Later he takes his coffee (and a pancake formed in the shape of a squirrel by his visiting mother-in-law) to the basement, where, surrounded by exposed insulation, and with the light coming up on the trees outside, he puts off the task at hand—that of writing the texts for a guide to winter adventure in Mammoth, as commissioned by the Ski Area.

He scrolls through the morning’s tweets, comes upon the following from (of all possible sources) the Comfort Inn in Bishop (@ComfortInn395):

Check this video out–Winter in the Woods-Backcountry Skiing in the Sierra Nevada.

And so he does, of course, and is immediately transported far beyond his cluttered desk, beyond the world of newspapers and social media and a too-sluggish computer, to an earlier time—a better time, he cannot help but think—and a time very soon to come:

And now he is ready for winter.

Thank you David Huebner. For more of his goods—writing, photography, video—check out backofbeyond.org.

Cristóbal Colón

Leave it to Twitter to make you feel ‘ambient awareness’ on Columbus Day. I keep thinking of my crew in Colorado. Denver always has a good old fashioned drumbeating protest against Cristóbal Colón. Segundo told me about it one year, said ‘you’re down down there just jamming. Then you look up at a streetcorner and see these cameras filming you.”

Where did “Columbus” come from anyway? What’s the etymology of that one? And why didn’t we just learn his real name–Cristóbal Colón? Colón as in colon-ization?

Looking for answers today so I thought I’d just track Twitter for a little while. Then the idea to begin copying / pasting. By the time I’d do a search, copy and paste something that seemed relevant or ‘engaging’ or ‘weak-ass to the point of being able to be used ironically’, then go back and search again, there would already be between 20-200 more updates. It was like fishing in a fast and very polluted river, your hook baited with Chicken McNuggets. I could only take it for 16 minutes.

As always I just wanted some kind of voice / place / story / character. Most of it, predictably, was just marketing, but not all:

Tweets on “columbus day”

@homegrownian: We’re making salmon breakfast sandwiches on indigenous heirloom Makah Potato demi baguettes in honor of not celebrating Columbus day

@eccehomo84 “They Came Through the Islands.” Pablo Neruda. Canto General on Columbus Day.

@OHSSpanish1 10.12.09 ¡Feliz día de la Raza! In Spanish-speaking countries, Columbus Day is celebrated as the Day of the (Hispanic)Race.

@IshFish is celebrating columbus day by eating, facebook, and watching movies…thank you Columbus for making this possible…

@TAMartinsen Columbus day just screwed me over.

@thekatinthehat aghhh I need to go shopping and I need a haircut . oh greaaat – it. Columbus day. everything is closed so we are left with nothing to do. ):

@bretta75 Cracking up over a friend’s rant about how Columbus Day should not be a recognized holiday! Lol.

@pmoallemian My deep sympathies to survivors of one of the largest acts of genocide on this planet on the day to honor the victims aka the Columbus Day.

@vtsheen Costco is packed like a Saturday. The world must be off celebrating Columbus Day, I thought our economy was crappy!?

@gletham What am I supposed to do on Columbus day? Feels like any other day…

@sockonafish “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” Happy Columbus Day!

@Maxbp To the PC police: “Happy Columbus Day!” That’s right I said Columbus. War, conquest, slavery all existed in America before he arrived.

@dbsalk Read the first chapters of James Loewen’s “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and then try to tell me that we should celebrate Columbus Day.

@writingvixen Happy Columbus Day! Leave it to America to celebrate a day honoring how men just won’t stop and ask for directions.

@kahpang Columbus Day is such a joke… how can you “discover” a land when there are already people living there?

@dahveed_miller Columbus Day: a woman at the park was feeding her infant Chicken McNuggets.

@surfingdairy Looking for something fun to do with the kids on Columbus Day? We’re open!

Community Connection

Big up native peoples worldwide. What do you think of Columbus Day?

Adam Roy ~ Matador Sports

Chicago boy and mensch. Adam edits Matador Sports. He’s currently living in Buenos Aires.

Ill-Advised Adventures : www.illadvisedadventures.com/

Austin Chu ~ Matador Goods

Austin Chu, American nomad documentarian, has recently premiered his new film The Recess Ends. Keep up with the success of the film and Austin’s new adventures.

The Recess Ends : http://therecessends.com/blog/

Carlo Alcos ~ Matador Trips

Writer and campervanner, Carlo loves to hike where the air is clear, the ground is crunchy, and the water is cold.

