There are those stand-out travel moments when we meet someone who has an incredible impact on our appreciation of a place and an understanding of its people. Aaron Davis had one of those profound experiences, when with Intrepid he met Kei san in Japan…
“I have been affected by radiation.” Not a sentence I ever thought I’d hear someone say, but in Hiroshima I got to meet and talk to a hibakusha, a survivor of the A-bomb. Kei san is a most remarkable man with a wonderful outlook on life. He was 16 years old when the bomb was dropped and by a stroke of pure luck he was in school in Hiroshima at the time, which offered some defence from the heat and radiation blast.
(more…)
Less than an hour from Irkutsk, it’s no wonder many Russian and international visitors love visiting Lystvyanka. The village is in the stunning Lake Baikal region, but Intrepid’s Boris Golodets introduces us to another special local attraction…
“Sveta is a vendor at the local village market in Lystvyanka. She has her stall right at the end of the market and not many people notice her in the back corner. In case you’re there – look out for the lady wearing her yellow hat when it’s cold. Seller Sveta lives in Irkutsk and each morning takes a very early public bus to come to the market and returns home late in the evening.
(more…)
Kyila was raised in a remote village on the Tibetan plateau. Her father, her twin brothers and Kyila were all born blind. Villagers believed that the family were cursed. “Children didn’t want to play with us,” Kyila says, “adults would throw old food on our doorstep.” Today Kyila is the founder and principle of the first integrative kindergarten in China.
Here she teaches blind and sighted children to become confident, critical and alert little thinkers. “I want to prove that blindness is not a punishment! I am educated, I have travelled the world and I am the richest woman in my village, and this because I am blind.”
(more…)
A word of caution, don’t come between an Intrepid traveller and their food! Intrepid’s Ella Benjamin not only loves trying new dishes when she’s travelling, but she plans her itinerary around the best local food and beverages…
“For me, like so many other travellers, food is one of the top priorities when visiting a new country. I remember reacting in horror when a friend of mine casually mentioned that several times on her Italy trip she had been so busy that she had forgotten to eat lunch. How can you possibly FORGET to eat, in Italy of all places?
(more…)
Intrepid’s Susan English has seen the world’s 3 biggest waterfalls, swam in the 3 biggest oceans and climbed the highest peaks in Australia, South East Asia and Africa. But she was obsessed with one niggling omission on her bucket list and for that she had to travel to Africa…
“My quest? To tick off the ‘Big Five’. Even though I’m not a fan of the term, since it’s a throwback to days when these animals were the hardest to hunt on foot, I was desperate to see lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros in the wild. Imagine watching a lion patiently stalk its prey, or seeing our planet’s largest land mammal foraging for food and snapping tree trunks like toothpicks!
(more…)
Steve Davey is consumed by his love of photography and he’s managed to successfully make this passion his career. We asked this world-renowned travel writer and photographer for his tips on one of the more tricky aspects of digital photography, the perplexities of post-production…
“Post-producing digital images has gained something of a bad reputation. Some people think that it is time-consuming, other that it is too difficult, and some simply dismiss it as cheating. But post-production on a computer is an integral part of digital imaging. It might involve subtle changes or more significant edits. Don’t think of it as cheating though, consider it in the same way that film photographers used to think about printing in the darkroom: an integral part of the process and a chance to take a good image and make it better.
(more…)
Emanuel ran away from home when he was just 11 years old. He was living in Northern Tanzania. His parents divorced when he was young and when his father remarried support stopped for Emanuel, his sister and their mother. To try to make ends meet, Emanuel’s mother would send the children to the street to beg, while she took up with various men. One long-term boyfriend was an alcoholic and beat Emanuel frequently. In 2009 Emanuel fled.
Emanuel was homeless for 6 months before coming to Amani Children’s Home. When he arrived, he could not read or write, but Emanuel proved to be bright and eager to learn. He is well-organised and meticulous with his school work and now, after 2 years in Amani’s program, he’s preparing to enter Grade 4.
(more…)
Charley Boorman is an obsessed travel adventurer who is known around the world for undertaking epic, continent-spanning journeys. With his friend, Ewan McGregor, he has travelled overland by motorbike from London to New York, via Europe and Asia for the award-winning series Long Way Round and from John O’Groats in Scotland to Cape Town for Long Way Down.
He has taken part in the Dakar Rally, one of the most demanding and dangerous motor races in the world, and travelled solo from Ireland to Australia using whatever mode of transport he could find for By Any Means. He travelled from Sydney to Tokyo for By Any Means 2.
(more…)
Having caught a red eye flight to Marrakech, Karl Thurlow arrived a little fatigued. Not an ideal start to his Active Morocco trip, but he didn’t need to worry because the senses kicked in as soon as he walked through customs and joined the wonderful world of Morocco…
“Riding shotgun in the taxi enroute to Djemaa-el-Fna, the square in the heart of old town Marrakech, my eyes grew large and a healthy smile dawned on my face…oh how good it felt to be back travelling in a foreign land, even if we had just dodged a camel and horse roaming the road. It’s exactly these kind of unexpected sights I love to see and they weren’t confined to the highways.
(more…)
