Travel

"One winter morning the President electrified his nervous Cabinet by bursting into a meeting with, 'Gentlemen, do you know what has happened this morning?'  They waited with bated breath as he announced,  'Just now I saw a Chestnut-sided Warbler and this is only February.' "
—  Corine Roosevelt Robinson (on her brother Theodore Roosevelt)

A birding walk on the Filoli estate in Woodside, California a few years ago and inspiration from an unknown warbler some weeks ago in our backyard, led us to this site. Regardless of your attachment to birding, the search might of be of interest to all who hear a song and wonder about the singer. Here are some of the new species entered onto the site:

Green Sandpiper
Canivet's Emerald
Yellow-throated Longclaw
Sharpe's Pied Babbler
Rufous-cheeked Laughingthrush

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by Mary Ann Sternberg

I call it a cat-sitting gig but, in truth, the two weeks I spend in a friend’s apartment on New York’s upper west side in June, sieving the litter box and purring back at a feline, is the only way I’ve found to fulfill my lifelong fantasy of living in Manhattan.

I’ve wanted to live in the city since the mid-1960s when, as a college girl from New Orleans, I spent four years in Poughkeepsie and took every possible opportunity to explore New York City. My plan was to live and work there happily ever after college.

However, life, as it tends to do, unfolded differently and I returned to Louisiana. New York became a destination for business trips with my husband or the occasional holiday — always exhilarating, whirlwind visits, but never long enough. Shortly after my husband died, however, I learned that my friend Wendy needed company for her cats Happy and Eva while she and her husband spent time at a family cottage on the Maine coast. Did I want to stay in her apartment?

Which is how the longstanding desire to live in the city, even if only for two weeks every year, came to be a reality.

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The best ethical travel destinations chosen by Ethical Traveler for 2010 are: Argentina, Belize, Chile, Ghana, Lithuania, Namibia, Poland, Seychelles, South Africa and Suriname. Countries were graded across three main categories: support for ecotourism, environmental protection, and social development. Of course, as Ethical Traveler staffers point out, none of the countries named in the report are ethically "perfect."

"In drafting our report, we use scores of information sources including publicly available data — to rate each country's genuine commitment to environmental protection, social welfare and human rights." says Christy Hoover, co-author of the report.  "Data sources include the United Nations Development Program, Human Rights Watch, Columbia University, Reporters Without Borders, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and many others. Private interviews with NGO leaders are part of the process, as well."  The full report can be viewed at www.ethicaltraveler.org/destinations. In Pictures: Ethical Destinations 2010

The twelve green rules that Ethical Traveler recommends:

1) Be Aware of Where Your Money Is Going, and patronize locally-owned inns, restaurants, and shops. Try to keep your cash within the local economy, so the people you are visiting can benefit directly from your visit.

2) Never Give Gifts to Children, only to their parents or teachers. When giving gifts to local communities — from schoolbooks to balloons, from pens to pharmaceuticals — first find out what's really needed, and who can best distribute these items.

3) Before visiting any foreign land, Take the Time to Learn Basic Courtesy Phrases: greetings, "please" & "thank you," and as many numbers as you can handle (those endless hours in airport waiting lounges, or aboard trains and boats, are all opportunities for this). It's astonishing how far a little language goes toward creating a feeling of goodwill.

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The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles conducts an 18th century  'grand tour' of  Italy using its art collections to illustrate the artistic and cultural side of the celebrated event. Princeton's Wordnet defines the term, Grand Tour, as:

"an extended cultural tour of Europe taken by wealthy young Englishmen (especially in the 18th century) as part of their education"

The online site poses and answers the question, Why Italy?

"The primary destination of the Grand Tour was Italy, with its heritage of ancient Roman monuments. 18th-century taste revered the art and culture of the ancients. The British, in particular, were lured to Italy by their admiration of antiquity and their desire to see firsthand such monuments of ancient civilization as the Colosseum in Rome, and such wonders of nature as the volcanic eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, near Naples."

"Display and spectacle were all important in the 18th century. Cities such as Rome, Venice, and Florence put on elaborate religious and civic festivals that involved public processions and lavish temporary architecture. The greatest artists and architects of the day, Filippo Juvara, Giuseppe Vasi, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, were also stage designers. Even such academic pursuits as archaeological excavation had their theatrical side; 'discoveries' were sometimes staged for the delight of eminent visitors. Performance could take place at home as well as in public, as in Lady Emma Hamilton’s 'Attitudes,' a series of poses based on ancient subjects."

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