Roaming Tales

Congratulations to BeWILDerwood, Africa’s Eden and Ngong Ping 36O and all the award-winning travel writers.

I have been a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers for about a year now. It’s a professional organisation and you are only eligible to join if you can demonstrate that you are making a living substantially from travel writing, whether that be books or articles. Membership entitles you to have your name listed in the Year Book, which goes out to all members and other industry professionals who pay to receive it, and use of the snazzy new website where you can build a mini-website or network virtually with other members. You also get a membership card and various discounts but I think the biggest benefit is the opportunity to network with other writers and travel professionals at the regular Guild events.

The star event on the Guild calendar, apart from the AGM, is the annual awards dinner. It was hosted last night at the Marriott in Grosvenor Square and it was a great night. We started with a champagne reception with Jersey oysters and then moved into the main room for dinner. The food at awards events can often be a bit rubbish but last night’s meal was really good - it was a collaboration between the Marriott’s restaurant Maze (part of the Gordon Ramsay empire) and the island of Jersey (one of the sponsors), so we had Jersey crab for starters and Jersey vegetables with our lamb for main course, and Jersey cream with our dessert.

There were actually two sets of awards - the Tourism Awards where members vote on the best tourism projects around the world and the Members Awards for travel writing published in the past year. The Tourism Awards were announced before dinner, the Members Awards between starter and main course and then the raffle (to raise money for the Back Up Trust, a spinal injury charity) before dessert.

I’d come along to a Guild meeting a few months ago to hear the nominations for the Tourism Awards and vote on the short list. The final winners were then determined by a vote of the entire membership by post and email. So I was familiar with the nominations but I didn’t know who had actually won until the night. I was really thrilled because all the projects I voted for won their categories! So congratulations to BeWILDerwood in Norfolk for best UK project, Africa’s Eden or Loango National Park in Gabon for best non-UK project, and Ngong Ping 360 in Hong Kong for best global project.

BeWILDerwood

I’m almost tempted to borrow children and take them to BeWILDerwood as the description of this place really captured my imagination. It’s a treetop adventure playground - with treehouses, aerial ropewalks and zipwires, boats and boardwalks - built on 50 acres of woodland and marshland. It’s very eco-friendly - it’s all built from sustainable wood, the entire site is pesticide free, and they’ve planted a lot of trees as well. Among the magical creatures who live there are Mildred, the vegetarian Crocklebog who lives in the Scary Lake, and Swampy a March Boggle. There is nothing modern about BeWILDerwood, although the guy who built it has said he was partly inspired by 90s computer game Myst.

Africa’s Eden

If it weren’t so expensive, I would book my ticket to Loango National Park in Gabon tomorrow. The fact that I can’t is partly the point - they are trying to keep tourism numbers low so that it’s sustainable for the park’s ecology and the wellbeing of the people who live there. Rombout Swanborn, the director of Loango National Park, has said: “We will never have 20 Jeeps around a waterhole shining lights into animals’ eyes.”

The president of Gabon set aside 11% of the country as a national park in 2002 - only tiny Costa Rica has preserved a greater proportion of land. Before then tourism was virtually unknown in Gabon but they began developing the industry at this point with the ethos “ecotourism pays for conservation”. Loango National Park opened in 2007, covering grassland, rivers, forest and mangroves and featuring spectacularly varied wildlife, including whales, elephants, hippos, leopards, reptiles and primates. Visitors are accommodated in the eco-friendly lodge and satellite tented camps and wildlife viewing is small-scale with pirogue trips, forest treks or savannah drives. There are 500 Gabonese in the area with nearly 100 employed as eco-guides etc, while local farmers sell produce to the lodge, and their children attend a new school built by the park.

NgongPing 360

Ngong Ping 360 in Hong Kong combines an existing attraction - the Giant Buddha built by the nearby Po Lin monastery on Landau Island - with a new one. Previously there were so many tourists coming to see the Giant Buddha and the strain on the monastery was too much, with monks spending their whole time providing refreshments. Now Ngong Ping 360 is actually bringing more tourists but they’ve actually managed to reduce the impact on the environment and the monastery. The tourists arrive via a 5.7km cable car skyrail - the world’s longest without a car change - so they didn’t have to build a road through the forest. While tourists can still climb up to see the Buddha, Ngong Ping has also built a Chinese cultural village with dining facilities, which has reduced the burden on the monastery. A win-win situation!