Carlo’s Blog : http://carlo-alcos.com/

Christine Garvin ~ Brave New Traveler

Matador’s first lady of holistic living, Christine holds a Masters in Holistic Health Education and is a certified Nutrition Educator.

Living Holistically : http://www.holisticwithhumor.com/

David Miller ~ Matador Senior Editor

Founding editor of The Traveler’s Notebook and senior editor of Matador, David’s blog consists of daily ‘illuminations’ and occasional beats. Catch up with David downstream as he and family prepare to settle in Patagonia.

David’s Blog : http://www.miller-david.com/

David Page ~ The Traveler’s Notebook

Author and alpinist David Page has written for the Discovery Channel, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Men’s Journal, and The New York Times.

Sierra Survey : http://www.sierrasurvey.com/

Hal Amen ~ Matador Trips

Hal’s blog brings his life as a writer and volunteer in South America in delicious, bite size bits. His writing and travel advice are more than enough to get me thinking itineraries…

Way Worded : http://wayworded.blogspot.com/

Ian MacKenzie ~ Brave New Traveler

Mastermind web designer, accomplished writer and new media producer, Ian blogs about pop culture, new media, philosophy, and religion.

Ian’s Blog : http://www.ianmack.com/

Joshua Johnson ~ The Traveler’s Notebook

Joshua’s blog reflects a rambunctious roustabout with delusions of grandeur. Follow his rants as he adjusts to life in L.A.

Joshywashington : http://joshywashington.wordpress.com/

Julie Schwietert ~ Matador Managing Editor, Matador Change, & Matador Pulse

Julie’s blog allows readers a look at the intimate fragments and flashes of inspiration on writing and life.

Cuaderno Inedito : http://cuadernoinedito.wordpress.com/

She also blogs about being a new mom and reveals why a neighbor thinks she should wear a corset on this blog:

9mos : http://9mos.wordpress.com/

Kate Sedgwick ~ Matador Nights

Irreverent and hilarious, that is how I would describe Kate’s blog. Learn how to use a toilet brush and bidet on the same page? Score!

Yes. There is such a thing as a stupid question : http://yesthereissuchathingasastupidquestion.wordpress.com/

Lola Akimade ~ Matador Goods

Lola brings it with beautiful photography and writing. Lola’s work has appeared in Vogue, National Geographic Traveler & Travel Channel’s World Hum, just to name a few! Her blog is a tome of travel wisdom.

Geotraveler’s Niche : http://lolaakinmade.com/

Sarah Menkedick ~ Matador Abroad

Sara’s blog, which is co-penned by Jorge Luis Santiago, is a dedicated tribute to the creative process and the journey. Posa Tigres is filled with vivid photography and writing. Enjoy!

Posa Tigres : http://www.posatigres.com/

Tim Patterson ~ Matador Abroad

Tim is an adventurer, writer and rugged travel instructor for Where There Be Dragons. Tim headed back to Asia to lead the inaugural Mekong Semester program WTBD.

Sleeping in the Mountains : http://sleepinginthemountains.blogspot.com/

Tom Gates ~ Matador Life

Taking a lap around the world and writing at least one book in the process, Tom writes about food, music, and just about anything. He’s currently in Berlin.

Wayward Life : http://waywardlife.wordpress.com/

Community Connection

Keep in touch with the Matador team as we big up life and whatever else on our personal blogs. Don’t have a blog of your own? Start one on Matador today.

It was a pleasure to burn.

-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

-Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

-George Orwell,1984

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.

-Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.

-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

-J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.

-William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

-William Gibson, Neuromancer

All this happened, more or less.

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.

-Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

-C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings?

-Gilbert Sorrentino, Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things

You better not never tell nobody but God.

-Alice Walker, The Color Purple

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen.

-Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

-Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

Community Connection

These are some of my picks.Ttime for you to weigh in: what is your favorite opening line from a novel? What makes a great opening line?

Each day at Matador we line out publishing priorities, to-do lists, and stokes to the rest of the team via a central email called ‘the daily.’ Inevitably it goes off on tangents. Yesterday’s was a ‘what are you reading and listening to?’ kind of thing. Here’s what people said:

Adam Roy, contributing editor, Matador Sports. Listening: It’s been months, but I’m still glued to Tobacco’s record, Fucked-Up Friends. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard. Electronica, but warm and organic. Trippy as all hell. Reading: A couple weeks ago, I discovered Olé, the big sports daily in Argentina.

