Photos: author So many things to miss about Mexico.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just signed my first lease in the United States in six years.

Six years.

That includes seven months trekking across South America, eating empanadas from baskets on buses and contemplating – alone and ecstatic – those wild Patagonian ranges; a stint teaching on Reunion Island in times of chikungunya, walking past the banyan trees everyday and following up morning runs with plunges into the Indian Ocean; the School of International Training teaching course in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the subsequent encounter with my future husband (a chance meeting in café Nuevo Mundo, a weekend in the mountains, and here we are four years later); a long year in Beijing trying to teach Chinese students to argue (“your own point of view! Unique! Controversial! Different from the rest!”), biking the clogged, polluted, endlessly mystifying streets and stopping for tall 5 yuan Yanjings; and the last two years, writing, back in Oaxaca with occasional ventures into the Sierra Norte or even all the way out to London.

But now, it’s back to the no-longer-so-familiar United States, and I’m terrified and thrilled. I’ll be starting the MFA Program in creative nonfiction at The University of Pittsburgh in the fall.

So this is one major development from your (sometimes) humble editor; the other is that I’m now the editor in chief of Glimpse.org, where I’m working with the Spring 2010 Glimpse Correspondents and getting the Fall 2010 Glimpse Correspondents Program going. If you haven’t applied yet, you should! You’ll get paid to work with a team of editors to develop a body of professional, published work.

Here at Abroad, meanwhile, we want your submissions! Heather Carreiro (Matador Abroad’s superstar intern) and I would love to see more stories about teaching abroad, international education programs and degrees, language learning, study and work abroad, and expat life.

In particular, we have calls for submissions out for:

Learning Experiences Around The World

How You Learned A Language

Tales From The Frontier Of Expat Life

and…

A Day In The Life Of An Expat

We also, however, welcome submissions related to any of the areas mentioned above. Please send queries or completed stories to sarah@matadornetwork.com.

In the meantime, safe travels, and a sincere thanks to all of you for being part of the community here at Matador.

Photos: author

This past weekend I took an epic road trip from Oaxaca City to a remote bay near Huatulco for the wedding of two of my best friends. I was their (unofficial) minister; Jorge was their photographer. They invited approximately fifty friends and family members down to a small beach with an open-air restaurant, a rustic bar, and a number of dreamy cabañas scattered around the hillsides.

Three kilometers of unpaved, bumpy, winding, vertiginous road led to the cabañas, the restaurant, and the glassy jade bay giving out onto the Pacific. After tottering in in an enormous, wobbly passenger van, all of us sucking up sharp breaths of air, we didn’t leave for four days. There were Bloody Mary’s, there was phosphorescent plankton, there were quiet mornings with nothing but faint pinks, greens, and oranges, there were bird songs and waves and millions of stars.

Photos: author

I had to think about sea urchins in order not to cry as my friends gave their vows and I pronounced them husband and wife.

Like all road trips, this one came complete with about 8,952 unexpected mini-adventures. Here is a glimpse at Oaxaca’s Pacific Coast by the numbers.

Bottles Of Wine Transported In Ginormous Van: 40

Bottles Of Alcohol Transported In Ginormous Van: 20

Number Of Strange Bathroom Noises Heard During The Night At Pochutla’s “Best” Hotel: 30+

Topless Old Men In Boxers Observing Morning Traffic From Rooftops In Pochutla: 1

Number of Geckos Observed In Hammock Outside Room: 10

Number of Scorpions Inside Room: 1

Bottles Of Scorpion Mezcal Consumed: 1

Fish Tortas Eaten: 4

Number of Family Members Crying During Wedding Ceremony: 3

Number of Teary Post-Vow Wedding Kisses: 3

Beers Consumed In Highly Emotional State: 4

Siestas Taken Inside Mosquito Nets: 3

Bottles Of Wine And Alcohol Loaded Into Van For Return Trip: 0

Smelly Hitchhikers From Albuquerque Picked Up En Route: 1

Miles Traveled With Smelly Hitchhiker: 20

Pesos Required To Fill Gas Tank: 700

Alternative Tiny Mountain Roads Taken To Avoid Protest Roadblocks: 2

Number Of Bulldozers Clearing Narrow Unpaved Curves On Tiny Mountain Roads While Cars Wait To Pass: 1

Times Looked Down Out Driver’s Side Window To See Massive Drop Off Cliff: 5

Number of Military Checkpoints Encountered : 2

Searches Performed : 0

Number Of Soldiers Playing Dice As Our Van Cruised By Unnoticed: 7

Roadblocks Encountered On The One Road To Oaxaca: 3

Number of Cars Driving Aimlessly Through Desert In Hopes of Finding Alternative Routes: 7

