, as I have yet to learn the major local language, Wolof. French is spoken only by the educated minority, around 30 percent or so of the total population. As a non-Wolof speaker, I would have a lot of trouble if I were living in a rural area. From what I am able to report at present, Wolof is an interesting language: “yes” is “Waaw,” pronounced “wow,” and “Jerejef” is “thank you.” I will be sure to keep you posted as my language skills progress).

Senegal has a number of different ethnic groups, of which the Wolof constitute the majority at 43.3%. Other groups include the Pular (23.8%), Serer (14.7%) and Jola (3.7%), each of which has its own language. When during a lesson we had on colonialism and its effects on indigenous cultures I asked my students whether they thought that Wolof grammar, etc. should be taught properly in schools, they shrugged and said nah, no one in the outside world outside uses it anyway, hence learning it formally would be a waste of time. I asked them whether that means the Danes shouldn’t learn Danish or the Icelanders Icelandic since their respective languages are spoken almost nowhere else. (I think the point I was trying to make went right over their heads, as it so often does, but I’ll try again soon, inshallah…)

Given all the different ethnicities, there are also any number of religions. The majority of the population (around 90%, I think) is Muslim, the remainder mainly Roman Catholic. In my class, it is relatively simple to tell the two apart: the Muslim kids have Arabic- inspired names like Fatima and Mohammed, whereas the Catholics have French names like Benoit or Marguerite. On the one hand, there are devout Muslims who pray 5 times a day or more and may not shake a woman’s hand, then there are those Muslims who drink beer (Flag and Gazelle are the two most popular local brews) and/or palm wine, plus there are many Catholics and Muslims who intermarry and most families don’t seem to think it matters a great deal one way or the other.

There is a lot of tolerance and joking amongst different religious and ethnic groups here; I might almost have ventured to say that Senegal is more of a true melting pot than the US. (I am the least tolerant of everyone, I suppose, because I deeply resent the daily call to prayer at around 5:30 or so each morning, which is why I am now up and working on this column. Granted, in Germany the church bells would chime, but not at this – dare I say it?! – ungodly hour. Although the mosque is at quite some distance from where I live, it often sounds as if the muezzin is in the room with me. If he would only desist, this poor schoolteacher would have the untold luxury of sleeping until 6:10 a.m).

To continue, however, just when I thought I had discovered the truly tolerant society, I then discovered that there is a Wolof caste system: often your last name will be an indication of whether or not you are descended from the nobility. Intermarriage with members of the lower castes is still frowned upon, as it is thought to bring misfortune upon a family. Those descended from the nobility even dislike having their hair cut by a member of the lower class, as they fear their hair might fall out (!). Among the younger generation these ideas are starting to fade a bit, but despite (or perhaps because of?) devout religious belief there is still an enormous amount of superstition: belief in the evil eye, wearing of lucky charms, etc.

In the final analysis, everyone reassures me that things here in Senegal could not be more secular, and I am increasingly inclined to believe them: at a recent wedding reception I attended I was careful to dress very conservatively, so as to offend neither the Catholics nor the Muslims who might be in attendance, only to be utterly flabbergasted at the amount of flesh on display. Many of the outfits would not have been out of place at a New York City nightclub, and there I was, looking just like Mary Poppins, albeit minus the scarf and the umbrella!

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dakar, Senegal, where she is supposed to be teaching but is doing far more learning, as you will see by reading her blog at www.senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com

Photo: Flickr/BrendaM
Ancient monuments and towering cathedrals fill us with a sense of amazement and set us thinking about the energy that inspired such arduous human endeavor. Today’s top world attractions were social and spiritual centers of primordial civilizations.
Robert Scheer takes a peek at some of the world’s most visited sacred sites and provides tips on preparation for such a journey in In Search of Sacred Places.

The global religious travel market has become an 18-billion dollar a year industry, thanks to an upsurge of young travelers who seek to combine faith with fun and adventure. New York Times’ Joshua Kurlantzick looks into opportunities for faith-based travel combined with active pursuits like skiing and hiking in Leave the Sackcloth at Home.