David Miller, Senior Ed. Listening: Juana Molina, Atlas Sound.

Reading: Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin.

Ross Borden, Founding member, CEO: Listening to: 1. Major Lazer (diplo + switch) BBC essential mix. free download here 2. Artist: Paul white album: The Strange Dreams of Paul White — a rec from our very own Paul Sullivan. 3. Artist: Bullion album: Pet Sounds: In the Key of Dee Reading The Economist.

Hal Amen, co-editor, Matador Trips. Reading: I’m currently try to get into Blade Runner in Spanish–proving harder than I’d hoped. Was it foolish to take on sci-fi in a foreign language?

Sarah Menkedick, Co-Editor, Matador Abroad. Listening to: Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago.” This is classic drinking-whisky-in-winter-post-breakup music. Reading: Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi.

Lola Akinmade, Editor Matador Goods. ReadingThe New Age of Adventure – an anthology from National Geographic Adventure. Listening: U2’s Magnificent (also danced in to this on the wedding day!), and Razorlight’s Wire to Wire.

Christine Garvin, contributing editor, BNT: Reading: Been trying to get my hands on a cheap copy of Emotional Freedom by Judith Orloff, and revisiting, once again, The Energy of Money by Maria Nemeth. Listening: my old peeps at Non-Stop Bhangra, for Jimmy Love’s latest bhangra mixes.

Juliane Huang, Intern of the Century. Listening: N.A.S.A. – Spirit of Apollo.

Reading: Junot Diaz – The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Paul Sullivan. Reading: Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives + The Rest is Noise by Alex RossListening: Fuckpony - Let The Love Flow, David Sylvian – Manafon.

Eileen Smith, Community Outreach Ninja. Reading: La Vuelta a Chile en Bicicleta by Régine Bienvenue and Pierre Devaux, A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe edited by Faith Conlon, Ingrid Emerick and Christina Henry de Tessan and Cadillac Desert, the American West and its Disappearing Water by Mark Reisner. Listening: mainly to Crud, not worth mentioning.

Carlo Alcos, Co-Editor, Matador Trips. Reading: I just finished Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer. Right now I’m two pages into Pico Iyer’s The Lady and the Monk. Listening: currently a lot of Josh Ritter and Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst…and lately old school Public Enemy, De La Soul, Pharcyde, Tribe Called Quest…

Ian MacKenzie, Matador Network Architect. Reading: The End of Your World - Adyashanti.

Listening: Wilco, Michael Franti.

Michelle Shusterman, Contributing Editor, Matador Goods. Reading: Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell.

Listening: Ojos de Brujo

[feature photo: pusgums]

Community Connection

What are y’all listening to? Reading?

Los Angeles on Fire. NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team

Driving over the pass at Beverly Glen, riding shotgun for a friend on the way to his wedding (gulp) in Encino, we suddenly find ourselves, along with several millions of other urban denizens otherwise going about their business this blistering Saturday afternoon, confronted with the spectacular roiling plume of the now-infamous Station Fire.

4,000+ homes and countless horses, pets and exotic animals have been evacuated. More than 60 homes have burned to their foundations. Vehicles have melted into their parking spots. 2 fire fighters are dead. The 74-year-old Vetter Fire Tower, where I once spent days above the smog, reading Kerouac’s Desolation Angels (of course), or chatting with veteran lookout Kermit Eller about his break-barrel Chinese Model 62 air rifle while surveying the advancing plague of ground squirrels, is gone.

Station Fire stats, Sept. 5, ten days in: Total Personnel: 5,244. Size: 154,655 acres. Growth Potential: High. Terrain Difficulty: Extreme. Estimated Containment Date: Tuesday September 15th, 2009 approx 06:00 PM.

It’s that time of the year again: wildfire season. Los Angeles is burning. Like in the Bad Religion song.

Like it has most every year since the beginning. Like it probably will—with ever greater frequency as the planet gets hotter—until there’s nothing left to burn.

Here’s a spectacular collection of images from the latest conflagration.

Plus four more unreal timelapse videos.

And here’s a quick sampler of the classic writing to have come out of the flames (much of which (and more) has been duly anthologized in David L. Ulin’s comprehensive Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology):

1. Raymond Chandler

It often begins with the wind, as Chandler wrote in his novella “Red Wind” (1938), published in the collection Trouble is My Business, also available on audio, read by Elliot Gould.

