Matador member Lola Akinmade–herself a carrier of a well-inked passport leafed with multiple visas–sent in a tip about the website Most Traveled People.

Think you’re well-traveled?

Well, compare your passport stamps to those of Charles A. Veley, who has visited 630 of the world’s 673 “countries, territories, autonomous regions, enclaves, geographically separated island groups, and major states and provinces” and has the stories and pictures to prove it.

Nancy Dockry, though, isn’t far behind, clocking in with an impressive 620 place-visits on the MTP roster.

If you want to start keeping track of your travels, check out MTP’s printable list of places and see how you stack up beside Veley and Dockry.

Or if you think you’ve got what it takes to join the ranks of the world’s most traveled people, start your own account.

According to your own count, how many countries have you visited? Post your travel stats in the comments below!

Photo: disco~stu (creative commons)

Photo by Dro!d (Creative Commons)

The first lesson we were taught in my ninth grade writing class is one that most of us have heard about a zillion times: ‘Write what you know.’

Back then, I took it to heart as far as poetry, short stories and scripts went – but more recently, I’ve been forgetting to apply the lesson to travel writing.

That is, until the last couple of weeks.

My local paper, like many, can only buy so much freelance travel material. Sometimes the weekly section might have only one story bought directly from a freelancer, instead of from a syndicated service – and some weeks, it might have none at all. The competition between writers selling stories about Dubrovnik, Bali, Peru or St. Kitts is fierce.

Each week, though, one item is constant: a ‘Daytripping’ piece, about an activity – generally family-friendly – within a couple hours drive of the city. Weeks might go by without a story about Asia running in the travel section, but the paper is committed to consistently publishing local content.

My local paper’s far from unique in this; most dailies have a strong local element to their travel sections. And as a freelancer, this can be a huge opportunity for you.

We may not all live someplace glamourous, the world may not always be interested in our hometowns – but chances are, your hometown is interested in your hometown.

If you haven’t already, study up on your local paper and get in touch with the travel editor. Introduce yourself, and ask for submission/pitching guidelines. Mention that you’d be especially interested in writing local content – I can almost guarantee that it’s what he or she receives the least.

Then brainstorm about your stomping grounds: What makes it different? What’s something you’ve done that most people in town may not know about? A hike? A farmer’s market? A small-scale, quirky museum?

Come up with a solid list of ideas, and pitch away.

I don’t want to sound like a testimonial on an infomercial, but here goes: Over the past two years, I’ve sold four international travel stories to my local paper. Last week, in the course of a single half-hour meeting about local content, I sold six stories.

Lesson learned? Give the editor what they need, and the clips (and fame and glory) will follow!

Guest Editorial by Matador member Matt Kepnes

Somewhere before my bus broke down in Australia, I was called a flashpacker. Despite being on the road for 18 months, it was the first time I’d heard the term.

What is a Flashpacker?

“Flashpacker (def): Someone usually in their mid 20s to early 30s, who travels like a backpacker but has more disposable income, as well as electronics such as a camera, Ipod, or laptop. Flashpackers also expect better accommodation and amenities.”

Neither fully backpacker nor tourist, flashpackers are new to the traveling lexicon. Flashpackers sleep in hostels, carry a backpack, and find cheap transport, but blow their wad on meals, tours, and parties.

They usually aren’t strolling into a hostel randomly or wearing the same shirt for a week.

A number of hostels are upscaling to meet the growing demands and needs of flashpackers and you’ll find them in all corners of the world. Flashpackers still have no fixed journey and all the time to meander around but don’t pinch every penny.

They are backpackers with means.

Is flashpacking backpacking?

What makes a backpacker a backpacker? The backpack? The clothes? The lack of showers? People look down on flashpackers, but they are just as much a backpacker as anyone else.

Backpacking is not a look, it’s a lifestyle. Just because someone doesn’t have the look, doesn’t mean they lack the spirit. It doesn’t make them less of a backpacker. It goes against the backpacker mentality to look down on someone because they travel differently.

Aren’t we supposed to be embracing different ways of life?

When I travel, I don’t want to sacrifice. I pinched pennies at home so I could enjoy my travels. I didn’t work hard to go to Italy and not drink the wine or eat a meal in Florence. I didn’t fly to Japan to not eat the sushi. And I didn’t fly to Australia to skip the Barrier Reef.