Richer experiences await those who prefer the budget travel route to the luxury one. Travel is not about blowing the cash on rooms with gold taps, but about adventure, discovery and serendipity says Kate Quill in Tired of Gold taps? Try a Budget break.

Currency exchange values need not deter travelers from taking out-of-country excursions. A little latitude in choosing destinations opens up interesting options for the budget conscious traveler. Countries like Vietnam and Morocco offer great holiday values, despite the slide in major currencies, says Jason La in Countries where Dollars Go the Distance.

Shopping gifts for someone who has been bitten by the travel bug?
Eleanor Willis has some wonderful gift ideas for those who love to travel in Give the Gift of Travel.

Are you traveling this holiday season and plan to send exotic gifts back home? It pays to understand the recipients’ tastes, as this relative learned in the Latin American Parrot incident.

I recently came across an article about proxemics, the study of personal space and it got me to thinking of personal space during travel. Personal space is not something that pertains only to human animals– all animals have some sense of personal space, be it while attacking or retreating or smelling or communicating. It is only in humans that our sense of space is directly involved and understood.

The issue of personal space is a fascinating concept. Who belongs where and when? Most of us don’t really recognize it on a daily basis, unless we come across an overtly large amount of close-talkers, animated gesturers, smelly people or any other such invaders of ‘personal’ space.

On the whole, throughout the course of the day, most people will obey most invisible laws regarding distance of communication, bus riding, line queuing and the like. Often times for the traveler, its Eastern counterpart will confront their largely Western notion of personal space in confusing, surprising and illuminating ways.

In North America, we have the luxury of a tremendous amount of space. Population per square kilometer here is a pittance compared to say, Japan, China or India.

Immediately a Western traveler will notice that the astounding amount of people who live in these places all have somewhere to go and lives to lead. Crowds, queues, conversations are all done in quite close contact, oftentimes devolving into surging masses of people. Life simply can’t afford the space it can in the West as in the East.

It’s amazing how fast piddly concerns like having the ‘normal’ space around us are lost in a new land. The foreigner is not the native in a foreign land. We can’t be choosy with our means and modes. Often times, the busiest most crowded modes of transportation are our lot. We dumbly line up in queues for any number of things. We go to markets. We go to busy places.

For some there is a grating aspect of such constant touching, such closed quarters. Others see it as sort of a comfort, as a humanizing experience. I tend to group myself with the latter, although it is odd how oftentimes even when ample space is available (in a waiting room, or, say a certain train station in Shenzen, China) certain zealous people will still huddle in groups together, or, say, the only other person in the station.

It’s an idea that on an individual level seems to be largely transitive as well. Oftentimes I’ve noticed those who originally hail from a country of much smaller personal space proportions will still revert to their original, closer space boundaries when in conversation or transit and vice versa for those who hail from larger personal space countries.

But personal space is a very real and very amusing phenomenon. How would our lives have been different in more crowded or less crowded spaces?

Back in the Big Apple, kids have to be frisked for semiautomatic weapons before entering the school building. Having gained admittance, they then proceed to spend their time setting fires to garbage cans in the girl’s and boy’s bathrooms as a form of recreation (and no, although writers are prone to exaggerate, I am not making this up in order to entertain you: a former publishing colleague who left to teach at a charter high school in Queens told me this story in her first or second year. Funnily enough, she still didn’t want her old job back, though.)

As a teacher here in a private school in Dakar, I have to say that I have it extremely good compared to my NY counterparts: my students stand when I enter the room and it is considered a grave infraction if their drab brown uniform shirts are not tucked in properly, if they are wearing nail polish or (Allah forbid!) if they come to class without their book or their homework assignment.

Last week I inadvertently made one young man cry because he came to a two-hour literature class without the novel we are reading in hand. As it turns out, he had absentmindedly left the book in another classroom and another student had picked it up to return it to him. Afterwards the boy came to tell me that he thought the 2,000 word essay on The Awakening that I had assigned him to write in detention was cruel and unusual punishment, not to mention horribly unjust into the bargain:

“But whose book is it?” I asked, not entirely gently.

Somewhat sullenly: “Mine.”

