By Ethan Gelber

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A Local Travel movement is finding its legs. Strong legs. Last weekend, in a step to find good solid ground upon which to exercise those legs, I published two blog posts about it, one on Lonely Planet’s Travel Blog hosted by Yahoo!7 Travel in Australia and the other on The Brooklyn Nomad’s blog.

It’s true. Local Travel’s here. It’s a small new movement, but it’s gaining momentum. Stay tuned for more…

Lonely Planet’s Travel Blog (hosted by Yahoo!7 Travel in Australia)

On 17 December 2009, I wrote a post about the misunderstood merits of Local Travel on Lonely Planet’s Travel Blog hosted by Yahoo!7 Travel in Australia.

Judging by the glowingly supportive comments, I apparently tapped a rich vein of local travel enthusiasts eager to lend credence to a cause.

Given that, I was invited by Lonely Planet to write a follow-up post, digging a little deeper into the fertile earth I’d found. That text – Get Lost, Go Local – has again fielded some welcome input from readers.

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Posted under media, opinion, responsible organisations, responsible travel, responsible travel news, responsible traveller, whl.travel newsletter

By Ethan Gelber

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The lion is one of the Big Five found in Kruger National Park, the country’s largest game reserve and a superb place for a safari (photo courtesy of South African Tourism)

The clock’s ticking. Every hour we move closer to 4pm South Africa time on 11 June 2010, when the World Cup 2010 kicks off in Johannesburg’s Soccer City Stadium. The anticipation is palpable, but so is the growing frustration and sometimes anger about the absurd room rates and out-of-focus travel opportunities in a country driven by high expectations.

So what are you to do? Are there reasonably priced accommodation options anywhere in South Africa? How can one find exciting and responsible travel options beyond the pomp of a month of games? And, as we’ve written about already, is there any way of ensuring that some of the money spent will be fairly distributed, so that the inflated profits benefit as wide a cross-section of people as possible, not just the already rich and powerful?
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Posted under General, South Africa, countries, local tips, responsible organisations, responsible travel, responsible travel news, whl.travel newsletter

By Ethan Gelber

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I’ve been a fan of responsible travel for more than 20 years. I consider it the only way to go, although in the early days, it wasn’t always a simple thing to make happen; the time and resources required to gain local-level access to a desired destination so that I could visit it responsibly just weren’t always readily available to me. These days, however, it’s really too easy. There’s no solid excuse for not ‘going local’.

Given this, I jumped at a chance to put some thougths to virtual paper for Lonely Planet’s Travel Blog hosted by Australia’s Yahoo!7 Travel.

The result – Loco for Local: Travel Like It Should Be – has already attracted some welcome and enthusiastic comments. I encourage you to add yours!

Here’s the first paragraph:
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Posted under General, opinion, responsible travel, responsible traveller, whl.travel newsletter

By Ethan Gelber

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In a valley on the Pokljuka plateau of Slovenia are Alpine chalets once the homes and sheds of traditional herdsman

Baa baa black sheep, now we have your wool! So say travellers in Slovenia who have had the pleasure of an exclusive Alpine Melody tour with Spin Travel. Billed as a day-long excursion that “takes you back to the times of our grandfathers,” Alpine Melody was also shortlisted in early December 2009 for the Sejalac (Sower) award, given every year since 2003 to the most promising tour providers in Slovenia by the Slovenian Tourist Board.

“We made it to the finals,” enthused Mojca Peterka, a managing director of Spin Travel. “Even if we didn’t make it to the top 3, being among the top 6 is a big achievement for our travel agency. It tells us that we are moving in the right direction and that we deliver special experience to our clients.”

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Posted under General, Slovenia, awards, countries, local tips, responsible organisations, responsible travel, whl.travel newsletter

Image/text by Batbold Ragchaa,
whl.travel local connection in Mongolia

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On the day this photo was taken in August 2007, our tour group was travelling from Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, to Dadal County through the whole of Khentii Province via Bereeven Monastery, Rashaan Khad Stones and the town of Binder.

