Oh, I see! moments
Travel Cultures Language

Travel Tip: Savvy Travelers Hire Tour Guides

by Joyce McGreevy on October 23, 2018

A tour guide with travelers in Athens, Greece provides the cultural context that elevates travel into a life-changing experience. Image © Joyce McGreevy

In Athens, tour guide Constantin Kalafakakos decodes an array
of native herbs and their traditional uses.
© Joyce McGreevy

It’s All About Cultural Context

Who needs a tour guide?  Today 48-59% of U.S., European, and Asian smartphone users research and plan their entire trip to a new destination using only a mobile device. “I get all the travel tips I need online for free” is standard operating procedure.

Trouble is, the top research sites comprise brief impressions by first-time, short-term visitors—folks who arrived a few weeks before you.

And Now For Something Completely Different—The Big Sur Fashion Show

by Meredith Mullins on September 10, 2018

Jamie Oksas dances in a fashion made of netting, rope, crayons, and shoe laces—a cultural encounter with community spirit at the Big Sur Fashion Show. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

The Big Sur Fashion Show is so much more than a fashion show.
(Designer, model, and dancer: Jamie Oksas)
© Meredith Mullins

A Cultural Encounter with the Spirit of Community

The Fashion Week buzz is brewing in Paris, New York, and London, where unsmiling models will soon walk briskly on catwalks with haughty disdain. But we, on the California Coast, are thousands of (metaphoric and real) miles away.

We’re at The Big Sur Fashion Show—a vibrant and unconventional celebration of artistic imagination.

A Dog’s Tale of Travel Adventure

by Joyce McGreevy on June 19, 2018

Mount Ruapehu, overlooking Ohakune, is the scene of many New Zealand travel adventures. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Halfway between Auckland and Wellington, Mt. Ruapehu is
the center point of New Zealand’s North Island.
© Joyce McGreevy

Lost and Found in
Ohakune, New Zealand

This is the tale of a little toy dog, a New Zealand forest, and the power of Kiwi kindness.

Once, a Traveler took a journey through New Zealand. While traveling south by train, she visited Ohakune.

Why Ohakune? asked a man from A Big City. The Traveler wasn’t sure. She only knew it would break up the 12-hour rail journey.

It’s the wrong season, said City Man. Ohakune is a ski town. Do you ski?

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