“And whose responsibility do you think it is to know where this book is at all times?”

“But –”

“WHOSE responsibility?” (louder, in a tone brooking no contradiction).

Large crocodile tear emerges from corner of student’s eye.

Fade out.

I somehow think this scene might have played out a bit differently in a NY high school; I might not even have survived to tell the tale, much less share amusing anecdotes with an online community of readers! The notion of individual responsibility is a very interesting one here, I find, because many things are viewed as being out of our realm of responsibility: if Allah wills it otherwise, things will not go according to plan, period. Therefore the Arabic phrase “inshallah” is used whenever any reference to the future is made: “See you tomorrow, inshallah.” “Meet you at the restaurant Saturday at 6. Hopefully it won’t be too hot, inshallah.” So the student might have tried to use the argument that it was Allah himself who did not want him to have his book in class, despite his own best efforts, and that might have made our exchange less clearcut. (Fortunately for me, he did not try that approach).

This reminds me that we recently as a class discussed the issue of abortion and the pro-life, pro-choice arguments raised by each side. It was difficult to get any real debate going as no one in the class felt willing to entertain the idea that such taking of a life could ever be justified, not even in extreme cases such as rape or severe genetic disorders, etc., and certainly not if a girl simply wanted to continue her education or did not feel fiscally or emotionally ready to take on the responsibility of parenthood.

As a footnote here, I should refer to a story that ran in the Guardian, about the fate of a hapless British teacher in Khartoum: “To encourage her seven-year-old pupils to learn about the animal kingdom, Gillian Gibbons asked them to find a name for a teddy bear. Unfortunately, they chose Muhammad.” This is, of course, being taken very seriously as an insult to the prophet and poor Gilly from Liverpool is now being held on charges in a Sudanese jail. (Good thing I myself am savvy enough to stick to uncontroversial topics like abortion and the death penalty).

Interestingly, the word my students used over and over again to describe the abortion option was ‘irresponsible’: according to them, if you are old enough to have sex, then you are old enough to accept any and all possible consequences, period. A child is a gift from Allah and must be accepted as such; at least put the child up for adoption if you do not feel equal to the task of raising it, they insisted. The astonishing about for me about this ‘individual responsibility’ line of argument is that it was being employed by a bunch of kids who are completely coddled at home yet can barely get it together enough to take responsibility for bringing their textbooks and homework to class. Surely, however, bringing a book to class should be an easier task to manage than raising children?!

Hopefully none of them will ever be confronted with the difficulties of an unexpected pregnancy, inshallah. Then again, such a premium is set on female virginity in this society that perhaps the risk really is minimal; my students told me just last week (though I did not want to believe them) that outside of Dakar and the bigger metropolitan areas, the ceremony of hanging the sheets up after a wedding is still performed in 2007 – if there are bloodstains (indicating that the girl has been brought up properly, with her maidenhood intact), it is a credit to both families. (As an aside, I have to wonder what the US right-to-privacy activists would have to say about this practice)?

As a fairly liberal native New Yorker, I not infrequently feel a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole and am reminded every single day anew that oui, on est en Afrique!

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dakar, Senegal, where she is supposed to be teaching but is doing far more learning, as you will see by reading her blog at www.senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com

I don’t think anyone really foresaw the speed, and the massive drop, that the American Dollar has taken in the past few months. As an American studying in Canada, I know all too well that current exchange rate. My first transaction at a bank a few years ago when I first came here was converting $100 USD into Canadian dollars. I received exactly $137.87. I remember that figure exactly; it’s burned into my memory, as a marker of my prudent decision making. “It’s like I’m only paying 70% for everything!”

That was three years ago. Oh how the times have changed. On my most recent trip to the bank, for $100 I got exactly $98 back– the closest to parity I’ve gotten all year. My prudence is no more.

I now face constant chiding from bank tellers all across the country.

But what does this mean in the larger picture? Well, when discussing travel, there has been no better time to visit the 50 States than now. Europeans have been flocking to New York for months now, taking full advantage of the weak American economy. No longer are ugly Americans traveling to the great cities across the world, flaunting their impervious green cash. Now more than ever, the world is coming to America, making us Americans salivate over their rainbows of currency as they exchange their strength for our weakness.