It comes down to what makes a backpacker a backpacker. That sprit. The desire to explore new places and experience new people. Backpacking is about opening your mind to new things and looking differently at the world. It’s not about the stuff you carry. If your spirit is the same the stuff you carry shouldn’t matter.

The Wave of the Future

We’re all flashpackers, whether you like it or not. We may not be driving up to the hostel in a limo but we all expect a little “flash” nowadays. According to a 2006 Hostelworld study, 21% of people travel with a laptop, 54% with an MP3 player, 83% with a mobile phone, and a whopping 86% travel with a digital camera.

Think about your last trip- how many people did you see with cameras? Ipods? Laptops? I can’t remember seeing one person without a camera, and at least 3/4 of the people I saw had Ipods.

We all travel with fancy electronics now. We check our e-mail and Skype our friends. We all have a camera and most of us have an Ipod. We’ve become flashpackers…and it’s not a bad thing. All this stuff allows us to stay better connected with our friends, our family, and helps us better document our travels. The key is to put down the camer and turn off the computer once in awhile to enjoy the culture you came to see.

The backpacker who sets off with one shirt, a small pack, and two baht to his name is getting hard to find. Most of us have and expect a little more but we still carry his spirit.

We still seek new cultures, exotic locales, and long term travel. We still look for cheap hostels and transport. We camp on that jungle trek. The difference is that now we also want a place to plug in our camera, check our e-mail, take a hot shower, and splash out on tours.

We just want to be pampered…once in awhile.
*
Matt Kepnes is a globetrotter who’s “fully sick with the travel bug.” Whether at home in Boston or on the road, he offers fresh travel ideas daily on his website, www.nomadicmatt.com.

Are you a flashpacker? What do you think of this idea? Share your reactions in the comments.
Luxury Backpacker Photo: klenze17 (creativecommons)
Lone Packer Photo: Werner Schnell (creative commons)

Every week is a big news week as far as the police of Mexico City are concerned, and the MCPD’s PR folks clearly have their jobs cut out for them.

Just yesterday, the local news reported that rates of assassinations of police officers had increased significantly since President Felipe Calderon instituted a crackdown on narcotrafficking and general delinquency.

More than 500 officers have reportedly lost their lives during this campaign, including an inspector general and his bodyguard who were killed this past Thursday.

Police in Mexico City are also being criticized this week for a nighclub surveillance operation that went terribly wrong, resulting in the deaths of 12 people, including several teenagers as young as 13. The police, who converged upon the News Divine Nightclub in their ongoing effort to crackdown on clubs that allow minors to buy and consume alcohol, made tactical errors that resulted in a stampede, killing three officers and nine teens, injuring 13 others.

But perhaps the strangest news of all from this week’s police blotter is the English language paper’s report that police in the State of Mexico are now being required to read at least one book a month. Police officers in certain precincts will even be given one hour out of their shift “to read classics such as The Count of Monte Cristo… and Treasure Island.”

According to local officials interviewed for the article, the compulsory reading program is expected to “produce better police officers” because “more educated, literate officers [are more likely to be] capable of dealing with their routine activities with thoughtfulness and sensitivity towards those they serve.”

While the idea sounds nice on paper, it’s worth watching this initiative to see how successful it is.

What’s the strangest police news you’ve heard? Share your stories in the comments below.

Photo: Julie Schwietert Collazo

Photo by dmax3270 (Creative Commons)

Well, not quite.

South Africa’s first post-apartheid president – and, to my mind, one of the most inspiring figures of the 20th century – doesn’t actually turn 90 until July 18.

But that didn’t stop London from throwing a huge fundraising concert bash in his honour last night, to an audience 46,664 strong.

(46664 was Mandela’s prison number at Robben Island, the infamous prison where he spent much of his 27 years behind bars.)

20 years ago, London celebrated Mandela’s 70th birthday while he remained imprisoned, and that 1988 concert was important in raising awareness around the world. As he said last night: “Your voices carried across the water to inspire us in our prison cells far away.”

The 2008 concert included heavyweights like Queen, Amy Winehouse, Razorlight, Leona Lewis, Annie Lennox, and the Sugababes, along with the Soweto Gospel Choir and a range of popular African acts.

Said one musician who played both concerts, twenty years apart: “I was angry the last time. It was very much a protest concert. This is a joyful occasion.”

Personally, I’m no athlete. I’ve got two left feet, bad aim, and I’m so athletics-averse that I throw out the sports section of the newspaper without even glancing at it.