Cacti Hit While Maneuvering Van Through Roadless Desert To Avoid Roadblocks: 20+

Cows Narrowly Avoided While Maneuvering Van Through Roadless Desert To Avoid Roadblocks: 3

Topes (speed bumps) Unsuspectingly Slammed Driving Through Tiny Pueblos To Avoid Roadblocks: 5

Random Turns Made Into Blocked Streets In Bumper-To-Bumper Traffic In Oaxaca: 3

Cars Hit While Backing Up In Ginormous Van In Tiny Oaxacan Streets: 0

Charge To Rental Van For Cactus-Tope-Hitting-Offroading-Mountain Adventures, in Pesos: 0

Minutes After Arriving Home That Two Dogs Passed Out In Imperturbable Slumber: 1

Total Hours Driven On National Strike Day: 12

Total Hours Drive Normally Takes: 6

Negra Modelos Consumed In Exhausted Stupor: 4

Minutes It Took To Miss Thrill Of The Road: 5

Photo: author

I’m looking for stories about expats exploring the complicated terrain of cultural differences, attempting to come into some sort of a mutual understanding.

I’d like to hear about how you navigated the ups, downs, sudden about-faces and gradual revelations of attempting to integrate yourself into another culture. Your stories could take place in the classroom, on the street from your perspective as a man or a woman newly aware of your gender in another culture, in a restaurant or a smoky kitchen, in wellies knee-deep in the mud, in a board conference room at a meeting with inscrutable colleagues, smoking a pipe around a campfire.

The point is, give us a sense of place and a sense of movement, internal as much as external. Move us through your changing perceptions as you adapt to life abroad. Please, please, avoid the maudlin and the cliché. Avoid a pretty little realization wrapped up like a Christmas gift with no tape snaking round the edges of the gift wrap. Show us the tape: the process. What cultural assumptions have you confronted? How? Where? What cultural differences have you bumped up against, have surprised you, interested you?

Please send your submissions (under 1,200 words) to sarah@matadornetwork.

The lights will slow you down. Photo by Paul Stevenson. Feature photo by David Silverline.

Yesterday I attended a workshop by Tom Leahy, a guru in the field of adventure training. A big part of Tom’s workshop was about the importance of choice, especially for people who want to grow through an adventure travel experience.

I took some insights from Tom’s discussion of choice and control, and I want to share them with you here.

Photo by Shikeroku.

First, consider the difference between traffic lights and traffic circles (round-a-bouts).

Traffic lights, like the ones used at countless American crossroads, impose strict controls on driver behavior:

Red = Stop. Green = Go. Yellow = Caution.

Traffic circles, on the other hand, do not require drivers to stop. Instead, a driver has to make a series of complicated observations, evaluations and decisions in order to safely merge with moving traffic.

Guess which type of intersection is safer?

The traffic circle.

The traffic circle is safer because it forces drivers to stay alert and think for themselves. Drivers are not externally controlled, and retain the ability to make lots of choices.

Traffic Lights and Travelers

One lesson for travelers who seek a life-changing experience is to avoid the metaphorical traffic lights.

Photo by laverrue.

Think of a traffic light as a firm external control over your travel experience.

For example, you might have a rigid itinerary imposed by a tour company.

Or you might have overly strong expectations of how the trip will be.

By limiting your options, you’ve given up the ability to make decisions and adjustments while you travel. You can’t go with the flow, and you probably won’t make any profound discoveries along the path.

A travel experience is safer, more empowering, and more rewarding when you retain the ability to adjust on the fly, to stay another day in a place that tugs your heartstrings, to seek out and follow whatever makes you feel most connected and alive.

What’s so sad to me is that the vast majority of Westerners travel as if there were traffic lights strung up all over the world. We plan too much. We expect too much. We book cruises.

Photo from the Mekong Semester.

We trade independence for comfort and reassurance.

So, travelers, I encourage you to protect your freedoms.

Be brave. Dream big. Take control of your own experience by choosing to travel independent of expectations and rigid itineraries.

Go abroad as if the world were full of possibility.

Community Connection

At Matador, we’re inspired by individuals who travel with open minds.

Unplug your television.

Quit your day job.

And embrace the simple joys of free travel.

For last year’s Christmas thoughts from a war-torn part of Asia, check out Kachin Christmas: Finding Faith in Myanmar.

Photo: Sarah

Paletas Popeye

Everyday sometime between three and four (imprecision being an ongoing theme of life in Mexico) the Popeye’s Popsicle man comes up our street. We listen to his cry get closer and closer. The same stress is always on the same syllables – pal-let-ahhhs pop-ay-eeeeee, pa-let-ahhhhs pop-ay-eeee, like a birdsong.