Couple relatively cheap airfare (as has been a trend in recent years) and you have the perfect mix for a wonderful trip. There has been no better time, at least in my lifetime, to visit the States.

I’ve always marveled at the diversity there too. A walk through New York or San Francisco is a walk around the entire globe. Everyone and every country is represented somewhere in the American tapestry. Instead of shelling out thousands of dollars to go to China, why not just go to China Town instead? Seems more prudent to me!

Photo: Flickr/Tuija
December is here and ‘tis the season to give and share. Tourists to South Africa, once limited to ritzy hotels and escorted safari tours, now have opportunities to get in touch with the joys and adversities of locals. A multitude of volunteer options are now available for those travelers who would like to get involved in community projects, even if they cannot spare a major chunk of time, says Kelly Carter as she lists resources in Charity Begins Abroad.

Making a donation of time during travel is as significant as writing a check. Doing charity work makes an enormous difference in people’s lives and leaves one with a feeling of achievement and fulfillment. Stuart Lee makes a case for embarking on charitable adventures in Why Get Involved in Overseas Charitable Work?

Photo:Flickr/Pharoe14
Souvenirs take us back to the times and places we visited, and repaint our minds with moments we might have otherwise forgotten. Sheila Scarborough has some suggestions in her My Top 10 Ideas for Travel Souvenirs.

A travel journal is used to document experiences and sometimes becomes one’s best friend on the road. Experienced travelers consider a well-kept travel journal the best and most favorite souvenir, says Allen case in Ideas for Travel Journals.

Resourcefulness on the road keeps journeys organized and smooth running. A digital camera could be used for more than recording interesting sights and moments. Mike Richard lists novel ideas in 12 Clever Uses for Your Digital camera.

To wrap up, Sean Fitzmorris shares his ruminations and his smiles in Won’t Work for Food.

Photo:Flickr/Green308
My heart’s pounding harder than the drills that wake the neighborhood at ungodly hours; breath fluttering faster than eyelashes at a speed dating event. No, this isn’t panic, or love at first sight – it’s sheer excitement at being off traveling again.

Having traveled solo for many years, I have the routine down pat. Clothes looser than an alley cat’s morals for the journey; plenty of fluids on the flight.

Then there’s the big smile for passport control. But no jokes; they don’t like jokes. I know, I’ve tried, and usually ended up in a back office while they trawl their computer for proof that I’m an international terrorist. They’re always disappointed; I’m always late. I’ve learned it’s not worth the hassle.

Big smiles are useful tools, though. I’ve lost count how many places I’ve managed to get in to see, as a result of a cunning manipulation of facial muscles. Smiles aren’t just for officialdom, but for getting to know people on your travels. Court the locals and you’ll find out where best to eat, or stay, or hideaway beaches that most tourists will never find.

Know when to keep a straight face, though, or avoid eye contact altogether, if you want to stay safe.

Public transport is brilliant for soaking up atmosphere. Taxis might be quicker but being squeezed in with locals, like a lone snapper in a box of sardines, certainly gives you heaps of the sights and smells.

If you’re a nervous traveler, worried that the fly-spattered window is the only thing between you and a 500-foot drop into a canyon, then sit behind the driver. It might feel like being on the Dodgems at Blackpool beach, but at least you won’t see what else is on the road, and can enjoy the scenery.

Talking to fellow passengers will take your mind off the driver’s apparent death wish while helping you explore the culture. At this point, enter advanced lying skills. An upright individual, lying is not second nature to me. Until I travel. Then, to stay safe, I have no qualms about doling out the porkies, passing off more lies than a bed salesman.

If possible, don’t sit beside a man on public transport, and you can probably avoid the lying routine. A pal has an alternative – she has ‘go-away’ dust jackets that she puts round whatever she’s reading. ‘Abnormal psychology’ is her current favorite for chasing off nutters.

