Adventure Travel

Tips for Responsible Travel

At Embark, we think of travel as an adventure. But we also want to do it right: that is, we want to visit cultures but not affect them negatively; we want to explore natural environments without contributing to their demise; and we want to see the world while leaving behind a world worth seeing.

That’s why we enjoyed this article from a Filipino newspaper (thank you, Internet!) from an Adventure and Responsible Tourism Conference in, appropriately enough, Bhutan. The article quotes the keynote speaker as offering these seven tips for moving from “gawking tourist” to responsible traveler.

1. Make careful choices about the frequency, length and location of your trip

2. Learn to explore by foot

3. Select suppliers whose actions show that they run “places that care” for the environment, the employees, the host community as well as for the guest and investor.

4. Use transport modes that run on alternative energy

5. Buy food and souvenirs that are sourced and made by local residents, preferably using skills at risk of disappearing, and the services of local guides

6. Demonstrate humble curiosity—a conscious traveler will take the time to learn more about the community, the people and issues before, during and after their trips

7. Learn and respect local customs and traditions

What a great list! We aspire to live by all of those, whether it’s trekking in the Himalayas, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or going a cultural tour of Nepal. We also believe in paying fair wages and supporting the people and the environments where we travel. We believe in the places we travel, and invest money back into these communities, supporting local nongovernmental organizations such as the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project in Tanzania.

As we like to say, Embark is not just a company – it is a philosophy.

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Bhutan Travel Film in Oregon March 11

If you live anywhere near Portland, Oregon, where Embark is based, we recommend you head down I-5 to Albany this Sunday to see a travel film about Bhutan.

Linn-Benton Community College is hosting “Bhutan, The Cloud Kingdom,” is by Tom Sterling, and the event Sunday is part of a  series called “Travel at the Tripp.” Tickets are only $8 (and available online), and the show starts at 2 p.m. Directions are at the same link as tickets.

While we haven’t seen the film, Embark has seen Bhutan, and we think it’s a very special place. That’s why we have two or three trekking and cultural trips there every year.

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Video Visit to Tanzania

There’s a little but of “cheese” in this video, but a lot of amazing scenery, and it really makes us itch to get back to Tanzania. MSNBC has this show called Hidden Planet, and while we don’t think of Tanzania as “hidden,” it is an amazing place to do adventure travel, as you’ll see here: amazing scenery, fascinating tribal culture, and abundant wildlife. Of particular interest is the show’s visit to the hunter-gatherer Hadza tribe.

Enjoy. And let’s go traveling!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The “Vanishing Culture” of Mustang

We at Embark believe that the best reason to travel is to experience other cultures. We think it promotes understanding among people, gives us perspectives on ourselves and the world, and — if done right — can even help the cultures we visit.

That’s why we love places like Mustang, a former Tibetan kingdom, now part of Nepal, that’s about a 12-day walk from anything like a road. And it’s why we dream of trekking in Mustang before modernization has a major effect.

Not that we’re against modernization. It’s just, as this article from Business Insider points out, there are risks: given more “exciting” options, young people can forget the old ways, and cultures can vanish.

So we applaud the Vanishing Cultures Project, a nonprofit dedicated to “assisting indigenous, traditional groups worldwide preserve their culture by documenting their lifestyle through photography, research, and media, educating the public about these groups, and funding indigenous preservation initiatives.”

They published a book about Mustang, filled with amazing photographs, and give the proceeds to grassroots efforts in the country to help support their culture-saving efforts. And when we say amazing photographs, we mean it; check out these amazing photos of Mustang!

So we encourage everyone who can to trek in Mustang; we can’t wait to start offering trips there as early as 2013. Meanwhile, let’s all buy the book, or some prints, support a great cause, and feed our dreams of visiting the lost Tibetan kingdom.

 

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Mountain Travel Sobek Going to North Korea

Folks toss around phrases like “glimpse a hidden world” all the time, but the reality is, most places aren’t hidden. Hard to get to, sure. Rarely visited, okay. But hidden?

North Korea is truly hidden, off-limits as a matter of decades-long political policy. You just don’t go there, and the people there don’t leave.

But now one of the great and pioneering adventure travel companies, Mountain Travel Sobek, is taking a group of 24 people to North Korea in September. The trip is being led by one of our idols, their co-founder Richard Bangs, who started Sobek Travel after floating an uncharted, crocodile-filled African river in 1973.

Our hats are tipped, our hearts are full of envy, and if we had $9,000 on hand, we’d be off to North Korea this fall.

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Preserving Ladakhi Culture

Maybe it’s just human nature that young people want to move on, go where the action is, and express themselves in a way different from their parents. Once they get a chance to do that, there may be no stopping them.

In Ladakh, a remote corner of the Indian Himalayas, this has created a sudden and dramatic change in the culture. Long isolated from the outside world, Ladakh saw its first road from the outside in 1960, and starting in the 70s, outsiders came in for amazing trekking, adventuring, climbing, and even mountain biking. To us, it’s a paradise; but to the locals, it’s home.

We read a story from ANI (basically India’s AP) called “Need to preserve Ladakhi Culture, amid “shifting sands,” and we thought a few things. One was that it’s hard to begrudge young people seeking greater prosperity in cities and the outside world; the nomadic or rural life probably sounds better than it really is. We also cringe when we hear about the problems that come in with irresponsible and unplanned tourism. Another thought was that maybe this is all inevitable, and one day just about all of us will live in cities.

But what really struck was how quickly these traditional cultures can disappear, once exposed to the outside world. So we applaud groups like the Charkha Development Communication Network, whose mission is “Improved social and economic inclusion of rural marginalized communities in development processes.” In Ladakh they are helping youth and women to make their voices heard, to encourage responsible development and preserve cultural traditions.

We want to adventure: to trek Ladakh’s valleys and climb its peaks. And we want to do it before it becomes just another corner of TouristLand. But we also support initiatives like these, to empower local people to have greater say over their future, and to remind everyone that no one wants the whole world to look and act like westerners.

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Portland Tribune features Embark

Embark is in the news again, but not for the adventures of recent lore.

This time, the Portland Tribune profiled our founder Donovan Pacholl. Interview highlights include Donovan’s infamously overpriced haircut–”I had a guy in Nepal shave my head like a monk and do something with fire; he was using some kind of a lighter, throwing fireballs at my ears to burn my ear hair”–and his proposal story in Tanzania. Check it out!

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