Nov

Inherited Wanderlust

by Eva Boynton on November 8, 2016

Three kids walking through a valley in Switzerland, illustrating how wanderlust is passed down in traveling families (image © Peter Boynton).

A family legacy can begin anywhere. My brother and I inherited our travel inspiration hiking through Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.
© Peter Boynton

Traveling Families—At Home in the World

We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. —Anonymous

Do adventures need to end when a family begins? “Absolutely not!” say families who choose to spend months or even years connecting and learning as they travel the world.

What does it take to get the show on the road?

Share the wanderlust. Make travel a priority by putting value on the experience; if it’s important to you, then it’s important to show your kids.

Meet two traveling families, who share the kind of “Oh, I See” moments that can happen only on the road. They may inspire you to create your own family legacy of wanderlust.

The Bicycling Family

Chris, Julie, Leo, and Charlotte Conk began their family travels in the summer of 2011, cycling 1100 km (683.5 miles) around Lake St. Jean in Quebec. Leo was 6 (pedaling) and Charlotte 4 (pulled in a chariot).

But they did not stop there. In 2015, they jumped at their chance to travel for a year. They sold their home in Quebec, bought bicycles, and pedaled 7,400 km (4,598 miles) to Guatemala. Leo, now 11, rode his bike, and Charlotte, 8, who started in a tandem bicycle, changed to her own bike along the way.

Four family members on bicycles, showing how traveling families share their wanderlust. (image © Conk family)

Here goes the Conk family, spinning around the world on self-powered vehicles.
© Bicycling Family

“Can you believe a family of four sold their home, bought bicycles, put everything on their bikes and pedaled to Guatemala?” asks Chris Conk.

Julie and Chris were both travelers before they met in Chiapas, Mexico. They recognize the personal importance of travel and the growth that comes from it. Chris explains, “We took this trip because we wanted to give our kids some perspective.”

A traveling family cycles on a dirt road surrounded by tropical plants, showing parents who share their wanderlust with their kids. (image © Eva Boynton)

Through cold mountaintops, dry deserts, and humid jungles, the Conks pedal forward.
© Eva Boynton

Julie adds, “It’s important to keep doing what makes you, you, as a mother. It’s important for me to share my deepest values with my kids and stay true to myself.”

Travel gave the Conk family a chance to imagine together . . . daily. For their children, it was education by astonishment, world schooling, living education. It was also the freedom to daydream.

A young girl, part of a traveling family, draws at a picnic table, as she experiences her family's legacy of wanderlust. (image © Conk Family)

Studying on the road takes on new meaning
© Bicycling Family

The Conks built their relationships with each other and the world. They teamed up to choose routes, find campgrounds and lodgings, try new foods, watch out for each other, and play together.

A young girl and boy playing in the water underneath a palapa in Guatemala, members of a traveling family that shares its wanderlust. (image © Sam Anaya A.).

Charlotte and Leo splash in Lake Remate, Guatemala
© Sam Anaya A.

On the road, they participated in random dance parties, drew their surroundings, wrote about their experiences, created cross-cultural connections, collected bottle caps in Cuba, and spoke three different languages across 8 countries. Most important, this traveling family came away with more dreams and fewer fears.

My Traveling Family

In 1938, our family legacy began with my grandfather, who traveled 3,000 miles around Europe by bicycle.

When my parents met, they explored Europe together, wandering through the Swiss Alps, French backroads, and Greek caves. My mother traveled overland from Europe to India (through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) in 1977. My father started a tour company that took Americans (and his family) overseas to hike and cycle throughout Europe.

Little did they know, their travels were forming a family value that my brother and I would inherit.

Kids playing on a playground in Switzerland, showing how traveling families pass down inherited wanderlust (image © Peter Boynton).

Playgrounds, from Switzerland to Africa, make traveling families feel at home in the world.
© Peter Boynton

My first memories of travel are of hiking and sliding in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, looking up at the surrounding snow-capped mountains. I remember cycling on roads with fields of lavender on each side in Provence, France. I complained about cycle travel then, though ironically it has turned into a life pursuit and my favorite mode of transportation and travel.

My brother and I grew up among the kindness of strangers. My mother explains being wonderfully surprised at how strangers “were so welcoming and interested when we traveled with little kids.”

A man carrying his son in France, showing the inherited wanderlust passed down in traveling families (image © Normi Burke).