We wait, shifting eagerly in our chairs, wondering how this brown, brown old man can sound this cry for hours every afternoon. Once you actually talk to him, his voice is surprisingly normal, no sign that he’s been digging into the depths of his vocal chords for so many afternoons over the years.

“Guera!” he says, “cómo está la guerita?”

“Bien!” I reply, and we talk about the dog, how big she is, about the heat, how strong it is, about whether I want una de coco and una de nuez, which I always do.

He opens the door on the small metal cart, reaches in, and produces two paletas and a few wisps of cool fog from inside the popsicle den. I hand him my peso coins and he nods, slips them in his pocket.

“Que te vaya bien,” says the popsicle man.

“Igualmente,” I respond.

Riding in the Back of Trucks

Last weekend we went to a lake outside of Oaxaca City. Jorge and I rode with Stella the dog in the back of a friend’s truck. Stella was in olfactory paradise and Jorge and I were just plain happy.

Riding in the back of a truck in Latin America is, for me, travel. That is it. Punto y ya. There is no similar traveling sensation. I get this rush and this nostalgia and this sense of contentment and I think, let’s go, I don’t care, just keep going to Ushuaia and don’t stop.

But, we stopped, and we picnicked and swam and then it started pouring rain. So we headed into a little restaurant on the side of the lake with big windows, ordered beers and peanuts, and watched the rain pour down over the pines on the mountains and into the lake.

I thought about how many layers there are to traveling. I live in Oaxaca, but it is so familiar now that it’s hard to feel the same jolt of awareness and vivid sense of place one does in traveling. Yet it still feels like travel, in subtler ways.

The Paletas Popeye man, for example, is a layer of traveling, a traveling-in-the-everyday. The walk I take with the dog every evening is a layer of traveling, perhaps the most satisfying part, where the familiar meets the foreign, allowing for two simultaneous types of appreciation – that of the outsider, and that of someone who belongs.

The lakeside beer in the rain is yet another layer, the thrill of traveling and of being outside of something. Obligation? Routine? Daily life? Givens? As much as I dread the connotations of the word, this layer of travel has overtones of escape. Escape in the best sense – escape from monotony or drudgery or accepted notions or fixed ways of seeing and being.

So many layers. Maybe this happens once travel becomes, inadvertently or purposefully, the paradigm by which you live your life.

And then we came back to the city, the air chilly and the sky already clearing for one of those twilights so blue it hurts. Back to another layer of travel.

This is what I’ve been up to in Oaxaca as of late.

And you, readers?

I’d love to know what content you have enjoyed recently here at Abroad, and what you’d rather see less of. What do you want to get out of this site? What sorts of information would you like to see here? What discussions would you like to be having here? Please share your ideas and opinions in the comments below. I want this site to be a reflection of the thoughts, needs, and questions of the Matador community.

Photos: Where There Be Dragons

1. The group split up into two vehicles to attempt the rough track to our home-stay in an Yi village near Lashihai. I was riding shotgun in a beat-up van that skidded and fish-tailed up the mountain. The van door fell off twice and the students got out and pushed about a dozen times before the driver gave up and turned around.

We hiked over the pass and saw the headwaters of the Yangtze River through rising rainclouds in the valley below. Heading down to the village, I got a scratchy call on my cell – the other vehicle, a tractor, had also turned around before the pass, and the group needed help with the bags.

I sent my group of students back up the hill to meet the others. The rain came. I sheltered in a hollow tree. Lightning flashed.

Shivering and alone inside a tree somewhere on a mountain in China, I thought – “So this is my job?”

2. Down in the Yi village we ate roasted potatoes for breakfast, pulled from the cooking fire coals.

3. Sure, this job is stressful. Last week a student went into shock crossing a pass near the Tibetan border. My co-instructor, Stew Motta, brought him down with the help of another student. Stew made the call to go to a hospital in town, so I turned back to meet up with the student who had helped with the evacuation.

By the time I reached the trailhead it is was late in the afternoon. We still had a 5 hour hike up over the pass. Short on time, I bargained with mule drivers for a ride up trail. They wanted 185 kwai. I was sweaty, frustrated, worried – and it wasn’t until halfway up the trail, on the back of a mule, passing prayer flags at 11,000 feet that I started to remember where I was.

4. Check out the view from the lodge we hiked into, looking up the valley to 6,740 meter high Kawa Karpo, a sacred mountain that’s never been summited.

5. And now, back in Kunming, we’re getting set to go south into Laos. You can see more photos and read posts by Mekong Semester students on the Yak Yak Board.

Feature Photo: drunkprincessPhoto: dhilung

Ta da! Tim and I are psyched to announce the arrival of a regular Friday column called….

“Do It Yourself Study Abroad: Learning Experiences Around the World.”