Highly commended

• * Runners-up in the UK category were the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool and Thanet Greeters in Kent.

• * Runners-up in the overseas category were Highland Paradise, Cook Islands and Palazzo Falson, Malta.

• * Runners-up in the Globe Award were Musee de Quai Branly in Paris and the Dinosaur Gallery, Museum of Natural Sciences, in Brussels.

Members Awards

All Guild members are eligible to enter their work for the travel writing awards and entries are judged anonymously. The winning pieces are published in a glossy booklet, which made highly entertaining reading on my Tube ride home at the end of the night. I believe they will also be posted up on the BGTW website at some point as well. Congratulations all!

• * Nicki Gardner for Best Destination Feature under 850 words
• * Alan Hart for Best UK Feature over 850 words
• * Nigel Tisdall for Best European (non-UK) Feature over 850 words
• * Mike Unwin for Best Overseas (non-European) Feature over 850 words
• * Matthew Teller for Best Business/Trade Feature
• * Sarah Woods for Best Transport Feature
• * Will Gray for Best Guidebook Award
• * Rosemary Bailey for Best Narrative Travel Book
• * Tim Richards for Best Radio Feature
• * Carmen Roberts for Best Television Travel Feature
• * Jeremy Hoare for Photograph of the Year
• * Brian Jackman - Runner-Up for Travel Writer of the Year
• * Peter Hughes - Travel Writer of the Year
• * Jim Dunn for Lifetime Achievement Award

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There’s a green theme to this week’s round-up of travel links.

• Liz at Perceptive Travel writes about TripAdvisor’s $1m charity give-away. Charities in the running include environmental organisations such as Conservation International, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Geographic Society, as well as development and aid organisations such as Medicins Sans Frontiers and Save the Children.

• Over at Intelligent Travel, Suzanne Roberts writes about the greening of the Burning Man festival, while Meg Weaver writes about a museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park that claims to be the greenest in the world, and also in San Fran, Pat Tanumihardja turns her attention to sustainable sushi.

• A piece by Elizabeth Becker in The Washington Post examines the impact of mass tourism on the planet titled Don’t Go There. It makes sobering reading. (Link via Intelligent Travel).

• Pam at Nerd’s Eye View recently hobnobbed with royalty at the Conde Nast World Savers Congress, covering the event on Twitter [search using the #WSC code], and writing two thoughtful pieces on her own blog. Beata Loyfman and Julia Bainbridge have also blogged about this on the Conde Nast site, and Conde Nast Traveler has published notes from the event online.

• Harry Pearson on the Guardian’s Travel Blog bids farewell to the passenger ferry from Newcastle to Norway - killed off by cheap flights apparently.

• Over on the Emerald Isle (yes, I’m stretching the green theme a bit here), food blog A Forkful of Spaghetti reviews breakfast at Denis Cotter’s Cafe Paradiso.

• Finally, don’t be too alarmed at these green polar bears featured by Jeremy Elton Jacquot at Tree Hugger.

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A modern art project links the Thames river front near Tower Bridge and the East River embankment under the Brooklyn Bridge via a video link.

Back in May I was walking from London Bridge to Tower Bridge with a group of friends.

We were off to see the the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London - but that’s a story for another day.

We got as far as City Hall, which is this weird, squashed building here.

Then we saw a giant telescope on the public path beside the Thames. A sign identified it as the “Telectroscope“.

It cost £1 for a ticket from a dinky little machine and then we joined the small group gathering round at what would be the wrong end of the telescope were it actually a telescope. People were smiling and waving and writing messages on a small whiteboard - that’s me with the camera reflected in the glass and the girl in green is my friend Jess.

We peered closer and discovered that, as well as our own reflections, we could see another set of people in Brooklyn. We had tremendous fun writing messages to each other across the Atlantic.

I’m not sure how they did this. The Telectroscope website claims that a secret tunnel was dug across the Atlantic, but I suspect video technology was involved somehow.