It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

2. Joan Didion

In her “Los Angeles Notebook,” published in Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Didion catalogs some of LA’s big mid-century fires: Malibu in ‘56, Bel Air in ‘61, Santa Barbara in ‘64, Watts in ‘65 (during the riots). She writes of how the San Gabriels went up in flames in November of ‘57, and again during the winter of ‘66-’67.

In “Fire Season (1989),” from After Henry, the register expands: 80,000 acres of LA County torched in ‘68, 130,000 in ‘70, 74,000 in ‘75, 34,000 in a single week in ‘78, 60,000 in ‘79, 46,000 in ‘80, 45,000 in ‘82. “Since 1919,” she writes, “when the county began keeping records of its fires, some areas have burned eight times.”

Most years it is September or October before the Santa Ana winds start blowing down through the passes and the relative humidity drops to figures like 7 or 6 or 3 percent and the bougainvillea starts rattling in the driveway and people start watching the horizon for smoke and tuning in to another of those extreme local possibilities, in this case that of immanent devastation.

She notes the particular language of fire, the subtleties of the “burn index,” the difference between fires “controlled” and “contained,” the difference between “full” and “partial” control, “the difference between a Red Flag Alert (there will probably be a fire today) and a Red Flag Warning (there will probably be a Red Flag Alert within three days).”

She grates at the notion (handed down from the NY Times) that people who live in such country do so in flat denial. “Denial,” she writes, “is a word from a different lyric altogether.” To live in fire country is to live like this:

When the fire comes there will be no water pressure. The roof one watered all the night before will go dry in seconds. Plastic trash cans must be filled with water and wet gunny-sacks kept at hand, for smothering the sparks that blow ahead of the fire. The garden hoses must be connected and left where they can be seen. The cars must be placed in the garage, headed out. Whatever one wants to save must be placed in the cars. The lights must be left on, so that the house can be seen in the smoke.

3. Nathanael West

Day of the Locust

In his emblematic early-LA novel Day of the Locust (1939), a sensitive young painter by the name of Tod Hockett comes to Hollywood, fresh from Yale, for an easy-money gig in set and costume design.

To escape the place, he sets himself to painting a grand opus (or to thinking about painting a grand opus) called “The Burning of Los Angeles”:

Across the top, parallel with the frame, he had drawn the burning city, a great bonfire of architectural styles… [S]pilling into the middle foreground, came the mob carrying baseball bats and torches. For the faces of its members, he was using the innumerable sketches he had made of the people who came to California to die; the cultists of all sorts, economic as well as religious, the wave, airplane and funeral preview watchers—all those poor devils who can only be stirred by the promise of miracles and then only to violence…

Watch John Schlesinger’s way-over-the-top interpretation here, from 1975, starring Donald Sutherland and Burgess Meredith.

4. John McPhee

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief) was in LA last week. For her, the visuals of the fire “underscored the essential absurdity of Los Angeles—a city of far too many people, perched on wobbly geology, without water, and perfectly flammable.”

She reminded us to re-read McPhee, from The Control of Nature (also online at newyorker.com), on the ongoing battle between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains, and on the propensity of (and need for) the native vegetation to combust:

High or low—hard, soft, or mixed—all chaparral has in common an always developing, relentlessly intensifying, vital necessity to burst into flame. In a sense, chaparral consumes fire no less than fire consumes chaparral. Fire nourishes and rejuvenates the plants. There are seeds that fall into the soil, stay there indefinitely, and will not germinate except in the aftermath of fire. There are basal buds that sprout only after fire. Droughts are so long, rains so brief, that dead bits of wood and leaves scarcely decay. Instead, they accumulate, thicken, until the plant community is all but strangling in its own duff. The nutrients in the dead material are being withheld from the soil. When fire comes, it puts the nutrients back in the ground.

According to the Forest Service, the “fuels” in this part of the San Gabriels had “not experienced any significant large fire activity in the past 40 years.” It was high time. And so it goes:

Hundreds of acres can be burned clean in minutes. In thick black smoke there is wild orange flame, rising through the canyons like explosion crowns. The canyons serve as chimneys, and in minutes whole mountains are aflame, resembling volcanoes, emitting high columns of fire and smoke. The smoke can rise twenty thousand feet. A force of two thousand people may fight the fire, plus dozens of machines, including squadrons in the air. But Santa Ana firestorms are so violent that they are really beyond all effort at control. From the edge of the city upward, sixteen miles of mountain front have burned to the ridgeline in a single day.

