Political Tourism

Hey, everyone! I haven´t been completely idle.. I´ve published my first magazine article! And issue 36 of Clamor magazine is out, and should be at stores that stock progressive media (Powell´s should have it).

My article is pretty short: after being on the road for five months, I´ve developed both a dependence and critique of travel guides like Lonely Planet and Footprint. While they are indispensable for getting around and finding a hotel, their claim of promoting responsible tourism and presenting accurate historical facts are easy to question. Tourism is a powerful and unbalanced economic force. While we can´t stop white folks with money from entering countries (why not? it seems we can stop brown folks without money from doing so...), we might think very seriously about creating guidebooks that do more than encourage vegetarian fare at the sites of mass slaughters of indigenous people.. and actually create political tourism, a kind of moving through the world that is designed to get people involved with groups who are doing good work in communities.

This is not easy, but look for more details after I publish the article on this blog in a few months. For now, check out the Clamor site and buy a magazine for me to read when I get home, too!

http://www.clamormagazine.org/