I must admit I hoped it would become a permanent installation - much like the London Eye was erected for the Millennium but was so popular it stayed. Sadly, it was dismantled on June 15. I never did get a chance to email my friends in Brooklyn and arrange a virtual meetup via the Telectroscope.

It was an exceptionally cool project. What can’t more modern art be like this?

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The Carnival of Cities is up at The Gooseberry Fool - please check it out for the usual whirlwind tour of the world, this time with a particular emphasis on all things culinary.

Some highlights:

* Wanderus on why Portland, Oregon is the microbrew capital of America. Cheers!

* Jon on the DC Traveler treats us to a Sunday brunch with a difference at a Washington DC cafe with drag queens

* CAE on VWXYNot? describes her love affair with her adopted city of Vancouver. I thought it was a lovely city when I visited, oh 10 years ago now, and all those gorgeous pics of kayaking make me want to go back. Either that or move home to Sydney - I could have a kayak there too!

Meanwhile, I am experimenting with alternative designs for this blog, as some people have commented they find the white text on blue background a little difficult to read. Please let me know what you think.

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The Gooseberry Fool, the culinary sister site to Roaming Tales, is hosting the Carnival of Cities next week. Submissions are accepted as usual for any posts on the theme of cities (and mid-size to large towns) but this week I am particularly keen to read any posts with a food related theme. Perhaps your city has a fantastic restaurant or farmers’ market? Or perhaps food featured prominently in your travels to more far-flung city destinations?

This week the event is hosted on Where Next?, the travel blog on Away.com, and it seems the entrants were channelling my interest telepathically because there is already a bit of a culinary theme happening, with posts on the Linwood Sausage Factory in Cincinatti and the Oyster bar in Grand Central Station in New York.

Please send the entries as usual via the carnival submission form. Entries received after Tuesday lunch time (British time) will be sent to next week’s host, so be sure to get your entries in early. Posts should be no more than a week old. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Note: I am sorry for the hiatus on the Save Money in London series - this will return after the weekend.

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I’m delighted to be hosting the Carnival of Cities for a second time on Roaming Tales. This is the 30 April edition and we have a bumper crop of great posts. We seem to be confined to North (and Central) America and Europe this week, though we still have a lot of diversity, from Carcassonne to Miami. Happy reading!

Carnival of Cities is a blog carnival - where one blog hosts and other blogs submit posts on a particular theme. The theme for Carnival of Cities is cities and towns. You can see the 23 April edition of Carnival of Cities on Family Travel. I look forward to seeing Carnival of Cities on Leslie Carbone’s blog next week.

Anywhere

Any city: Ecosalon on new guidebooks that highlight a city’s independent businesses.

Europe

Stockholm: EuroPride is one of the biggest events on the gay and lesbian calendar in Europe and this year it’s taking place in Stockholm, Sweden, according to Eyeflare.

Alicante/Valencia: Information on the ferry service (or lack thereof) from Alicante to Valencia in Spain on Costa Blanca Webcast.

Barcelona: Me, My Kid and Life has a post about an open-air market in Barcelona, Spain, including pics of all the yummy food from fish to ostrich eggs.

Edinburgh: A review of the Red Fort Indian restaurant in Edinburgh on the Europe A La Carte blog. A £6 buffet sounds like good value!

Rome: Culture Shock finds accommodation in Rome last minute - and it was surprisingly nice.

Carcassonne: France Tales pays a visit to the medieval French city of Carcassonne. (This has been on my list since reading Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth - not a brilliant book but it did bring the setting magically to life).

Vienna: Mes crazy expériences has written about a visit to Vienna on a rail trip of Europe in 2005.

Salisbury: Traveling Mamas passed through London and stayed in Salisbury as a base for a visit to Stonehenge.

The Americas

San Francisco: CatSynth on a weekend filled with art, music (and cats) in San Francisco.

Washington: Leslie Carbone on the very wonderful Smithsonian museums in Washington DC.

Miami: Photo post of the South Beach in March on the Seabird Chronicles. And a review of South Beach bar Ocean’s Ten on SoloFriendly.

Honululu: Homespun Honululu gets political with a post on the grassroots protest against plans to build a rail network in Honululu.

Cincinnati: If you have a taste for the finer things in life, check out Cincinnati Locavore - this week’s submission has a post on an award-winning distilled vodka only available in the Ohio city.