My brother hitches a ride with my dad in Montignac, France
© Normi Burke

On one occasion, my parents were traveling with my brother as a baby. They entered a store to spend the last of their travel money. Without hesitation, the owners of the store, an Italian couple, began kissing my brother’s pudgy arms and legs. They refused money from my parents and sent them away with free snacks and souvenirs.

My brother and I inherited wanderlust at an early age from seeing the beauty of the world and being surrounded by different cultures and languages. It is a family legacy that I have continued today and that my brother intends to share with his children.

Oh, I See the Family Values

Traveling families—like the Conks and my own—see travel as a critical family value. As my mother explains, “It changed me to travel. I became much more open-minded and aware of other people. Why wouldn’t I want that for my children?”

Through our family travels, I developed a comfort with change, the kind that comes from sleeping in a different bed every night. And I hold close the legacies of my parents—the wanderlust, the open-mindedness, and that comfortable feeling of being at home in the world.

Leo and Charlotte will likely know these legacies, too. And that’s a priceless inheritance.

Two silhouettes of people jumping in the Alps of Switzerland, showing how traveling families take advantage of their inherited wanderlust (image © Eva Boynton)

My brother and I return as adults to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.
© Eva Boynton

Follow the adventures of Bicycling Family.

Want the secret to how families make travel happen? Check out 14 Nomadic Families. See more about the Conk’s trip in this video.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 1 Comment

Adventure Travel/Art of Travel/Worldwide Sites

Oct

Aha Moment: Halloween!

by Joyce McGreevy on October 31, 2016

A 19th century, bat-themed French Halloween costume offers an aha moment about Halloween around the world.

In 19th century France, Madame goes batty for Halloween.

Goblin Day Goes Global

What’s as changeable as a costume shop and has more frequent flyer miles than a witch’s broom? Halloween, of course.

An ancient tradition that’s as new as this season’s marketing trends, the popularity of Halloween around the world is soaring. An agile shapeshifter, it both adapts to and changes the way cultures celebrate.

A vintage ghost-themed Halloween sign offers an aha moment just right for Halloween around the world.

Halloween’s treats can be tricky!

But just when you think you’ve captured the essence of Halloween—solemn, scary, crass, or silly—it surprises you. Read on for an aha moment or two on global Halloween trends, tricks, and treats:

1. Even the “re-branding” of Halloween is ancient.

“There’s a popular misconception that Halloween is a modern American invention. Not so,” says Irish educator Brendan Smith. Its roots are firmly in Celtic culture.

But, adds Smith, modern Americans were hardly the first to “re-brand the festival. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church created the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Eve or All Souls’ Day, when people were asked to remember and pray for their dead family members. This event was superimposed onto the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain.”

Actors from Macnas performing in Galway, Ireland trigger an aha moment about Samhain, which led to Halloween around the world. (Image © by Darach Glennon)

Wild spectacle by theatre group Macnas is a Halloween tradition in Galway, Ireland.
© Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography

2. The first jack-o’-lanterns weren’t pumpkins.

Pumpkins are native to the Americas. So what preceded them in Halloween’s early days? To find out, let’s summon up the ghost of English folklorist Jabez Allies, who died in 1856:

“In my juvenile days I remember to have seen peasant boys . . . hollowing out a turnip, and cutting eyes, nose, and mouth therein, in the true moon-like style; and having lighted it up by inserting the stump of a candle, they used to place it upon a hedge to frighten unwary travelers in the night.”

Sugar beet lanterns carved into Jack-o'-lanterns in Germany trigger an aha moment about the diversity of Halloween around the world. (Image by Niklas Morberg)

German jack-o’-lanterns follow their own beet.
“Sugar beet lanterns” by Niklas Morberg (Flickr) CC-BY-NC-2.0

Tall tales also describe how an Irishman named Jack devised such a method to find his way back from Hell. (We won’t ask how he got there.) Hence, the jack-o’-lantern.

3. It’s the most hygge-ful time of the year.

As Halloween spreads around the world, each culture has put its unique stamp on it. Japan has had a love-hate relationship with Halloween. Romania plays up its Transylvanian tourism at Halloween.

In Denmark, the holiday drew little notice until 1998 when a local tabloid advertised Halloween-themed events. Today, Halloween is popular, and the Danish version is all about hygge. Loosely translated, that means “coziness.” Think candlelight, baked goods, and hot chocolate.

Carving pumpkins as a family has become so popular in Denmark that sales of pumpkins soared from 15,000 in 2001 to over 800,000 in 2015.

