Summer 2013

I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question.

Ratatouille

Ruth was kidnapped when she was nine years old. She had been poor—an orphan child who had spent much of her life scavenging for food in the littered streets of Cusco, Peru. Yet she longed for that life after she was towed five hundred miles away to a brothel outside of Lima. Forced to live a life of horror and condemned to physical and emotional abuse, Ruth was held hostage for more than six years.

Climbing Everest or sailing the Pacific? No problem.

Among the larger-than-life statues of ancient gods—called the moai—runners from all over the world gather every June for the Easter Island Marathon. Many of these runners choose to come here because Easter Island is one of the grandest mysteries of Earth’s history. With a population of only five thousand people, the once nearly deserted island is among the most remote places one can dare to travel. Since the Easter Island Marathon is an extreme travel marathon—much like marathons in Antarctica and the Galápagos Islands—runners who come all the way out to the island must be dedicated to their sport.

Drinking fountains, civilian firearms, ethnic diversity—I remember every detail of that first day back in the United States after I had spent 18 months in Eastern Europe. It was the most patriotic day of my life. A month after my return I started school again, and a month after that I got engaged. Another year passed and I was itching to travel the world again. My new wife and I left our desert home for an island vacation in Oahu and then took a 6,000-mile road trip across this sweet land of liberty and back. But that still wasn’t enough. We needed to get abroad! We booked a flight to Moscow and stayed there for four months. And while we were there, we visited Scandinavia and the Baltics.

Our essay contest winners share some humorous and insightful travel tales. Enjoy!

On a sunny day nearly 10 years ago, Barbara Lawson of San Francisco wandered through a residential neighborhood in Kampala, Uganda, with a local colleague. As they walked, she noticed that most of the people she saw were either elderly or children. When she remarked about it to her companion, she was told that “basically a generation had been wiped out by AIDS” and that now the area was “a neighborhood of grandparents and their grandchildren. The thirty- and forty-year-olds are gone.”

If you were choosing a field of study, would glaciers ever cross your mind? After talking to Dr. Summer Rupper, maybe they would. Rupper is a mother of two, a professor, and a glaciologist, and her field studies on glaciers take her to exotic places all over the world. Although it can be painful for her to leave her family for long stretches of time, Dr. Rupper still loves what she does as a glaciologist.

There’s a saying that goes, “Hell is where the cooks are English.” Some people describe England’s food as bland or icky; others claim that the English eat only fish and chips. You may have heard these rumors, been turned off by dishes like blood pudding, or heard horror stories about Marmite.

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”—Ansel Adams

Scotland can be a noisy place with its bagpipes and highland games, but this northern British country is also full of vast landscapes of calm and solitude. One destination in particular provides travelers with a Scottish experience that’s both peaceful and energetic.

For westerners who consider an eight-ounce bloody slab of cow muscle to be mouth-wateringly delicious, a crispy fried grasshopper or mealworm should pose no problem. But let’s face it, it does. And the whole “facing it” issue may be the problem. If our food has eyes and a mouth and looks back at us, it causes a gut reaction—literally. But here are five ideas to consider about insect consumption that might help you overcome your squeamishness should you be offered something six-legged to eat during your travels.