Editor’s Note: Doing Our Part for the Planet

When John and Sandra Nowlan went on a cruise, they didn’t have sunshine, beaches and piña coladas in mind. Rather, they made the choice to visit one of the coldest, most barren landscapes on earth, Antarctica.

As one would imagine on an Antarctic cruise, there were superlatives to be experienced — magnificent mountain vistas, an astonishing number of glaciers, even a natural hot spring in a bay. Yet it was the inhabitants of the continent that drew their attention. As John and Sandra stood patiently, quietly, near a colony of chinstrap penguins, several of the bolder family members waddled over to inspect them, one species reaching out to another.

A marine biologist onboard who had been guiding Antarctic trips for two decades noted that he’s seen worrisome changes in the penguin populations due to warmer, less extreme, weather today in the Antarctic. In December 2007, Emily Lewis-Brown, marine and climate change officer for the World Wildlife Fund noted that “ocean ice around the West Antarctic Peninsula is heating up at five times the rate of any other region of the planet.” The heating effect is melting the ice and leading to a reduction in the krill population, upon which Antarctica’s penguins rely.

This thought-provoking story, Antarctica: Cruising the Continent, is well worth the read, as it places readers in an extraordinary setting few will have the opportunity to experience.

Two other writers in this issue also plunged into the unknown to learn about little-visited corners of the globe. In The Price of Enlightenment: 12 Days in an Indian Monastery, writer Wolff Bowden forsakes daily comforts and endures challenging physical conditions to learn more about feeling centered. And in Journey to El Petén: Guatemala’s Cradle of Civilization, by Ron Mitchell, the writer slogs through knee-deep mud for days to reach an impressive archaeological site that’s only now being excavated.

Another writer, Amber Foster, also ventured off the edge of the map in a figurative sense, by staying at a previously men’s-only capsule hotel in Japan (Keep Out, Man! Staying in a Tokyo Capsule Hotel). Her stay was much more pleasant and comfortable than the previous writers’ experiences, but nonetheless challenging, as she faced down societal norms.

January is ski season, and Black Diamond: Taos Ski Valley gives readers a glimpse of the challenging skiing to be had at Taos, as well as a chance to learn a bit about the nearby Pueblo Indian culture, whose origin myth holds that mankind emerged from the underworld in the middle of winter, which is why the cold season holds a great significance for their people.

With the world meeting in Bali on climate change, it’s an important time to reexamine priorities and consider what each of us can do as individuals to counteract the changes that are occurring, so that our grandchildren can inherit the same wonderful world someday. Perhaps the spare, silent spaces of winter can help us all to re-focus on the importance of living in an environmentally friendly way.

I’m sorry to say that this will be my last issue as senior editor of Go World Travel. During the two years I’ve edited the magazine, I’ve had the wonderful literary experiences of riding a crowded local train through the dusty landscape of Mauritania, visiting Vietnam’s hill tribes and searching for snow leopards in the barren Russian steppes. I’d like to think I’ve helped bring to life places you and I may never venture; hopefully I’ve sparked ideas for travel that have led to your own rich experiences. And I’ve had the privilege of “taking readers along with me” on trips I’ve made to out-of-the-way places in Canada, Mexico and the Western U.S. Now I have other horizons to explore, literally and figuratively, as I embark on a new venture of writing a guide for traveling with children. If you have tips or experiences to share about traveling with your children, you can reach me at www.leslieforsberg.com. Thanks for the grand journey!

Happy Travels!

Leslie Forsberg, Senior Editor