A little girl with Halloween pumpkins at a produce market in Copenhagen, Denmark exemplifies an aha moment about Halloween around the world. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

In Copenhagen, Denmark, a child picks a seasonal perch beside Halloween pumpkins.
© Joyce McGreevy

4. Halloween’s got a global theme song.

In 1962, there was “Monster Mash,” a novelty song that became #1 on America’s Billboard Top 100. It got banned by the BBC as “too morbid.”

Flash forward to November 14, 1983 and the premiere of a 14-minute music video: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Since then, as the Web went public and flash mob videos proliferated, “Thriller” has had a major impact on how we celebrate Halloween around the world.

Louisiana revelers create an exciting aha moment at the Halloween Zombie Walk in Shreveport, an example of Halloween around the world. (Image by Shreveport-Bossier Convention & Tourist Bureau)

In Louisiana, the Halloween Zombie Walk is a no-brainer for ghoulish fun.
Shreveport-Bossier Convention & Tourist Bureau licensed under CC BY 2.0

From Tulsa, Oklahoma to Torrevieja, Spain; Derry, Northern Ireland to Wellington, New Zealand—even a BBC news room in London and a retirement community in Elk Grove, California—dressing up for zombie dance-offs has become a global Halloween tradition.

A 13,000-strong "Thriller" flash mob in Mexico City triggers an aha moment about Halloween around the world.

In Mexico City, a flash mob of 13,000 “zombies” dances to “Thriller.”

5. Halloween’s greatest superheroes are your neighbors.

On Halloween 1950, milk cartons labeled Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF gave kids the (super)power to make the world a better place.

It began as a coin drive to help kids affected by World War II. Today, young trick-or-treaters collect donations to help children in areas impacted by poverty, war, or natural disaster.

Meanwhile, a growing number of communities are marking Halloween by scaring away hunger. Across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., Halloween food drives have become increasingly popular events.

Whether this will counter another Halloween trend—the annual spending of $350 million by U.S. pet owners on costumes for animals—remains to be seen. But it’s a move in the right direction.

A White House cat in costume circa 2007 sparks an aha moment about Halloween around the world.

A White House cat is disenchanted by its wizard costume.

My aha moment? Halloween around the world is all about contradiction—our very human impulses to get and to give, to uphold traditions and to reinvent them, to dress up as make-believe monsters and to save humanity from real-world horrors. Oh, I see: The actual magic hides somewhere in between.

A Macnas street performer and costumed girl share an "aha moment" in Ireland, likely birthplace of Halloween around the world. (Image © Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography)

At Halloween, barriers between mortal and mythic worlds melt away.
© Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography

See last night’s frightfully fun Macnas Halloween Parade in Galway, Ireland here!

Learn more about Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF or find your local food bank here.

Learn Halloween greetings in Irish, American Sign Language, and other languages.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 1 Comment

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Worldwide Sites

Oct

Photographing Amazing Places on Earth

by Meredith Mullins on October 18, 2016

Ocean wave over lighthouse in North Portugal, one of the amazing places in the world to photograph. (Image © John North/iStock.)

A collision of forces (North Portugal)
© John North/iStock

Lighthouses: A Magnet for the Collision of Nature’s Forces

Some of the most amazing places on earth are at its edges. Drama is inevitable at these gateways to the vast beyond.

Collisions of nature’s forces are expected—at the polar tips and rugged coastlines, at the intersection of earth, sea, and sky.

These are the same places that made the early explorers afraid of the treacherous, cavernous ledges—at the edge of the flat world—as the curves of the earth disappeared from their view.

And it is here—in these natural theaters—that productions are anything but ordinary.

A lighthouse showing one of the amazing places on earth for photography. (Image © Logboom/iStock.)

The calm before the storms
© Logoboom/iStock

The Stalwart Lighthouse

Many of these battles of the forces cast the lighthouse as the lead character.

These beacons, by their very purpose, sit on the cusp of land and sea, dotting the outlines of the continents with their steadfast blazes of light.

Sometimes the lighthouses even go outside the edges, perched on isolated tiny rock islands, as if becoming a part of the sea themselves.

They stand strong and sturdy, lighting the way to safe harbor. And they offer good fuel for powerful photographs of humanmade architecture withstanding the forces of nature—especially when the surf is up.

Giant wave over Douro River lighthouse, one of the amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © Zaharias Pereira de Mata/iStock.)