The column will feature a new learning experience each week from a different part of the globe.

We want to highlight unique, local skills. We’re not so interested in how to study Spanish in Mexico, but we’d love to know how you learned to crush, roll, and fold the maize to make tortillas. And we don’t really need to know which university you chose for a study abroad semester in France, but we’d be into hearing about how you learned to play boules in Marseilles.

We’re interested in the skills that form the backbone of cultures, the learning experiences that’ve been passed down from generation to generation and are perhaps at risk of being lost as societies undergo rapid changes.

Tell us about the flower-arranging class you took in Japan or how you learned to conduct an Ethiopian coffee ceremony in Addis Ababa. Your experience doesn’t have to be a formal course attached to an institution, but it should be something other travelers can search out and replicate.

Remember to focus your story on the learning experience and not on explaining how to do something. Don’t tell us where to put our fingers in order to play the Chinese harp. Instead, tell us where and why you learned how to play it, and explain why other travelers should learn it, too.

Please send 300-800 word submissions in the body of an email with “Learning Experiences” in the subject line to Sarah(at)matadornetwork.com or Tim(at)matadornetwork.com. Don’t forget to include your full name, your Matador profile URL, and any photos and links related to your experience.

Show us what you’ve learned, readers! We can’t wait to kick off this new venture at Abroad.

Your editors,

Tim and Sarah

Feature Photo: Verity Cridland Photo: Hamed Masoumi

The three, identified as Sarah Shourd, Joshua Fattal, and Shane Bauer, have not been heard from since.

In the latest update, Iranian officials have announced that the government is interrogating the three and deciding whether to try them as spies. American officials are attempting to work through Swiss ties (the Swiss have represented the U.S in Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis) to obtain further information and negotiate the release of the travelers.

The incident has inspired a vitriolic and disturbing backlash against the three Americans, and revealed a common way of thinking in the U.S about travel and travelers.

Take these comments on the website of ABC News, for example:

“Let them stew over there for a bit. For to be so educated (as it appears) these children certainly are naïve and STUPID!”

“Dude, the GPS say’s were in Iran.
Hey, lets go ‘break bread’ with the Iranians, we’ll show’em, Americans are goooood, it’s just our government that’s baaaaad…C’mon let’s do it ….we’ll be hero’s for world peace.”

“I hope they spend a couple of years in an Iranian prison thinking about their self-centered stupidity. And, when they get out, I hope the U.S government jails them for another couple of years. Idiots!”

“Ere is a real example of people acting stupidly, and now they ask us for help because of their stupid actions. I say if you want to vacation in the mountains of Iraq, summer in Afghanistan, or frolic in the waters off Somalia north coast then you should do it knowing (because the state department tells us so) that if your picked up on your own—stupid.”

“…they walk around with this dewey-eyed dream of the world…”

“…stupid aspiring writers…”

There are two themes here. One is that travel (outside of the U.S and perhaps Western Europe) is dangerous, reckless, and stupid. The other is that only starry-eyed, pot-smoking hippie backpackers are dumb enough to try it, and they get what they deserve.

One of the striking things I’ve noticed in comments on articles about the hikers is the way people are seething with contempt about the nerve of these “backpackers” to go “on vacation” in Iraq. The mainstream news media runs with this image and perpetuates it, etching out an image of the three as clueless, trust fund hippies singing camp songs round the fire on the Iraq-Iran border.

In actuality, the three were established journalists and experienced travelers, with bylines in the San Francisco Chronicle, the L.A Times, New American Media, The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor, Transitions Abroad and Brave New Traveler. Shane Bauer’s story on Iraqi Special Forces took him to Baghdad, where he did extensive research on the political infrastructure behind the special forces and interviewed Iraqi civilians, Iraqi military officers, and American military officers. He speaks fluent Arabic and has lived for years in the Middle East.

Sarah Shourd’s stories on Yemen and Israel also show an insight and skill as a journalist and a shrewdness for travel which betray the convenient idea that she’s a study abroad ingenue with a misguided sense of adventure. She also has lived and traveled for years in the Middle East and was studying Arabic in Damascus.

Yet most Americans would prefer to view them in line with a rhetoric that says, “Don’t go overseas. The world wants to kill America and America is damn smart to just stay at home and let the State Department deal with it.” Thinking this way maintains the neat dichotomy between hippie liberal backpackers who sympathize with those hostile foreign nations and clued-in Americans who understand that in the “real world” these nations all detest us.

The coverage of this story is a direct reflection of the way the U.S news media portrays travel to anywhere that isn’t Tuscany or Disney World: dangerous and inherently stupid, seeing as the rest of the world hates Americans and wants to attack them out of envy and hatred.