5. Mike Davis

Ecology of Fear

One of the most thorough (and polemical) treatments of the relationship between fire and the city comes in Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1998). Davis traces the ancient Tong Va practice of intentional seasonal burning—now considered by most experts to be the most effective way to mitigate the potentially disastrous effects of wildland fire—to a situation today in which such an approach proves impossible.

Local fire agencies are hamstrung by the potential liability, while homeowners associations throughout the firebelt finger the trigger of litigation.

Once again, politicians and the media have allowed the essential landuse issue—the rampant, uncontrolled proliferation of firebelt suburbs—to be camouflaged in a neutral discourse about natural hazards and public safety. But ’safety’ for the Malibu and Laguna coasts as well as hundreds of other luxury enclaves and gated hilltop suburbs is becoming one of the state’s major social expenditures, although—unlike welfare or immigration—it is almost never debated in terms of trade-offs or alternatives. The $100 million cost of mobilizing 15,000 firefighters during Halloween week 1993 may be an increasingly common entry in the public ledger. Needless to say, there is no comparable investment in the fire, toxic, or earthquake safety of inner-city communities. Instead, as in so many things, we tolerate two systems of hazard prevention, separate and unequal.

The battle against the Station Fire alone has, as of this writing, cost upwards of $80 million. In a state that is now famously on the threshold of complete financial collapse. And so it goes: the fires burn on. The city edges back a bit to watch the spectacle.

Then one day, perhaps, the rain will come, and the debris slides. Seeds will germinate. Across the slopes and in the canyons will spring new manzanita and chamisa, buckwheat, burroweed and Scotch broom. Wild mustard will grow taller than a man, dry up in the wind and then burn again.

Epilogue

On September 30, 2009, the Forest Service initiated an interagency review of the Station Fire, summarizing the basic stats as follows: “The Station Fire exhibited unusually extreme fire behavior for southern California and involved one of the largest initial attack efforts ever undertaken. To date, the suppression cost of the Station Fire is $93 million and at its peak, 5,244 firefighters were assigned. The Station Fire burned 160,577 acres, destroyed 89 structures and killed two LA County firefighters.”

Feature photo by williamnyk. Photo above by *Sally M.*

Editor’s Note: Hal Amen and Jennifer Price contributed to this article.

A new year offers change and fresh starts. We dream of ourselves debt free, thin, and surrounded by love and happiness in just 365 days.

But what resolutions should a traveler make? Although travelers are pretty good at keeping adventure in their lives, having concrete and specific goals can help expand horizons even more, so here are some New Year’s resolutions to consider adding to your own list for 2009.

1. Research a trip you’ve never considered before.

There are so many places to visit in this wide world. Don’t limit yourself by defining travel as train-hopping between European capitals or backpacking the Southeast Asia tourist trail.

Commit to spending part of the new year in a new land. Did you know that Chile is one of the most naturally diverse countries in the world? How about signing onto a two-week guided trek through Himalayan Bhutan?

Or better yet, make tracks and find the next travel hotspot before anyone’s even heard of it.

2. Spend at least one night every month outside your hometown…

This can be a night at Grandma’s, a night in Africa, or a night in a dinky hotel room in the middle of nowhere—it’s still different and fun, so counts as travel. That’s at least 12 guaranteed trips that you know you can look forward to.

3. … But don’t forget to explore your backyard.

Try looking at your home region through the eyes of a tourist instead of a resident. What attractions have you been missing simply because they lie right under your nose? Get to know the parks, B&Bs, wilderness areas, and culture offerings within striking distance of your house, and undertake a trip without the overbearing costs and carbon footprint of transportation.

And if you’re financially strapped, remember: a bleak economy could mean once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Visit Matador Life to read about How to Break Free from the Recession and Travel the World and 8 Ways the Financial Crisis Can Improve Your Life. 7 Steps for Creating an In-Town Vacation is another useful resource.

4. Travel outside your comfort zone.

Although travelers tend to seek out adventure, our trips often keep us within our comfort zone.