But word of the documentary “Steep” has definitely awakened my hidden inner sports lover. After garnering admiring critical attention and making the film festival/indie circuit this past winter, “Steep,” which gets into the minds of extreme skiiers, is now available on DVD.

The trailer is enough to make me shiver with the stunning footage and the psychological puzzle that is the mind of extreme skiiers, and I’m looking forward to seeing the full documentary. Until then, I’ll satisfy my curiosity with this clip of extreme skiier Ingrid Backstrom.

Maybe the skies you’ve been flying lately haven’t been as friendly as the one in this YouTube video. That’s an airplane?!

With baggage and ticket prices increasing on what seem like a daily basis and in-flight amenities waning into non-existence, it’s easy to think that the glory days of flying are as good as gone.

Not so for certain frequent fliers, though. Check out this photo gallery of the airlines that Newsweek’s international edition refers to as the “world’s most luxurious” and see how some passengers are living large.

What’s the sweetest in-flight experience you’ve had? Share your story in the Comments below.

Photo by moriza (Creative Commons)

‘Wow,’ someone said to me the other day, after I’d finished telling him about my recent career transition from historical research to travel writing. ‘Sure beats sitting in the archives!’

Well, yes. And no.

Of course, I love traveling, and travel writing is a dream job. But – and if you didn’t already know I’m a huge nerd, you’re about to find out – I also happen to love sitting in the archives, sifting through old papers.

My interest in history has always been linked to my interest in travel. That’s not to say that I’m all about ruins and museums when I’m on the road. But whether I’m up to my elbows in dusty manuscripts or sitting on a park bench in a Venetian campo eating pizza, I’m learning about our crazy world and the people that inhabit it.

Once, working on a report about the history of Canadian-Caribbean economic relations, I came across a file folder from the Canadian trade commissioner to Barbados in the early 20th century. The folder contained only the briefest correspondence: a request for permission to clean out an old filing cabinet after a staff change-over – and then, a note from Ottawa: permission granted.

Just like that, 24 years of correspondence between a young Canada and a colonial Barbados was destroyed.

I may have left professional archival work behind for now, but stories like that still give me chills – and not in a good way. I think our connections to the past can be just as important for global understanding as our connections to each other, and I’ve never really understood how anyone can see this stuff as disposable.

Archival preservation is a pretty obscure cause, and it’s always nice to see it getting a bit of attention in the mainstream media. This week, Slate’s Alex Heard reports on the FBI’s routine disposal of invaluable historical documents.

Eeesh. I just got those chills again.

If you’re a budget traveler, I’ll bet you’re already hip to the cheap tickets for the so-called Chinese buses that run between Chinatowns in cities throughout the Northeast US.

At just $15, the cost of a seat is a bargain, and it’s hard to imagine the ticket price dropping lower.

That’s why I was surprised to see an advertisement for $1 bus fare between the same cities, offered by the company Megabus. With gas as expensive as it is, how can Megabus possibly afford to sell its seats so cheap?

I don’t have the answer to that question, but you may well be weighing the value of your life against marginal cost savings. After another crash of a Fung Wah bus a few days ago– this time in New York City– budget travelers may want to reconsider the cheap bus route.

Have you ever taken the Chinese buses in the Northeast? Share your experience in the comments below!

Photo: Naomi A. (creative commons)

Photo by Lollie-Pop (Creative Commons

I can still remember the first time a college professor opened my eyes to the way ‘Africa’ (and, of course, it’s usually treated as a homogeneous unit) is painted in most major media.

Since then, I’ve noticed every time words like ’senseless’, ‘chaotic’ or ’savage’ crop up in articles about violence on the continent, where similar violence elsewhere – in the Balkans, say, or Kashmir – might receive more nuance and context.

This week, Slate offers this all-too-rare reality check on the recent township violence in South Africa, and its coverage in the mainstream U.S. media. From the article:

The coverage shows only suffering victims, violent perpetrators, and a failed African head of state. By slotting foreigners, the South African poor, and the president into these roles and pitting them against each other, U.S. readers and viewers never really find out what xenophobia means in South Africa, except for the most obvious and familiar definition: the hatred of foreigners.

It’s an interesting read – and it should be clear that the author is not in any way trying to minimize the violence or the harm done, only trying to explain the historical factors that give ‘foreigner’ a different definition (or several definitions), in South Africa, than the one we might be used to.