Perhaps this is why so few Americans travel and why so many Americans returning home from a trip to Latin America or Africa or the Middle East will be confronted with gasps and wonderment over how they survived.

Because the media doesn’t like to tell the stories of travelers who’ve come back not only in one piece but actually inspired and optimistic, the disaster stories will always reaffirm the same point about travel being for the green young idealist who has yet to get slapped by the “real world.”

And sure, there will always be a certain degree of naïvete and ignorance involved in travel: that’s part of what makes it so difficult and so rewarding. How can a person not be naïve in some respect visiting a different culture and trying to figure it out from square one?

But as most readers of this website could tell you, traveling is something you learn in the same way you learn to teach or to cook. It’s complicated and physically and emotionally trying, and this is part of what makes it addictive, particularly for challenge-oriented people. And oftentimes, the more people travel, the more willing they are to take on bigger and bigger challenges, and the less willing they are to think of travel the way the mainstream media and the State Department paint it.

Therefore, they take risks. And these risks are the basis of some of the most successful reporting and travel writing, the kinds of stories that crack open our awareness of and compassion for life in a particular place.

Photo: Desmond Kavanagh

This is what Sarah Shourd did with her articles on Yemen and Israel; she took risks and put herself in uncomfortable, unfamiliar situations and came out with stories that stick with the reader long after he/she has finished the last sentence. I can still imagine what it must’ve felt like to sit in prayer with so many covered women in Yemen, and I can feel her experience gnawing at my own given ideas about that country.

Yet if Sarah Shourd had been kidnapped in Yemen, I wonder how many people who read her story and enjoyed it would instead be saying, “How stupid!”

It is not only Americans glued to Fox News and spiteful of travel who scorn these travelers. There is also a vibe within the travel community that says, “well, you should’ve known better, too bad.” Whether that is true or not, where is the empathy for travelers when they need it?

Are we willing to marvel over travelers’ experiences when they get home, and dream about how we would’ve liked to have gone and done what they did, and look through the windows they open for us, but not to rally around them when they get into trouble?

This is not to say that travelers never make mistakes or get careless or cocky. This could have been what happened to these three hiking around the border; we still don’t know. There is plenty of potential back and forth about the logistics of their plan: North Kurdistan is a resort area and a relatively safe area for travelers, not the “war zone” people think it is. Other tourists have gone there in the past several years with no problem. The three spoke the local language and had traveled extensively in the region, which would have prepared them for travel in such a volatile area. Then again, one could argue that their experience should have taught them not to get so close to the border.

We don’t know. Traveling is always a series of decisions and oftentimes the travel that teaches the most, and leads to the best and most piercing writing, is a series of calculated risks.

So instead of degrading and condescending to these travelers, maybe we should show some compassion. After all, how many times have you been in a dicey spot on the road, how many times could someone have said to you days or weeks after a disaster, “what were you thinking?”

This is not to diminish the gravity of this situation, or to glorify their travels, or to say, “no big deal, so they made a mistake.” Rather, it’s to counter this widespread way of thinking that sees travelers as clueless, innocent idealists, and travel as an inherently reckless and futile behavior.

This story is more complicated than such straightforward conclusions, and merely writing it off as an example of naivete meets danger not only hypocritically insults these travelers when they most need support, but also degrades the act of travel overall and reduces it to simple formulas of safe vs. dangerous, smart vs. stupid, naive vs. experienced.

Community Connection

To read travelogues from Iraq and Iran, check out this post by Matador editor Tim Patterson.

Photo by Damon Garrett

It’s July 4th.

I’ve got a red hot cup a coffee in my hand, and I’m stuffing socks in a backpack, getting ready to race out the door for a 7 a.m. slow train to Kyoto.

July 4th has been a bizarre holiday for me in the past five years—celebrated anywhere but “home,” if we define home in terms of birthplace.

It has reinforced that strange connection to Americans I feel when abroad, and the distance I sometimes feel from them when I’m at home. One of those traveling paradoxes I just can’t put my finger on?

In any case, today, I’ll celebrate it at a friend’s house in Kobe, with one fellow American, a Canadian, an Australian, several bottles of wine, and the dangerous, looming potential for karaoke.

And you?

Thanks for keeping up with us here at Abroad; we love your comments and your insight. Happy July 4th!

I might not be editing BNT these days, and I’m not getting naked for the video this time around, but Ian and Christine are turning out fantastic articles, so if you haven’t subscribed to BNT yet, be sure to help them reach the goal!

Help BNT hit 4000 subscribers!

After all, it’s not every day you get to see a man as pale as Ian run naked down a beach…..

http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/subscribe/

Have you checked out the new Matador Network?

