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Adventure travel can leave a lasting impression born of giving and friendship
Source: Manila Bulletin
Author: Cecelia Goodnow
Date: 2008-09-29
 
Three years ago, Alyssa Martin trekked for 10 days through one of the most remote regions on Earth--the arid heights of Ladakh in India’s western Himalayas, a region known as "Little Tibet."

Her party climbed 16,000 feet before descending to the village of Lingshed, four days from the nearest road. Snowbound for much of the year, it’s a rugged place known for ancient Buddhist monasteries and stark beauty.

But what Martin remembers most are the people, who wept with joy at their arrival and embraced them like old friends. "When I look back on that trip," said the 26-year-old globetrotter, "I don’t remember any of the numbers of the altitudes we climbed. All I remember are the songs we sang with the horsemen."

Ten years ago, adventure travel was all about the adrenalin rush--shooting rapids or zip-lining through a rain forest. But many of today’s alternative travelers, like Martin, want something deeper--an authentic experience that benefits host communities and nurtures cross-cultural friendships. "It is about the people and the connections," she said, "just as much as it is about the physical challenge or the thrill you might get from an adventure."

At its heart, it’s an ethos of respect.

"It’s so much more than just caring for the land itself; it’s caring for the cultures," said Jill Heckathorn, who teaches ecotourism at Western Washington University. While adventure travel still offers plenty of sweaty, white-knuckle thrills, the field has become less rugged as alternative travelers shift their focus to education, "voluntourism" and cultural immersion.

Martin agrees you don’t need dirt under the fingernails to enjoy an authentic cultural experience. But she cautioned, "I do believe some emotional ‘roughing it’ is really necessary. You should really have to open yourself up. Some part of it should be a challenge."

Kurt Kutay [is] a founding member of The International Ecotourism Society. Along with sunscreen and sensible shoes, his clients are increasingly likely to pack a heightened awareness of their own privilege in a world rife with inequality. "A big change that I see over the last 20 years," Kutay said, "is people want to give back more. Our clientele tend to be more up-market--people who want to have more amenities and a high level of safety and comfort. But they have resources to give back."

Many Wildland visitors go on to donate to a grass-roots coalition working to save Maasai culture--Kutay is a board member--or to Wildland’s nonprofit arm, which supports conservation and community-development projects.

One tour group raised ,000 for a well so Maasai women would no longer have to cross 15 kilometers of dangerous ground to get water.

Unfortunately, not all global travel is so well-intentioned, as Tammy Leland and Chris Mackay discovered during their early years kicking around the globe. "We both saw a lot of irresponsible tourism, or disrespectful tourism," said Mackay. She and Leland founded Crooked Trails in 1998 after witnessing a particularly distressing example of exploitative tourism among the hill tribes of Pang Sa, Thailand. They were leading a 10-day visit to an area so remote that one Seattle participant, Karen Stensrude Huling, recalls it as "mind-blowing--it was like going back thousands of years."

The village elder had never seen an airplane, and it took two interpreters--translating from English to Thai to the indigenous language and back again--to communicate. Despite the cultural hurdles, the Westerners bonded with the villagers and helped them build a much-needed community center. Then, with breathtaking suddenness, the spell was broken. A tour bus swept onto the scene and disgorged tourists, whose frantic efforts to snap trophy shots left everyone feeling slimed.

"They had 15 minutes," Mackay said. "They ran around shooting (cameras) in people’s faces--women nursing--then they went off in a cloud of dust. I know the people on the bus didn’t feel good." Determined to promote a more respectful brand of travel, Mackey and Leland created Crooked Trails, a small, nonprofit group with the zeal of a social-service agency.

Based on Capitol Hill, it leads 150 to 200 travelers annually to eight destinations, including Peru, Ghana and Nepal. Its specialty is "community-based tourism," a form of travel that shares decision-making and financial spoils with the indigenous, host communities. "That’s a key element of responsible tourism--making sure the money stays in the country," Mackay said.

"When entering a community with our participants," Leland said, "we are like family--we are family. I have watched many of the children grow up since the time they were in their mothers’ wombs."

Like anything trendy, ecotourism can be a marketing gimmick, so travelers should beware of companies that make inflated claims--a practice known as "greenwashing." By the same token, some travelers choose exotic-sounding adventures for less than pure motives. On balance, though, the ecotourism trend is beneficial, said Nick Kontogeorgopoulos, an ecotourism expert at the University of Puget Sound.

As adventures go, that may be the biggest thrill of all. NYT
 

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