This year, try to go outside that comfort zone—even if it’s just for a few nights. Go on a one-day bus trip if you usually like finding things yourself. Go somewhere by yourself if you always travel with friends or family.

Not only can you expand your destination choices, but also what you do once you get there.

Adventure sports, home stays, cultural programs like cooking classes or tango lessons …the opportunities to fill your travels with fresh experiences are endless. Chances are you’ll learn a lot about your destination while you’re at it.

You might be amazed at what you find…or you may realize that your comfort zone suits you just fine.

5. Convince a non-traveler to accompany you.

This year, instead of sending postcards home to friends and family, why not bring home with you? Make it your mission to persuade a non-traveler in your life—a stubborn sibling, an old college roommate, even a parent—to join you on your next trip. And don’t take “no” for an answer!

Nothing broadens a person’s perspective like travel, so your companion will likely thank you in the end. Not only that, but you can learn a lot from a new travel buddy yourself.

6. Use your travel to give back.

Voluntourism has been a big buzzword lately, but it’s a trend that comes with real benefits—both for the visitor and for the destination.

Photo by Dave Bezaire and Susie Havens-Bezaire

Options range from teaching children English in Sudan to protecting the eggs of sea turtles, but all types of voluntourism give travelers a unique way to experience travel and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

7. Support local concerns.

Even when you’re not volunteering, your actions in foreign lands can benefit those around you. Wherever you are, seek out companies, products, and services dedicated to giving back to the community, and avoid multinationals that are more liable to exploit local populations.

And of course, the importance of buying fair trade can’t be stressed enough.

8. Read more and watch more.

It sounds contradictory to tell travelers to read more books and watch more movies when all they want to do is hit the road. However, travelers may find reading and watching movies set in a future destination add to their adventures. Books and movies are also a great way to keep daily adventure in your life at home. Lists of possible books and movies abound.

9. Learn a language.

The average international wanderer can’t speak the tongue of the place he or she is visiting, a sad-but-true fact of travel. Just as true is the fact that your experience will be enriched immeasurably if you make an effort to do so.

Language acquisition on the road is no simple task, particularly if your time in a country is limited, so make use of the tools available to you. Online resources, language exchanges, romantic relationships, and immersion courses can help even the odds.

10. Keep track of the memories.

A common resolution is to “get organized.” For travelers, this usually means labeling pictures, putting together a scrapbook, or sending travelogues to our families.

Too often, other priorities get in the way and a few months later we’re left trying to remember the name of the medicine man we met in Bali or which church is which from our trip to Europe.

Take the time (and the money) to get the supplies you need to make this as simple and non-time-consuming as possible when you return from your trip. Then, display those memories prominently to remind yourself of the New Year’s travel resolutions you want to make next year.

Photo by Prince Heathen

11. Write about your journey.

You’ve organized your photos and made a scrapbook. How about writing about your travels? Putting thoughts down on paper (or a computer screen) can awaken new appreciation for what transpires on the road.

Worried that you don’t have the know-how to write about travel? All the tips you need to get started are found in the Traveler’s Notebook. And don’t forget to post the results on your Matador blog!

12. Slow down.

Country-hopping your way around the world seems pretty impractical in today’s economy. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t travel the globe. Just take it slower.

2009 is a perfect time to experiment with alternative styles of travel. Tour a country by bicycle, or work your way across a continent while WWOOF-ing.

Slow travel is usually cheaper than the alternative, so both your wallet and the environment will thank you.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

What are your travel resolutions for 2009? And if you’re a travel writer, are these resolutions relevant for you?

Share your thoughts below!

Feature photo by nick.butcher. Photo above by Montrasio International.

Top expat destinations are a matter of taste. Some seek the bustle and anonymity of a metropolis; others prefer a quiet life near the beach or in the mountains. Here are a few top picks for a range of international lifestyles.

Best Small City: Ljubljana, Slovenia

The days have passed when tiny Slovenia was the best value in Central Europe.

Slovenes have now exchanged the Tolar for the mighty Euro. But for expats looking for work, that also means wages are paid in the world’s dominant currency.

According to Carys Owen, veteran ESL teacher and 10-year Ljubljana resident, 15 Euros is now the average cost for an hour-long English lesson. The polyglot Slovenes have a ravenous appetite for language acquisition, so a native English speaker can still make a decent living while enjoying Ljubljana’s high quality of life.

Sometimes referred to as little Prague, Ljubljana boasts a striking integration of traditional and modernist architecture.