There are lighthouses that are mentioned often for their history, style, and setting, such as the Tower of Hercules in northwestern Spain, the Hook Head Lighthouse in Ireland, and Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse “at the end of the world” in Argentina (just east of the southernmost city in the world).

Tower of Hercules, a lighthouse in Spain, one of the most amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © Hapaks/iStock.)

There are lighthouses that are famous for the westerly storms that lash them with vicious wind and waves, such those in Portugal, western France, and England.

Waves crushing against a lighthouse barrier at Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England, one of the most amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image cg Design Pics/Thinkstock.)

But in the past year, it is the Porthcawl Lighthouse that has drawn worldwide attention, especially with a voracious internet audience.

And Then There Was Porthcawl

The Porthcawl Lighthouse on the south coast of Wales does not make any of the Top Lighthouses in the World lists, but those list makers haven’t taken into account the brutal storm winds and gargantuan waves that sweep in from the west through the Bristol Channel.

Giant wave over Porthcawl lighthouse, one of the amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © D.W. Ryan/iStock.)

All of the elements—the formation of the jetty, the slope of the barrier wall, the winds, the tides, and the movement of the sea—come together a few rare times a year to create towering walls of water.

It’s a good thing the lighthouse is made of cast iron or it would be crushed by the force of these raging mountains.

Photographer storm addicts, like American tornado chasers in the Midwest, check the weather during storm season to make sure they are at the right place at the right time, camera in hand. And photography gods willing, the sea begins to explode.

Waves hitting the barrier at the Porthcawl lighthouse in Wales, one of the most amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © Steven Garrington.)

On any given storm day, the pack of photographers at Porthcawl is like a press corps huddle, although the sound of the clicking shutters is muffled by the roar of the wind and sea.

Each artist adventurer is hoping for the one original climactic moment of impact, when sea and structure collide, or dance passionately around each other with frenzied energy.

Although there have been many great photographs of Porthcawl, a single member of the wave-inspired photo corps emerged as a celebrity in his own right this year.

Waves threatening Porthcawl lighthouse, with light rays in the background, one of the most amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © Steven Garrington.)

Wales native, Steven Garrington, posted his Porthcawl image from a 2014 storm on his Flickr site, and tens of thousands of views later, he was awarded the second most liked image on Flickr for 2015. (He was out-liked by a shot of the launch of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket.)

This honor blasted his story through the blogosphere and art community.

He is humble about his new internet fame. He admits in a BBC interview that he is self-taught and still learning from all the helpful comments on his Flickr site.

He shot his first Porthcawl storm in 2008 and then again in 2014 and 2015. The 2014 image was not posted until 18 months after the storm. Steve likes to let his images settle in for a while.

Waves threatening Porthcawl lighthouse, one of the most amazing places on earth to photography. (Image © Steven Garrington.)

He appreciates the attention on Flickr (he now has more than 110,000 followers), but also admits he doesn’t always agree with the images selected as most popular. In fact, there’s an image of Porthcawl he likes better than the one that got all the 2015 attention.

Hand-like wave threatening the Porthcawl lighthouse, showing one of the most amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © Steven Garrington.)

Storm Tips

While Steve may or may not shoot another Porthcawl storm, he offered these tips to BBC Arts for photographing storm events.

Carry a plastic bag to stuff your camera into when the spray comes your way.
Wait for the light. It’s not just about giant waves. Photography’s heartbeat is light.
Know the conditions (where are the waves breaking, is the tide coming in or going out, is the weather getting worse?)
Have an escape plan when that wave two or three times larger than you can possibly imagine breaks over the jetty.
Don’t go alone; have a buddy looking out for you. Take turns shooting.

And we add: Don’t ever turn your back on the sea.

Waves to the right of Porthcawl lighthouse in Wales, one of the most amazing places on earth to photograph. (Image © Steven Garrington.)

Oh, I See: 1 + 1 = 3 in the World of Lighthouses

When there are dramatic moments in nature at the most amazing places on earth, the power of this confluence is exponential.

The “Oh, I see” moments become gasps at the sheer beauty and force of nature.

When a talented photographer captures the moment of impact, when the waves leap over every barrier in sight and hang suspended defying every law of gravity, the power is felt to the very core.

And all of us lucky viewers are, quite simply, awestruck.

See the power of nature in action in this Porthcawl video.

Tips courtesy of Steven Garrington and BBC Arts (Get Creative).