One World is Enough

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

- Henry Miller

I suspect for some of you the words live large probably conjures up McMansions, $800 shoes, lavish yachts and all sorts of other self-indulgent toys and behavior that continue to be celebrated in wretched excess by mainstream media. I think we’re long overdue for a new travel-centric definition of what it means to live large. A definition that embraces sustainability, responsibility and stewardship of our planet.

To me, living large (and treading lightly!) means getting out of my comfort zone to deeply appreciate myself and my fellow human beings, and to preserve the richly vibrant flora and fauna that make up our wondrous and fragile planet. It is precisely this belief—along with my love of connecting and inspiring enlightened travelers with the companies and destinations that offer adventure & experiential travel both close to home and to the far corners of the globe—that inspired me to start this blog.

As I wrote this, I thought of the times when I have felt myself most truly alive. When I was humbled, awed, challenged and ultimately transformed. And sure enough, it was when I was definitely out there and often out of my comfort zone…or when I was surprised and delighted by an experience that was better (or very different) than I had expected. Simply put, I came home different…and definitely the better for it.

I think of snorkeling in Baja when without warning an armada of rays came leaping above us, literally right next to us, and swimming below us. After the initial wave of a few dozen, I realized I had a huge grin on my face and I like to think the rays might have been smiling and laughing as well. Whatever, they sure seemed to be having fun.

I think of being in Moroccan desert late at night and looking at the reflections of my fellow travelers lit by lanterns as they danced around the inside of the dining tent, led by our local guides with their quick smiles and infectious enthusiasm. And I remember the wizened old Berber man who led the support camels from camp site to camp site…how kind he was and the tears that were in his (and my) eyes when he bid us goodbye. We didn’t speak Berber and he didn’t speak English, but honestly, words were unnecessary.

I think of the infants and children I saw at the Mother Teresa orphanage in Kolkata who surely would have otherwise perished without the loving care they received from the staff. Of how our donation of some cash and the pooled leftovers of our gourmet box lunches from our 5-star hotel seemed so very small yet meant so much to the grateful staff. And I can’t erase the searing memory of the stench of heaping mounds of garbage that lay in piles on the streets just outside the facility. The contrasts of India are undeniably jarring. But I have never seen or felt the human spirit to be as alive as I did in India.

Finally, I think of being completely awestruck as I witnessed a mother humpback and her baby swim right up to and directly underneath our skiff in the icy waters off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula; the mother whale’s tail was nearly the size of our skiff and one flick could have easily sent us into the frigid water. Our expedition leader thought the mother was teaching the baby to navigate and hunt; I felt nature had just given me one of the most powerful lessons in faith I’ve ever experienced.

A friend of mine has described adventure travel as medicine that cures us of alienation, frees us from the bondage of self-obsession and helps us to experience the whole and vibrant world. As I’m sure you’d agree, there are very few other types of travel that offer you the opportunity to both receive and give such an incredible and transformative gift. This is truly living large, version 2.0.

I hope this will inspire your imagination and you’ll begin dreaming about where your next adventure vacation will take you. In my upcoming posts I’ll be writing about trends, people, places, activities and more to help you make your dream a reality. Besides their unmistakable passion for what they do, the people, companies and destinations I’ll feature also have something else in common – they are all members of the Adventure Travel Trade Association. The mission of the ATTA is to raise the profile of adventure travel in the world travel market and provide a unifying voice for the industry in innovating and disseminating environmentally and culturally sensitive practices.

In the spirit of what really matters and each of us doing our part to restore balance and heal our planet, I wanted to share with you a program called The Footprints Network which aggregates thousands of consumer micro donations made while conducting online transactions in order to help fund community development projects that fight poverty worldwide.

The global initiative was organized in 2004 by WorldNomads.com a company that is setting the travel services industry bar for corporate social responsibility. As of this writing, 316,647 people have helped raise $821,580 for 54 projects around the world. Each individual contribution ranges from $1 to $5, and helps in the fight to alleviate crushing poverty and the health, social and environmental ills that accompany it which today affects over two billion people that live on less than $2 a day. Projects include eyesight restoration, farming, education, clean water, sanitation and other essentials. Most of the projects The Footprints Network supports are in developing countries, which yield the greatest social return on investment.

WorldNomads.com supports all administrative costs of the program so 100 percent of donations go directly to the projects. The Footprints Network is an alliance of e-commerce companies and their customers plus project partners. For travel services, charitable contributions and more information please visit WorldNomads.com.

Until next time, dream big and live large. I’d love to hear from you with your comments, questions and suggestions: mark@livinglarge.travel.