A Top Deck courier I know has an even more extreme attitude towards personal safety. She goes far beyond the usual advice to cover her shoulders and adopt local customs. Her hassle-free policy includes wearing a wedding ring, dying her hair and using different colored contact lenses.

Blending in isn’t just about choosing what you wear but avoiding things that label you tourist: flashing a map in New York guarantees attracting attention. Mind you, when I got lost there and furtively thumbed my A-Z, I was deluged with advice from kind New Yorkers. Not a mugger in sight.

If deciding to seek help, beware the rule of the ‘Obviously Local’: the more local a person looks – and that includes wearing curlers and carpet slippers while walking a dog – the more likely they are to reply: “Sorry, love, I’m just visiting here myself.”

When traveling alone, it makes sense to let people know where you’re going. However, telling your folks exactly what you’re up to before it’s a done deal isn’t always to be recommended. I was due in Burma just as the civil insurrection started that led to it becoming the Myanmar Republic. So, I did the ET routine. “Don’t worry!” I said, “I’m going to go to Bangladesh instead, so don’t panic about me getting caught in riots.”

Unfortunately floods that started simultaneously with my arrival meant I was stranded there. Pictures of people perched on rooftops like storks and stories of typhoid and dysentery made constant viewing at home; for the first time since my travels started, my parents knew exactly where I was. Wanting to save them worry, I’d increased it instead.

A neat way round that’s to create a postcard diary. Each day, send home a dated postcard of where you’ve been visiting. If anything goes wrong, people can work out the last place you were, and when you get back you’ve a pictorial record of all the places you’ve been.

That’s not their only use: traveling in a land where you don’t speak the language, they can be a means of getting to see that temple, castle, or work of art you wanted to track down. I’ve flashed a postcard of where I want to go, and been shoved on the right bullet train in Japan and given more non-verbal directions than John McCrirrick doing tic-tac at the races.

Although traveling solo, you don’t have to stay alone. There are plenty of tour companies that specialize in singles, often with a particular theme. I’ve found using budget accommodation a reliable resource for finding like-minded individuals. Alternatively, meet people while taking a tour of the local sights or attending a class (learn to cook in Paris, do art history in Florence or meditation in Bangkok). The adventure starts when you close your front door.

So here I am at the airport, dragged from bed by a pack of yipping alarm clocks (I’ve got several spares to ensure I never miss that early flight). The research is all done: websites checked, guidebooks read, maps bought and I’ve teased myself with all the things I’m going to do. With passports, tickets and currency safely stowed (not forgetting copies of important numbers and spare cash planked in different places), I’m shaken, stirred and licensed to travel.

About the Author : Rowena M Love is a writer, poet and performer based in the West of Scotland. Coming from a long line of sea-farers, it’s not surprising that she’s been well-munched by the travel bug, and consequently has traveled all over the world. When not on the move, she travels just as far, if not further, in her imagination. You can find out more about her and her writing at www.rowenamlove.co.uk

One of the many things my mother worried about when I told I would be going off to Senegal was my health. The bit about the yellow fever shot scared her quite a bit, of course, plus there was the laundry list of other dangers including (but by no means limited to!) malaria, typhoid, rabies, dengue, meningitis, amoebic dysentery, etc., etc. I think I got about 9 different vaccinations before I left home, but paradoxically, the sickest I got was when I was trying to avoid getting sick: I had a craving for eggplants and washed them in Clorox (or eau de javel as it is known here). I had the runs for three days, and I am convinced that it was not the fault of the poor blameless vegetable but the radical steps I took to cleanse it. I no longer brush my teeth with bottled water as I did at first, which just goes to show the extent to which I have let down my guard.

Yet still, if anyone would have told me back in New York that I would one day find myself buying an unknown local fish which had been carried around for hours in a cooler in 80 degree heat from an unknown, poorly dressed man of dubious hygiene I would have laughed and said something along the lines of “Sure, when Niagara Falls,” or something quite possibly more profane than that.

Most of my fellow liberal New Yorkers would agree that wild-caught salmon (never farmed!) from a nice clean glass case from a reputable place like Citarella’s, Zabar’s or The Food Emporium is the appropriate kind of fish purchase. Yet one Saturday morning I did the unexpected: a man simply appeared at the closed gate of our school (yes, our students get locked in – and so do we! – just like chez Oprah) and rang our bell with his cooler in hand.