San Antonio: Intelligent Travel has a post about the River Parade in San Antonio, Texas - lovely pics too.

Granada: And finally, my own post on Granada in Nicaragua - a colonial city on Central America’s biggest lake.

Submit your blog post to the next edition of the Carnival of Cities using our carnival submission form. Please only submit one (non-spammy) post and keep it on the topic of cities and (midsize and bigger) towns. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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This is my first time hosting the Carnival of Cities event here on Roaming Tales. I’m delighted to be invited to host and welcome anybody who is here for the first time, as well as regular readers.

This is a blog carnival; one blog hosts, and other bloggers send in one of their posts that pertains to the carnival topic. The readers get links to lots of interesting posts and the participants benefit from increased traffic. It’s a nice way to build community among bloggers, which is something I have been trying to encourage on Roaming Tales.

The Carnival of Cities is about any aspect of a single city (or mid-sized town). If you’re interested in learning more, the main Blog Carnival site has over 3000 carnivals listed.

So without further ado, here are the entries for this week’s Carnival of Cities. Thanks to everyone who took part.

• Seattle: Mary Jo at the Seattle Traveler shares the inside scoop on WhirlyBall, a bit of inside fun when the winter weather is getting you down. It’s a team game played in small cars, like bumper (dodgem) cars.

• Guam: Bill at ProjectsPossible has written about the island of Guam and the unique sculptures by artist Michael R. Genereux made out of a rare Micronesian wood that he takes only from fallen trees.

• Male, Maldives: Maldives Island Travel has written about flora and fauna on the islands. Not surprisingly for a tropical island paradise, colourful fish are a star attraction, so don’t forget to pack your snorkel and flippers or your diving licence if you have one.

• Monterey, California: If you want to see fish without getting wet, head to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, described by Patricia on the Kango blog. While you’re there, check out the rest of the family-friendly attractions the city and surrounding area has to offer, from the Dennis the Menace theme park to the Hansel and Gretel architecture in Carmel.

• Rotterdam: Sheila at Family Travel shows us that there is more to Rotterdam than you might think. The Dutch city is not just an industrial seaport but also has some interesting architecture and cool activities for kids.

• Paris: Stefan, the assistant art director at Intelligent Travel, spent a year in Paris as a student. Here he shares his Parisian museum picks - we’ve all heard of the Louvre but what about the Musée Gustave-Moreau?

• Barcelona: Me, My Kid and Life shows us how to enjoy Barcelona on the cheap, from graffiti art to chocolate. Meanwhile, the Spanish Language Site blog lets us know about a gourmet tapas walking tour in Barcelona. Food and sightseeing? Now that’s my kind of tour.

• Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Provence: It’s not quite a city, but I’ll always make a detour for wine, so let’s visit the French countryside, for this post on an organic vineyard in Provence on Diary of 1.

• Venice, Italy: Venice is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in Europe but also one of the most expensive. Less Than a Shoestring shows you how to enjoy it without breaking the bank.

• San Francisco: Photos from Oak Grove in San Francisco, from Cat Synth.

PS I rejected a couple of entries that were either completely off topic or overtly commercial. Also, please accept my apologies for the fact that I am late posting this - I’ve adjusted the time stamp to reflect when it should have gone live.

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Happy Chinese New Year and welcome to the Year of the Rat! It might not sound very appealing but in Chinese mythology the rat is revered for its cleverness and loyalty and the Year of the Rat is considered very auspicious.

Although today is New Year’s Day in the Chinese calendar, the Spring Festival celebrations last a week. It’s a really big deal in China, more so than usual this year because of the coming Olympics in Beijing. Virtually everyone in China returns home to their family, although this year not everyone will make it thanks to the big freeze that has kept most of China icebound.

When I first went to China in 2003, we neglected to check the Chinese calendar, and ending up travelling on Chinese New Year, along with millions of locals. We flew with Air China from Shanghai to X’ian - the home of the Terracotta Warriors, some of which are currently on display at the British Museum.

