Every Thursday, A Dangerous Business will be shining the spotlight on a world nomad, travel blogger, armchair adventurer, or just someone really cool in the travel world. This week, the traveler?is Mark Hodson. Mark has been a travel journalist since the mid 1990s. He spent 12 years working full-time for The Sunday Times in London, and is now editor and co-founder of the travel inspiration websites, 101 Holidays and 101 Honeymoons. He also runs Travel SEO, which offers online marketing services to travel companies.
1. How do you define the word ?traveler,? and why would you consider yourself one?
I?m not crazy about the word when people use it as a snobbish attempt to differentiate themselves from ?tourists?. We are all tourists, only some are more enlightened than others. I?ve met guests at five-star hotels who threw themselves into the experience of travel and engaged with local people, and I?ve met long-stay backpackers who were so jaded and cynical and wrapped up in their bubble that it was painful to watch. We should all aim to travel well, regardless of how long we stay or how much we spend on our accommodation.
2. What has been your favorite travel experience thus far?
There have been quite a few so it?s hard to pick one. I once travelled with a friend to a village in the Thar Desert of Northern India near the border with Pakistan and we hired a couple of camels and drivers and spent four days wandering across the dunes, sleeping under the stars. It wasn?t very comfortable but the memories will last a while.
3. How about your proudest travel moment?
After the Asian tsunami, I was the first travel journalist to file reports from the Maldives, Thailand and Sri Lanka (for The Sunday Times in London). What I found was ? in many cases ? contrary to the information being spread by the mass media: the Maldives, for example, were hardly damaged at all, structurally, but the mass cancellation of bookings was rapidly causing unemployment and great hardship for local people. By reporting the situation as I saw it, I was able to play a part in encouraging tourists to continue to visit the islands when their money was needed most.
4. Have you had any travel mishaps or bad experiences? If so, have these influenced how you view the place where they happened? Would you go back?
Quite a few. I think you need to work out whether the bad experience was the ?fault? of the place, or down to a freak event or possibly a disconnect between your expectations and reality. Personally, I would like to say that I see good in everywhere I go, but that?s not true. Some places are irredeemably awful. Managua was one for me.
5. Name one thing you can?t travel without.
Ear plugs.
6. Name one thing you wish you COULD travel without.
Impatience.
7. What do you think has been the biggest thing you?ve learned while traveling (about yourself, a destination, a culture, travel itself)?
It?s not true that people are the same wherever you go. In some places people really are nicer than in others.
8. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
I love London but it would benefit from better weather and closer proximity to the sea, beaches and hills, so I?d go for San Francisco, Cape Town, Melbourne or Rio de Janeiro.
9. Name one place you?d like to see or one experience you?d like to have before you die.
Antarctica.
10. If there was one thing you wish somebody would have told you before you started traveling, what would it be?
Pack less.
Follow Mark on Twitter: @101Holidays
??
Are you a travel blogger who has something to say on these topics? Do you know of somebody really interesting in the travel universe that you?d like to see interviewed? Speak up! The Thursday Traveler needs some interview subjects.
You may also like:
whitney houston funeral judi dench alicia keys bobby brown leaves funeral donnie mcclurkin whitney houston funeral live stream kevin costner whitney houston
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.