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Posted under General, Mongolia, Photo of the Week, countries

By Iana Malikovskaya and Ethan Gelber

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Moldova doesn’t quite have the prominent profile of the big and magnificent European republics. However, despite its more modest stature and reputation, it is well known for its calm, nature, hospitability and the preserved ancient traditions kept in nearly every home.

Moldova's Old Orhei is dominated by impressive limestone promontories chiselled into place by a sweeping S-curve of the Răut River

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Posted under General, Moldova, countries, local tips, whl.travel newsletter

By Ia Kverghelidze

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When gazed upon from afar, the sharp-peaked mountains of the country of Georgia are soaring and grand. Unseen within their rocky confines, however, lie isolated and amazing sights inaccessible to most outsiders. Located at the Western Asian / Eastern European frontier and bordered by the Black Sea, Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, little-known Georgia is the site of the truly off-the-beaten-path mountainous regions of Svaneti and Tusheti, two raw, entrancing and rough-and-tumble provinces of well-established age-old traditions that give real meaning to hospitality.

This is a two-part article. Part one presented the unique qualities of Svaneti, while part two, below, details the wonders of Tusheti.

In the traditional Tushetian game of 'Distance Jumping', people jump over a felt cloak. Jump the farthest and the cloak is your prize.

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Posted under General, Georgia, countries, local tips

By Paul Tavner

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Although Laos is well known for its natural beauty, you have to see it to believe it. Actually, sometimes really seeing it – living it the way locals do rather than just passing through it – is the only way to believe it. After all, with the thick jungle that covers much of the landlocked nation sometimes making venturing off the beaten track a daunting prospect, if you’re going to lurch toward the little-known, you might as well live it as fully as possible. Thus it goes with the genuinely breathtaking experiences of two of Laos’ most popular and stunning waterfalls: Kuang Si and Tad Se, both located within easy reach of the northern city of Luang Prabang.

A wooden bridge, part of the path network that surrounds Kuang Si, crosses the main run-off from the falls

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Posted under General, Laos, countries, local tips, whl.travel newsletter

whl.travel helps independent travellers book accommodation and tours in Samoa that really benefit the local community

By Ethan Gelber

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[Editorial note: Please read a post-tsunami update from Nynette in Samoa. If you would like to support relief efforts, follow the link to the Red Cross of New Zealand current appeals page.]

Nynette Sass shows all of the bold spirit, but none of the impudence, suggested by her surname. From her first talofa lava (greetings to you) of the day, her gusto is contagious, especially when she talks about her native Samoa. This is unabashedly a good thing for the CEO of the Samoa Hotels Association (SHA), a board member of the Samoan Umbrella of Non-Government Organizations and chairman of the Private Sector Support Facility. In a country where tourism represents approximately 25% of GDP and is expanding, she is very much the right person in the right place at the right time.

Nynette Sass in front of her Samoa Hotels Association office

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Posted under General, Samoa, countries, responsible organisations, responsible travel, whl.travel newsletter

by Ng Sebastian

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When I was a tour guide, I used to joke with my clients that there are two things that make Indonesians different: sarung and kampung (or sarong and kampong). A sarung is a brightly coloured woven fabric worn by both men and women in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The word kampung is similar to ‘village’ in English. Most Indonesians have a kampung asal, or village of origin. Wherever they live and whatever they do, they can usually trace back to their village of origin. Basically, if you have a friend who claims to be Indonesian but has no sarung and kampung, then she or he isn’t a true Indonesian.

This white-sand beach is on Rutong Island, which is part of Riung Nature Conservation Park. Rutong is very close to Oting, the small village barely visible on the far left edge of the picture lost against the backdrop of the hills of Tadho

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Posted under General, Indonesia, countries, local tips, responsible organisations, responsible travel, whl.travel newsletter