Overwhelmingly curious, I looked inside, and there was a row of freshly caught fish nestled in the cooler, mouths agape and glassy-eyed, but otherwise quite contented looking. On an impulse, I bought two of them and took them with me to the beach where I spend a good deal of my free time with a group of Senegalese who have made this spot their own.

“Look, boys! Fish!” I called when I arrived. They flocked from every corner and started rinsing and preparing the fish. They were delighted to see that I had also brought several loaves of fresh bread, salt, pepper, wonderful tart local limes, onions and garlic. We plucked basil from a nearby bush (gorgeously fragrant basil grows like weeds here – the bushes are as tall as I am – and it is used to flavor absolutely everything) and got two stones from the sea to make an improvised mortar and pestle for our basil and garlic mixture. One guy cut slits in the fish; we put our mixture of spices inside and then lay the fish on a charcoal barbecue, with the equivalent of a wire hanger as our grill. And do you know something? It was, astonishingly enough, the best fish I have eaten before or since.

Part of it was that the entire experience was so sensual: eating on the beach, you hear the crashing of the waves in the background, which is stupendous. There is the heat of the fire contrasting with the slight chill of the salty evening air, there is the sense of community as you cluster around the fish together, grabbing little bits of the tasty flesh and the accompanying chopped raw onion salad with your fingers; there is the fragrance of the basil and the scent of the garlic; it is a moment of pure contentment, pure poetry. On several other occasions I have now early on a Saturday morning even purchased fish directly from the local spear fisherman in the neoprene suit (complete with spear and matching booties): hard work to get fish fresher than that, I should think!

And once again I find myself realizing that absolutely nothing here is the way it is or would be at home – after all, on est en Afrique! – but that this is not by any means a bad thing: just, er, well, different.

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dakar, Senegal, where she is supposed to be teaching but is doing far more learning, as you will see by reading her blog at www.senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com

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The $125 Fall Writing Contest is now complete, and as with every first time venture (especially where technology is involved), we have experienced our challenging glitches.

I recently received an e-mail describing a sudden and drastic change in many of the ratings for the competition stories. I had noticed this myself, and when I looked into the logs I had to smile in amazement.

The vigorous suspect voting was between two factions who had voted all other stories down (many many times) thus pushing their story to the very top of the leaderboard.

The flood of single star votes have been removed and the scoring has been recalculated to include only the legitimate votes and yes I am proud to say we now see a truly excellent story as our winner.

Before I announce the winner I must thank the writing sponsor OTBeach.com (bargain travel specialists) as they believed in our project and provided the financial incentive to motivate all our haggard travelers to tell their tales.

Without undue pomp and ceremony, the official winner of the $125 Fall Traveling Stories Competition is……

Rowena M Love with her humorous, and captivating story

Have Lie Will Travel

Take a peak at her story and I’m sure you’ll laugh out loud at her episodes of traveling in India. Having been to India myself I can personally relate to these quirky situations which seem absolutely absurd within the normal context of the West.

Rowena will be awarded the $125 writing competition prize as well as a featured link to her website http://www.rowenamlove.co.uk/.

What’s next for TSM? In little over 3 months we are fortunate to have had over 45,000 page views and are now averaging between 200-300 visitor per day! In many ways that is a shockingly impressive start.

Our next plan is to once again re-design the site to order to make things visually cleaner and then begin another writing competition of which we already have several stories waiting to be published!

I very much value your feedback so if you have any thoughts as to the future direction of the site drop me an e-mail at tsmeditor@gmail.com .

I would also like to offer an open call to all travel writers who would like to submit traveling oriented articles during the break before the next competition. We currently have an intriguing adventure unfolding before us with Braunsteins’ weekly column Stories From A Sengalese Classroom.

If you would like to contribute your writing either in your own column or in individual articles drop me a line at tsmeditor@gmail.com .

Congratulations Rowena and to everyone else…

Happy Travels,

Michael