Feature Photo: L’osservatore Photo: Sir Sabbhat

“We’re more isolated from the world than ever,” wrote my Mexican partner in an email this morning. “Over 300 people were shut off inside a hotel in Hong Kong just for being in contact with a Mexican, and Japan has suspended the visa exemption for Mexicans. This is going to make travel even harder for us.”

My first response was a feeling of total deflation. As if it weren’t hard enough to coordinate visas and bureaucracy and paperwork for him whenever we travel somewhere, now there’s the added discrimination of swine flu paranoia.

I went on my morning mission of finding swine flu updates, article after article presenting what seemed to be hopeful news – “epidemic in decline”, “the critical moment has passed” – only to immediately clarify that that the danger is more imminent than ever and one should stay tuned to all future updates in a state of panic and high alert.

Then the feeling of deflation turned to anger and defiance. I’ve been in contact with my Mexican friends ever since the swine flu news broke, and none of them have ever said anything along the lines of:

“You don’t know who could be carrying this plague so it is best to just keep behind closed doors as much as possible.”

Or “It’s like we’re in a strange zombie movie or something” (conveniently said while “hurriedly stocking up on groceries.”)

My friends’ comments have been more fearful of the economic, political, and personal impacts that the swine flu panic will have on their lives and the lives of the people they love. Are they staying inside? Wearing masks? Yes. Are they paranoid and panicked and talking about plague and zombies? No. And neither is anyone they know.

To top it all off, a good friend of mine here in Japan works for the WHO and could not express enough scorn for the way the epidemic is being addressed.

“A pandemic simply means that the flu spreads to other places,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s some sort of plague that will wipe out the planet.”

Sensationalism is nothing new, and is in fact pretty much the standard, in the global media. But I’ve been particularly irritated by it this time since it hits so close to home.

And yet towards the end of the day, after a long back-and-forth with friends in Mexico, my frustration calmed and I came to thinking that travel abroad is more important than ever in moments like this. I’d felt a rising panic, reading reports from Britain to Japan about swine flu, and then I remembered that wait, I’ve lived in Mexico, many people I love are in Mexico, and most of what they’re saying doesn’t collate with any of these frenzied stories.

And I thought about how much of the time that happens to travelers. How often do we read a story written in the New York Times or the Telegraph or any newspaper anywhere and think, “Hey, that has nothing to do with what I’ve seen and felt and experienced in a place?”

Which is why, instead of getting swept up in paranoia and letting the media enjoy a global fear spree, maybe travelers can step back and use this moment to appreciate the fact that they have the most important kind of information: local, place-based, human information. And if people continue to travel, and continue to rely on what they see and hear and understand through traveling, than perhaps we won’t be so dependent on the alarmist discourses telling us to panic and close our doors.

Ok. That’s all for today. I’m signing off now to go fight the zombies for more canned goods.

UPDATE: Swine flu might be overblown, but there are other health issues that don’t get enough attention in the mass media. Read “What Should Worry You More Than Swine Flu” at Matador Change to get informed.

Once in a while, though, the high-school baseball team would be practicing at the same time, on the full-size field across the lot, and I’d be reminded that I still had a lot of growing up to do.

Writing and editing for Matador Abroad in 2009 is just as big a thrill as pitching for the Mets was back in 4th grade. This independent online travel community is growing fast, and I’ve got no doubt that we’ll make the big leagues soon.

But sometimes I look over the fence, to where the big kids practice, and I remember that Matador Abroad has a lot of catching up to do. Since 1977 Transitions Abroad has been the leading resource for global citizens, vagabonds and every dreamer who stares for hours at world maps, imagining possibilities.

It’s my dream to build Matador Abroad into a resource that’s just as empowering and inspiring as Transitions Abroad has been for so many people. After another 32 years, I hope both websites will still be going strong.

Check out the archives of travel resources at Transitions Abroad. It’s a treasure trove of articles, links and advice. If you like what you see, give a shout-out to Gregory Hubbs, the editor and publisher of Transitions Abroad.

You can find his profile right here on Matador.

Would you walk down the street topless in Brisbane or Stockholm or Boston?

Sorry, don’t mean to offend you. It’s just that the way you’re dressed is totally inappropriate for this place. Look around at the local women – do you see any bare shoulders?

No, don’t point to the bar down the street. Those women are prostitutes.

The fact is, wearing skimpy clothes in Southeast Asia makes YOU look like a prostitute. Sure, the locals are used to backpacker fashion by now, and if you stick to the banana pancake trail, you won’t get more than a few uncomfortably long looks.

Not impressed by backpacker fashion.
Photo by Akuppa

But if you venture outside the tourist zones and – gasp – actually attempt to interact with local people on more than the most superficial level, your bare skin will be totally offensive. You can get around the language barrier to make genuine connections, but flouting cultural norms separates you from the locals as effectively as razor wire.