The situation was not quite as grim as the current extreme weather, but guess what? Our flight was delayed by 12 hours due to fog. Faced with hordes of angry customers who were anxious to get home to their families, the airline treated us to a free banquet in a hotel near the airport. My travelling companion fell ill and one of our fellow passengers went with me to help me buy medicine at the pharmacy - Chinese medicine, of course. The flight finally left around 10 o’clock at night and we arrived at our hotel in X’ian just after midnight.

We rolled out of the taxi, cold, tired, hungry and a little grumpy and, in my friend’s case, a little nauseous and weak. Our taxi driver beckoned to us, went to the back of his car and pulled out a bag of firecrackers, which he presented to us as a gift. We thanked him and accepted the gift but at that point all we really wanted to do was get to our hotel room as quickly as possible and collapse in bed. As it turned out, fate had other things in store.

The clock had just struck midnight and there was no one at the reception desk so we went back outside where half a dozen people were milling around. We asked the first person we saw if they spoke English and if they could help us with our reservation. “Yes,” she cried, grabbing my arm. “But first we play!”

It was impossible not to be swept up in the enthusiasm as we joined the Chinese hotel staff and our taxi driver letting off fireworks in the hotel carpark. Everyone was having stacks of fun, despite the bitter cold and the fact they had to work on New Year’s Eve. At one point, one of the fireworks went too close to one of the cars and the alarm went off. My friend and I started laughing and one of the Chinese staff turned around and looked at us in astonishment. We pointed at the car with its alarm blaring and they looked, and started laughing as well. It was a great ice breaker!

X’ian had a festive atmosphere all throughout the week of Spring Festival. It’s an important regional city and the town was packed with holidaymakers from more remote parts of western China. We were the subject of quite some curiosity as we explored the town, visiting the medieval city walls or the Bell Tower and Drum Tower in the centre of town, or making the trip to the site of the Terracotta Warriors excavation by public bus (and passing the No. 1 Terracotta Warrior Factory on the way). And we were equally curious in return, visiting the Muslim Quarter to pay our respects to the Great Mosque and eat some mutton as a welcome relief from the constant barrage of pork, and watching families fly their kites in the main square.

The Chinese diaspora is vast and Chinese New Year is a holiday you can celebrate virtually anywhere in the world. There is certainly plenty to do here in London.

1. Saturday 9 February - Chinese New Year celebrations at the British Museum, to include dance and music displays, shadow puppets, story telling, film, gallery talks, craft and lots of Chinese food. From 2pm to midnight.
2. Sunday 10 February - Chinese New Year parade in Trafalgar Square and Chinatown area. The day includes plenty of Lion Dancing and you can watch the paper lions jumping for lettuces around the shops of Chinatown - this is a community fundraising activity and the prize is actually the wads of cash hidden inside the lettuces. You can also partake of Chinese street food and have fun throwing firecrackers - simply gun powder in paper - and hearing the loud and satisfying crack as it hits the pavement. The photo is from the 2005 parade and shows a glimpse of the fabulous costumes and characters you might encounter. From noon until 6pm.
3. Now until 6 April - China in London season of events running the Olympic Torch passes through London in April en route to Beijing. Includes arts, cinema, performance, food and drink, a writing competition for children, and special events at the London Zoo, National Portrait Gallery, the Museum in the Docklands, and other institutions around London.
4. Any time - There is plenty of good Chinese food in London. Chinatown (the area between Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, north-west of Leicester Square) is packed with Chinese eateries and food shops. There are also top Chinese restaurants such as Hakkasan (recently voted the best restaurant in London by Time Out magazine). There is plenty of dim sum, including at the trendy Ping Pong chain or at more traditional establishments in Chinatown. Or visit a Chinese tea house, such as Yauatcha.

How do you celebrate Chinese New Year in your home town? Let me know in the comments.

Read my travel article on Shanghai.

Read my recipe for festive Chinese noodles.

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I promised yesterday to point my readers in the direction of some good travel blogs. A good place to start is with the 2007 Travvies.

• Upgrade Travel Better, about getting more bang for your buck. The organiser of the Travvies.
  
• Exposed Planet, which has stunningly beautiful photographs and is the deserving winner of the best photography category.
• Cranky Flier, opinionated and sometimes hilarious commentary on the airline industry. Winner of two categories - the best single-author blog and the best informative/practical blog.
• The Lost Girls, dispatches from three New York girls who put their careers on hold and took off on a year-long trip around the world. The trip is now over but they are still updating the blog and the archives make for great reading too. Winner of the best group-written blog.
• NewYorkology, a New York travel guide by Amy Langfield. Winner of the best destination blog.
• Intelligent Travel, a mix of practical and destination posts from National Geographic magazine. Winner of the best travel blog.

