Some Real Travel News....

Most of the time I find "travel news" pretty boring. Go to any travel section of a major news source and you'll find the oh-so-trite headlines of such scintillating things as "London's Happening Side", "Best Summer Getaways", or "Best New Hotels". Blah blah blah. And so travel news goes: The same articles recycled each season and highlighting all of the same places. I mean, who doesn't know that Hawaii has great beaches? Anyhow, enough with my rant and on to the real point: In my opinion, this week there have been three really interesting stories that truly embody interesting travel news.

As you are all aware by now, adventure travel (in its many definitions) is fascinating to me. I love when the travel envelope is pushed so to speak; partly because I always wish it were me doing it, and partly because that envelope is so hard to push nowadays. As per an earlier blog entry of ours alluded to, there aren't too many unconquered or great adventures left. So the first two articles that I am going to cite certainly caught my eye this week:

1. 16-year old attempts to be youngest to sail solo around the world: Umm.... RAD. This kid's itinerary alone is enough to make me jealous for the next week and a half, not to mention the incredible undertaking. I'm not sure what is more amazing: A solo sail around the world, or the fact that he's 16. 16! I could hardly be trusted to operate a broken down vehicle at 16, let alone a 36-foot sailboat with expensive (not to mention complicated) equipment, in the middle of high-seas, with no other human being onboard. By the way, my favorite part of this story is his Mom's proud declaration with her arm around her son that, "He's already got a gallon of teriyaki sauce." I'm pretty sure that's the least of his worries...

2. Man to spend 300 days alone on an isolated island: A French guy plans to spend 300 days with nothing more than a swiss army knife and a camera on an isolated island in the South Pacific. Crazy? Probably. But none the less, a pretty cool thing to try that certainly isn't seen nowadays. As a side note: I've been reading bloggers all day downplaying this by saying it's not a big deal, it's for publicity, it means nothing because humans used to live off the land, etc etc. Are you kidding me? Go back behind your keyboards and keep thinking that.... None of you could last two days in similar circumstances. Look I don't care if any of the above are true, if I guy can live on the land for almost a year with just a knife, it's pretty frickin amazing.

3. "Uncontacted" tribe spotted in the Amazon: This one could be my favorite of the week. This tribe was spotted by a plane (that subsequently had arrows fired at it) in search of finding tribes like this one: untouched an unspoiled by the modern day. The best part of this story is that Survival International and other such groups will not allow people in to see the group, and are trying to protect them against loggers encroaching on their territory. Pretty cool. It's kind of a weird catch-22 where on the one hand it would be interesting to watch a documentary on a group not previously seen before, but the other (stronger) emotion I have is to let them be, protect them and let them live as they always have.