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Southeast Asia’s Unified Tourism Brand Progresses via ASEAN Tourism Forum 2024

Southeast Asia’s Unified Tourism Brand Progresses via ASEAN Tourism Forum 2024

Vientiane, Laos, recently hosted the 42nd annual ASEAN Tourism Forum The Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism hosted the ASEAN TOURISM FORUM (ATF) from January 22-27, 2024 in its Capital, Vientiane, with the theme: Quality and Responsible Tourism—Sustaining ASEAN Future. Since its inauguration in 1981, the annual ATF rotates alphabetically through its 10 member-countries with a total of 600 million people—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The tourism fusion […]

CAMP CURE—Healing made fun at Massachusetts’ Unifier Festival

billy-wylder

In search of a tangent from my travel writing routine, I participated in the eighth annual Unifier Festival, where I debuted as a naive rookie and departed edified and breathing easier. What initially appeared as a dazzling world-music dance party in the woods quickly revealed itself to be an organic, utopian campus celebration focused on wellness, restoration, and worldly melody joy. This healing and expressive arts festival is transformational for some and pure entertainment for […]

International Cancer-Fighting Team Captain—Dr. Waxman—Finds Cancer Before It Finds You

Jason Isbell

Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation raises $6 million for liberation from cancer. The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation hosted its 24th annual benefit dinner and auction featuring musical luminary Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit with guest guitarist Warren Haynes. More than $6 million was raised to support groundbreaking global cancer research while the band raised the roof at Cipriani Wall Street, a towering triumph of Greek revival architecture. This great cause, the Collaborating for a Cure Gala, aptly themed Together […]

DON’T BE AFRAID TO SCARE YOURSELF (Utah ~ Zambezi River ~ Puerto Rico)

DON’T BE AFRAID TO SCARE YOURSELF (Utah ~ Zambezi River ~ Puerto Rico)

My wilderness survival course in the southern Utah desert included three days completely alone in a red canyon so beautiful it made other parts of the earth seem lonely. Mother Nature’s sandbox dyed me red-orange. My senses felt alive. I smelled the sage breeze, heard the wisp of darting vultures, saw the dry earth crackling under my feet, and felt the precious seconds ticking.   This desert, like most, can experience 60-degree temperature swings in […]

TURN YOUR BACK ON THE SHORE TO UNDERSTAND THE SEA

TURN YOUR BACK ON THE SHORE TO UNDERSTAND THE SEA

Simplicity has no baggage. I’m sitting in a kayak in a hidden cove somewhere in the Andaman Sea’s Mergui Archipelago. This mostly uninhabited string of reefs and islands extend 200 miles along Burma’s coast—an 800-isle Eden the size of Vermont. Since time immemorial, Mergui’s waters have been home to floating nomad families, the Moken, who live most of the year on kabangs, houseboats made from big hollowed-out trees. The Moken belong to no country, carry […]

THE CAT MONASTERY

THE CAT MONASTERY

To err is human. However, full forgiveness might only be possible from a pet. While in Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a buried sense of pet guilt overcame me. I’m not unfamiliar with surging tangential thoughts, but it seemed odd that Chelsea, my childhood cat, leapt into my mind. Our globe teems with cats that survey everything and supposedly lick themselves clean (I argue this popular theory. If you pay attention, […]

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