About the author: Proof that following your passion is always a good road to travel, Mark has been blessed to work for some of the world’s best travel & hospitality companies including Mountain Travel Sobek, Virtuoso, TCS Expeditions and Kimpton Hotels. As the founder of Solaia Consulting he now offers marketing, branding, operations and general management expertise to his clients. He resides in Seattle with his wife, two boys and their Bernese Mountain Dog.

Kingo’s Ultimate Survival is Pinned on Sustainable Tourism

By Leslie Nevison, Director, Mama Tembo Tours

Kingo, a 300 pound (140 kilogram) Western lowland gorilla silverback, and his six wives and children, live in the protected rainforest of Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the northern Republic of Congo near its border with the Central African Republic. Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) began habituating Kingo fifteen years ago. At the time, gorilla research had been restricted to Rwanda’s and Uganda’s mountain gorillas, and very little was known about lowland gorilla behavior in the wild.

Compared to their mountain kin, lowland gorillas occupy remote and swampy forests and are hard to find. Wary by nature, they disappear in an instant at the first hint of danger. As unhindered observation is crucial to any wildlife study, habituation is a necessary scientific tool. With Kingo, habituation took ten years. Yet, creating this bond of trust with Kingo leaves him vulnerable to a human encroacher with violent intentions.

Just outside of Kingo’s Kingdom, a mere 16 square kilometer forested triangle, the surrounding forests are crisscrossed with logging roads. Logging, unless practiced responsibly, results in habitat loss. Logging roads also allow access to commercial poachers. Gorilla meat is highly prized in Central Africa in the misguided belief that it brings status and power. On a less critical note, any forest bush meat – gorilla, chimpanzee, mangabey, and antelope – is the means for growing human populations living on the shrinking boundaries of Central Africa’s forests to subsist.

Diseases such as ebola, habitat loss, and the bush meat trade are the leading threats to the remaining numbers of lowland gorillas in Central Africa. The good news is that the WCS released new findings in 2009 that put the number of lowland gorillas in Central Africa as higher than was thought. Gorillas make simple sleeping nests in the crowns of trees every night. Working from a morning count of these nests, scientists believe (and hope) that over 100,000 gorillas are holding on in the forests of Northern Congo. Even if this number is optimistic, it supports the need to push forward with conservation plans.

Kingo’s ultimate survival is pinned on sustainable tourism. When science is complete, visitors, only two at a time, will be (and must be) Kingo’s primary means of support. Kingo was first introduced to the world, fully habituated, in 2007, and since then he has become famous in writing, news reporting, photography, and nature film making circles. A great many of his guests have come from among these professions. But 2010 brings change. Although science will continue for years to come, WCS has established formal tourism guidelines and improved infrastructure and Congo Wildlife Adventures was launched by MTT Inc as the first ever ground operation in Brazzaville to facilitate visits for everyone to Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, and beyond to Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the neighboring Central African Republic.

Undeniably, Kingo is Nouabale’s showcase.

David Attenborough has said “There is more meaning in exchanging glances with a gorilla than with any other animal I know.”

But there is much more to this travel experience too. The forests of the Congo Basin comprise the world’s largest rainforests after those of the Amazon Basin. They are therefore among the last of their kind on the planet, and of remarkable biodiversity. Kingo shares his kingdom with elephants, buffaloes, leopards, chimpanzees, birds, and ten species of monkey. And while it remains adventurous travel to get to the forests, they are now accessible.

Travel here means to walk in pristine forest of towering hardwoods amid whining cicadas; to pole a pirogue along tributaries and streams of the Congo River; to observe wild gorillas at forest clearings; and to spend time with the Ba’Aka, the indigenous pygmies who have been the foundation of Central Africa’s conservation programs from the beginning, for without their preternatural relationship with and their knowledge of the forest and its wildlife, habituating the timid Western lowland gorillas would never have happened. There is a poignancy to the traveler’s encounter with the Ba’Aka because these men once hunted gorillas or tracked gorillas for others to hunt. Now they work as trackers for scientists and forest guides for tourists. It is easier to keep wildlife alive if men who hunted in the past for their livelihood earn a salary guiding you through the forest.

Beyond Nouabale’s forests, construction of a new road under a Chinese contractor is in progress which will link the north of the country and Nouabale’s once isolated forests to its capital Brazzaville. There is the worry that the road will serve as a conduit for the movement of contraband forest products. WCS worries how little time they have to establish a viable sustainable tourism program (perhaps no more than five years) in light of the enormous pressures from outside business interests. With so few roads in the Republic of Congo, and where internal air travel is costly and unreliable, improved infrastructure is a positive development. This road can certainly ease the way for Nouabale’s tourism, becoming another way that travelers can more easily travel back and forth to Kingo.

You can be a part of Nouabale’s new beginnings in sustainable tourism. You can be among the first to arrive.