Show A Little Respect

OK, OK. You’re on holiday. You’re here to have fun, try some new food and maybe hook up with that dreamy English guy who you met tubing in Vang Vieng. You’re not in Laos to be some sort of freelance ambassador.

But, just for a moment, imagine what your grandparents would say if rich, rowdy, foreigners – perhaps Russians, or Africans, or Eskimos – started pouring into your hometown wearing nothing but body paint, leather boots and thongs. Poor Grandma would wonder what the world was coming to, wouldn’t she.

So show a little respect. Buy a sarong in the local market, put away your tube-tops and for Buddha’s sake, please cover up if you visit a temple.

Hippie Bombs

Photo by JonRawlinson

Backpacker guys, you’re not off the hook. When was the last time you showered? Did you use soap?

Dreads and stubble might show off how far-out you’ve gone on your travels, but in Southeast Asia personal hygiene is of utmost importance. Be neat. Be clean. Wash your hair.

America might not be dropping cluster bombs on Southeast Asia anymore, but hippie-bombs are also disruptive to local culture. Take care of your appearance, and you’ll get a lot more out of your travels.

What say you, readers? Am I too harsh on tube-tops? Please leave a comment below.

Other Matador articles to check out include Has Travel Chanel Sunk To A New Low With Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches? and the classic Budget Travelers Are Hippie Scum.

This happened to me this week. My parents came down to Oaxaca for a visit and I was smacked into seeing the city anew again. I saw bromeliads in the Sierra Norte and broken turquoise balconies on the second floor of crumbling buildings.

Photo: Sarah

The flavors of tortillas jumped out at me again and I remembered just how good the cappuccinos at café Nuevo Mundo are, and how good it feels to sit for hours there under a sky bluer than blue. I also remembered, seeing my family see, feel, and process the city, just how overwhelming and transformative travel can be.

Photo: Sarah

And then I found out that I’m going to Japan. I’ve been offered a three-month position training teachers in Nagoya. So right on the tail of a big family visit, still swept up in all the renewed enthusiasm for Mexico, I got bit again—hard—by the travel bug.

I can’t wait to get back to Asia and to see Japan. I’d be forever grateful if you, readers, would offer your experiences with Japan and Japanese culture. Anyone taught there? Lived there? Traveled there? Advice? Insight? Sound off below!

Taking a cooking class can be a fantastic way to immerse yourself in the local culture and meet other travelers. The bonus? You don’t have to worry about shopping for ingredients or doing the dishes, and even if you don’t make a dish perfectly, there will be plenty to eat!

Classes for novices are offered in many countries all over the world, and they are usually pretty affordable. Here are seven reasons why you should take advantage of a cooking class during your travels:

1. You’ll try some of the best food the region has to offer.

Photo by WordRidden

Maybe you’ve seen the locals eating a delicious-looking dish, but you can’t figure out what’s in it or how to order it.

Why not learn how to make it yourself?

Most classes will show how to make several local specialties, some of which may be difficult to find in restaurants. There might be plenty of familiar food to eat wherever your travels take you, but wouldn’t you rather explore authentic regional cuisine?

A cooking class will highlight some of the best local dishes.. Part of the class might involve a trip to a local market or specialty food store off the beaten path, introducing you to some edible delights you never knew existed.

2. It’s great chance to ask questions only a local can answer.

Your instructor will probably a native of the area, or at least know it very well. Take advantage of his or her knowledge, food-related and beyond. He or she can answer questions about the language, where to find a great cup of coffee, and which restaurants are hidden gems, not to mention which markets or other sites you should check out.

Photo by WordRidden

3. It’s a perfect opportunity to meet other travelers.

While you’re chopping vegetables or waiting for water to boil, there’s plenty of time to chat with your classmates. You may be able to pick up some great tips on where to go next, or have a captive audience for some of your own stories.

4. You don’t have to worry about doing the dishes.

Photo by WordRidden

One of the perks of traveling is that you don’t have to do many chores, and the cooking class will be no exception! Classes give you all the fun of cooking, but the clean-up is left in the hands of someone else.

5. You get good food and plenty of it.

Generally you’ll be making quite a few dishes — enough for a meal plus leftovers. Share the food with your friends or take it back to your room for a snack! You definitely won’t go hungry. You’ll be able to sample quite a few dishes in one sitting so you won’t waste money at a restaurant ordering something you don’t like.

6. A cooking class leaves you with a unique souvenir.

After you return home, you’ll still have the recipes from your class. It may be tough to convince your friends to sit through your four hour slide show of Italy, but if you can offer them pizza like they make in Naples, you’ll probably have a few takers.