Photo by Scott Ingram.

The old town winds around both banks of the Ljubljanica River, where sidewalk cafés are always crowded on a sunny day. The marketplace along the river has excellent local produce and artisan products.

The expat bars, loaded with EasyJet tourists on Friday and Saturday nights, provide quiet refuge during the week to meet up with the other teachers and contractors living and working in town.

If the city isn’t enough of a draw in its own right, its location at the foot of the Julian Alps and an hour and a half drive from the Adriatic Sea means you can go skiing in the morning and sailing in the afternoon.

Best Surf and Sand: Dahab, Egypt

Photo by nick.butcher.

Dahab’s days as the sleepy fishing village of backpacker lore may be numbered as the growth of resort tourism on the Red Sea shores continues. For expats looking to stay awhile, however, this is not all bad news.

The resorts have brought increased demand for experienced scuba instructors to work some of the most spectacular dive sites in the world. But Dahab is not a resort town.

Cheap accommodation is still plentiful along the turquoise waterfront, and the slow pace of Bedouin life pervades. If the pace gets too slow, the Sinai is well positioned for excursions to Mt. Sinai, the wonders of ancient Egypt, and the rose city of Petra in Jordan.

Best Hot New City: Shanghai, China

Where to experience the next great expat city?

Those with an eye to the future might consider Shanghai. With the inexorable rise of the Chinese economy, Shanghai is a good bet to become the financial capital of the 21st century.

Shanghai’s dynamism can be seen in the layering of the futuristic skyline, colonial facades, and the teeming, gritty street life. This energy is percolating down to Moganshan Road’s gallery and warehouse studio scene, regarded as the epicenter of contemporary Chinese art.

Photo by seto_supraenergy.

The only mainland Chinese city to crack the top 100 of the Mercer livable cities index, Shanghai already provides a good mixture of affordability, opportunity, nightlife, and culture.

Unlike Buenos Aires, work is not difficult to come by in Shanghai. ESL teachers are in demand, and entrepreneurial spirits can take advantage of Shanghai’s ranking as the best place to do business in China.

Perhaps in time, Shanghai’s tapestry of contrast will inspire the next great expat novel.

Best Adrenaline High: San Gil, Colombia

Photo by Maria Alejandra

Just a few years ago, travel through Colombia’s guerilla plagued countryside to remote San Gil would have been an adventure in its own right.

With the government now firmly in control of the surrounding region, adventure seekers can seek out more conventional forms of adrenaline highs.

Fortunately, San Gil has a little of everything: three whitewater rivers for rafting, kayaking, and canoeing, rappelling, caving, bungee jumping, paragliding, and horse back riding. When time comes to slow the pace, the verdant hills around San Gil offer weeks of excellent hiking.

What distinguishes San Gil from other adventure destinations is that when people find they want to stay awhile, they do. The region is not just a draw for thrill seekers. Immaculate colonial towns nearby provide refuge for writers and painters from around the world.

Photo by Yeraze

Best Big City: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Choosing a great expat metropolis is a matter of timing.

We’ve all heard about the glories of 1920s Paris and 1930s Berlin, in large part due to the nexus of expatriate artists and writers active in those flourishing scenes.

Buenos Aires, the reigning expat metropolis, is very much the right place at the right time.

Long one of the most sophisticated and charming cities of the world, hordes of Europeans and Americans are now capitalizing on the peso collapse that has made the Argentine capital a tremendous value.

Community Connection!

For a wealth of information about living overseas, check out one of Matador’s favorite websites, Transitions Abroad.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela has been a popular pilgrimage since the Middle Ages. During the last 20 years it has experienced a huge re-awakening with tens of thousands travelling it each year. In this podcast Craig Martin offers a brief, practical guide to the Camino, covering route choice, guidebooks, packing tips, credencials, accommodation and some extra suggestions for the end of your pilgrimage. As you listen, check out the fantastic photos of the Camino by Irene Schmidt. For more background and an audio tour of the trail, listen to the author’s companion podcast, An Audio Tour of the Camino de Santiago. We’d also recommend reading up on the various Camino organisation websites: the Confraternity of St James, American Pilgrims on the Camino, and the Canadian Company of Pilgrims. While you’re visiting the Confraternity site, you should pick up a copy of their guidebook, published each January with updates on the site. Check out the traveler’s notebook on iTunes.