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Did you vote in the 2008 Bloggies? Voting has now closed and the winners will be announced on 10 March.

The Bloggies have been going for eight years now and they are very prestigious. Winning a Bloggie is not only a great honour, it would undoubtedly would bring a big boost in audience for any website.

However, I can tell you already that a travel blog will not win any of the 30 categories. The reason I am so certain is that there is not a single travel blog among the 180 finalists. By contrast, there are 11 food blogs among the finalists, some of them up for multiple awards.

This made me wonder… does this mean there are not very many good travel blogs out there? Or does it mean that the people who vote in the Bloggies are not much interested in travel blogs? And if it is the latter, then can that be changed? One impediment is obviously that there is no category specifically for travel blogs but that should not be an insurmountable hurdle - food blogs by contrast had the advantage of a dedicated category but they also made the finals in “best Australian or New Zealand weblog”, “best European weblog”, “best photography of a weblog” and “best writing of a weblog”.

I emailed Nikolai Nolan, whose contact details are on the Bloggies website. This is what he had to say:

“To my knowledge, no travel-focused blogs made the finals this year, and there haven’t been many in previous years. I’m not one to judge whether travel weblogs don’t deserve to be nominated, or if they’re just not well-known enough or liked enough by the audience who votes for the Bloggies. A travel category has been requested many times, and if I decide to drop a category next year there’s a good chance Best Travel Weblog will replace it.”

I then asked the question on the Travelwriters.com forum. I got an incredible response and it opened my eyes to just how many terrific travel blogs are out there. Many of the blogs had blog rolls or linked to other blogs so I have had a happy few days exploring the travel blogosphere. The problem is definitely not lack of talent.

The Bloggies may or may not introduce a travel blog category at some point in the future. I don’t think we should waste time worrying about that because it’s outside our control. However, it is certainly within our power to nominate travel blogs for next year’s awards in existing categories. I will post here when the time comes.

The other thing I am keen to do is try to build more of a sense of community among travel bloggers. I think the reason food blogs are so well represented is because the food blogging community is well established and well organised - they read each other’s blogs, leave comments for each other, link to each other, and my sense is they probably nominate each other for awards. They realise that they are allies and even friends, and not rivals. That is something that is totally within our power.

We should also support initiatives like the Travvies, a new awards scheme specifically for travel blogs. It’s not as big as the Bloggies yet but it’s a start. There was a great line-up of winners and while I’m sure some very good blogs missed out, it was sad to see so much bitching about the process and the rules. Enough with the whining, let’s get behind it!

Travel writer and blogger Christopher Elliott has also written about the lack of respect given to travel blogs. He likens it to the situation facing animated films before 2001, when it got its own category in the Oscars for the first time. He believes that a credible, impartial organisation needs to be back a set of awards for the travel blogging sector.

Since starting the Travelwriters.com thread, I have added about a dozen travel blogs to my RSS feed reader* (explanation below for the non-techie among you). I plan to make more of an effort to support my fellow travel bloggers. If the universe reciprocates then that’s fantastic; if not, well that’s okay too as I’ll still be entertained, edified and provoked by all the great travel writing out there.

Lest you think that all this is a ruse to prompt my readers to vote for me in next year’s Bloggies, it’s not. I just hope you vote for a travel blog, any travel blog. In order to avoid simply posting a massive list of about 100 blogs, I am going to drip feed this over multiple posts. Hopefully you will find something of interest, so stay tuned!

* RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It basically means you will be notified of new content on your favourite blogs and sites, without having to go to the home page to check. All you need to do is register for an RSS reader such as Google Reader, My Yahoo! or Bloglines (or choose one from this longer list) in the same way you would register for a free email account. Then tell the RSS reader the URLs for the blogs you would like to subscribe to. Sometimes it will come up with more than one feed but usually if you select the top one, then that will work fine. Many blogs will also have a separate feed for comments, which can be nice if you like the community aspect.

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