Plus, recipes can be made and shared for years to come, and they don’t take up any space. T-shirts and trinkets are nice, but recreating the amazing mole you had in Oaxaca will bring back fond memories of you trip, and won’t collect dust on a shelf in your apartment.

7. The atmosphere is mellow and fun.

Unless you’re at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, most cooking classes have a relaxed atmosphere with no pressure, so even if your culinary skill doesn’t extend past microwaving a cup of noodles, you will find success in your class, and who knows! You may find a new passion for the culinary arts!

Recommended cooking classes in Asia and Europe:

Asia

May Kaidees: A vegetarian restaurant with branches in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand. They offer vegetarian cooking classes 7 days a week and include a market tour, lunch, and recipe booklet.

Old Hanoi: A popular restaurant in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam that offers half-day cooking classes. You’ll get a market tour, prepare four different dishes, and eat what you made.

Cookery Magic: Located in an old house on Palau Ubin, Singapore, this class includes transportation to the island by boat, a walk through the jungle, cooking instruction, and lunch for $110.

You Sabai: A rustic Thai vegetarian cooking school on the edge of a National Park north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Many organic ingredients are grown next door at Pun Pun Farm.

Europe

Marguerite’s Elegant Home Cooking: If you’re in Paris and want an introduction to cooking French food, Marguerite will take you to a market and show you how too cook a simple menu. The class finishes with lunch.

Cook and Taste: Located in the heart of Barcelona, classes last half a day and include a market visit, lunch, wine, and a recipe booklet. Lessons are taught in English, Spanish, or French.

InTavola: This cooking school in Florence, Italy, offers courses ranging from beginner to professional level, including classes that focus pasta-making, dinner, lunch, or cooking with a market visit.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Food is a force for creating authentic connections with others as well as lasting memories of your travels. Even if you don’t take a cooking class, you can learn to eat like a local. If you’re unsure about local culinary customs, check out one of our favorite blogs from a community member who’s decoded it all for you… at least in Japan.

Are you thinking of abandoning the American Titanic for a lifeboat abroad, traveling overseas to spend a year or two teaching English in Japan, blogging from Buenos Aires or just bumming around Laos on $5 per day? Here’s something to consider before you take the plunge.

Apart from his well-intentioned and misguided attempts to sustain the unsustainable U.S. economy, President Obama has sent two strong messages in his short time in office. Both of these messages have implications for people like me, who struggle to balance extended overseas travel with the desire for a more stable lifestyle that is grounded in one community.

Americans Welcome!

The first message, directed to the global community, is that the Bush era of bellicose foreign policy is over. Obama is determined to usher in a new era of international cooperation, and has even reached out to Iran.

These diplomatic overtures and the change of tone in Washington mean one thing for travelers: After 8 long, shameful years, it’s once again OK to be an American abroad. Even in places like Iran, strangers are greeting Americans with hospitality. Job opportunities are opening overseas, and even the State Department is hiring. Vibrant countries with low costs of living look like great harbors to weather the economic storm.

What an opportunity for American travelers! But don’t buy that one-way ticket to Tehran just yet…

Better To Put Down Roots?

The second message from the new administration suggests this may be a time to get grounded. An organic vegetable garden is being planted on the South Lawn of the White House.

The symbolic gesture of the White House vegetable garden demonstrates the importance of getting back to basics, renewing our connection to the Earth and nurturing healthy, local and self-sufficient economies.

No matter how you break it down, jetting off to another continent in search of work or adventure is not a sustainable activity. Shouldn’t we learn to grow our own potatoes instead of sampling an international buffet? Shouldn’t the recession be a time for reflection?

What say you, readers? Please leave a comment below.

Your editor leaping into a new era at Matador (Photo: Jorge Santiago)

I spent the past weekend in the back of a truck, under a pile of sleeping bags pinned down with coconuts, traveling across Mexico’s Sierra Sur to get to the beach. It was a fitting intro to my new position here at the Matador Network.

Matador is taking a new direction, with a different layout and site design. Each site will have a unique voice and emphasis within the wider Matador vision. I’m thrilled to be bringing this new voice to Abroad along with the intrepid Tim Patterson (trekker of Cambodian jungles, fisher of Patagonian trout, leader of youth into the vast unknown, explorer of the wild rural dreams of countries round the world).

Tim is ready for anything

We’ll be mixing up our longer pieces with short, juicy posts for you to devour wherever you are in the world.

We want to get your feedback, readers, and to develop a thriving community here on Abroad. Roam around and let us know what you think of the new site.

Regale us with your experiences on the contributers page, and if you’re psyched about where Abroad is going, sign up for a subscription to Matador.

Welcome to the new version of Abroad!