Matador member Aaron Appleton recording a traditional Mayan instrument called a “tun” in Guatemala; Photo: Aaron Appleton

Meet five ethnomusicologists and musicians who are members of the Matador community:

1. Ellie McCutcheon

Ellie McCutcheon is a 20-year old student interested in ethnomusicology–and she’s already well on her way to learning about other cultures through their music.

Ellie has lived in Chile and will be on her way to Kunming, China this fall, where she will be starting an independent study on Chinese music.

2. Aaron Appleton

Wisconsin-born Aaron Appleton describes himself as an “avant-garde ethnomusicologist currently working to start-up a non profit organization named Ensigo,” and he wants to make a difference in the world by “using music as a tool to bring transformational development.”

Check out photos in his gallery to see Aaron recording music during his travels.

3. Danielle Adomaitis

Danielle Adomaitis is a grad student studying ethnomusicology. Much of her work focuses on New Orleans; follow her blog, SocioSound to learn more.

4. Michelle Schusterman

Michelle Schusterman, associate editor of Matador Goods, isn’t formally an ethnomusicologist, but she’s pretty much earned an honorary degree. From Brazil to Korea, Michelle’s perfected the art of traveling with instruments and making music with locals.

Follow her blog for entries about her life as a musician, traveler, and writer.

5. Mark Powers

Mark Powers is a percussionist “dedicated to traveling the globe, studying its musics and cultures, and teaching others what I learn.” Mark’s summer travel plans include a stop in the Afro-Puerto Rican town of Loiza, Puerto Rico, where he’ll be studying traditional bomba y plena.

Community Connection:

Check out the Internet’s most inspirational music videos and follow Matador Nights’ weekly #MusicMonday series.

“Near Tegallinggah, Bali, there is a deep river gorge with a half-finished candis from the 11th Century. Yanni, most at home in any aquatic environment, found a spot where the water poured out of the walls, making its way to the river below.”

Photo: Kerry Lee

Community Connection:

If you’d like your photo considered for our Friday Photo series, please visit the Matador photo pool on Flickr.

Am I right?

If so, then it’s worth reading on.

MatadorU is partnering with World Expeditions, a global adventure travel company, to take our course offerings on the road… or, more accurately, on the trail.

Later this year, a 23-day trek led by World Expeditions’ qualified mountaineers will head up to the Everest base camp, accompanied by Matador’s Robin Esrock, a travel writer/blogger and creator and co-host of “Word Travels,” a 40-part adventure series, seen on OLN/CityTV in Canada, and on National Geographic International.

Robin will be leading a travel writing course focused on pitching and gaining greater exposure for your writing.

Participants will be invited to blog about their Everest experiences during and after the trip, and the best blogger will be awarded a free Inca Trail trek from World Expeditions.

The cost of the trip is approximately $3,654 USD, and includes all accommodation, meals, guides, and a round-trip flight from Los Angeles.

For more information, please view the full details for the Everest course.

Community Connection:

Curious what it’s like at Everest’s summit? Check out this video, Reaching the Summit of Mt. Everest.

Matador member Carina Port with ducks.

Every time I dig deep into the Matador Travel community, I’m always amazed by the kinds of people I find. This week, I’ve got five farmers for you to meet:

1. JenG

JenG, based in the Philippines, describes herself as “a floundering aspiring organic farmer” who will “someday be a spectacular one.”

2. Carina Port

When she entered MatadorU’s travel writing program, Carina’s day job was working as an editor of a magazine about ducks. Yes, she assured me, there is such a thing: an entire publication devoted to ducks.

She recently shucked that job to get down and dirty with ducks in an entirely different way: she’s now a farmer.

Here’s what she had to say about the transition on Twitter:

9:02 PM Apr 7th via web
since I became a farmer last week, less tweeting. But squatting to pee on a patch of nettles this am inspired driving to town for internet.

moved to the farm and fell off the earth. or so it feels. haven’t been on twitter in approximately 2 weeks. somehow, have more followers now
10:42 PM Apr 19th via web

She hasn’t dropped her pen, though; Carina just launched a blog about the farming life, called, appropriately, Chicks on a Farm.

3. SophisticatedMonkey

Like many Matador members, SophisticatedMonkey is a man of many interests and talents. He’s a musician, storyteller/writer/poet, a builder, a soccer coach, and a farmer.

Long-term plans include: “learning how to live sustainably and therefore reduce my ecological footprint. I want to someday be self-sufficient and build my own home, have a farm powered by solar, wind, water, and/or thermal energy, and have friends/interns/whoever come and live with me to learn and live and love.”

4. Queen Bee

As her Matador screen name suggests, Queen Bee is a beekeeper, as well as a farmer. (She’s also a jazz singer and a cake baker).

She currently calls Chiang Mai, Thailand home and is building a house at Panya Project out of bamboo, mud, and straw.

5. Josh Kearns

Josh, aka Good Farmer, is fired up on “nvironmental chemistry, ecological economics, organic farming, natural building, permaculture, agroecology, sustainability, self-reliance, appropriate technology, right livelihood” and wants to make a difference in the world by “creating self-reliant agrarian communities and local economies.”

Community Connection:

Want to get your hands in the dirt and make things grow? Check out our WWOOFing guides to Australia, Ireland, and Thailand.

“Nothing like a fresh watermelon to quench the thirst on a hot tropical day in Cartagena, Colombia. But the best part was the happiness and friendliness of the guy selling the fruit. It was a joy to watch and hear him advertise shouting ‘Fresh fruit to taste life! Watermelon as sweet as love!’”

Photo: Mario Arana

Community Connection:

If you’d like your photo considered for our Friday Photo series, please visit the Matador photo pool on Flickr.

Photo: Michael R. Perry

Nora Dunn left Canada in 2006 and set off on a round the world trip that has taken her to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and points in between.

Now, she’s hoping to head to the Galapagos… with your help.

Nora is one of 10 finalists in the running for a Galapagos trip from GeckoGo. In this stage, finalists are expected to gather votes to push them to the top of the heap, so Nora took to her Matador blog to ask for support from the community.

You can vote for Nora on the GeckoGo site. If you don’t have a GeckoGo account, you’ll either need to sign up for one or use Facebook Connect to login.

Community Connection:

Do you want to win a trip? Matador’s giving away a trip to Costa Rica–airfare, lodging, and surfing lessons included!– in a contest co-sponsored by Zozi. Enter here. Thecontest ends on May 23.

Photo: laurenatclemson

The Matador team has been a fan of KEEN’s shoes for a while, and Matador Goods editor Lola Akinmade has put a couple pairs of KEENs to the test in her travels, including the KEEN Newport H2s and the KEEN Targhee Hiking Boots, which she tested on the Inca Trail.

Now, KEEN’s teaming up with Matador to give away eight pairs of its shoes as part of the KEEN HybridLife Photo Contest. Each week for the next eight weeks, we’ll pick a winner, giving away a pair of shoes to the person who shot the best photo that represents KEEN’s “HybridLife.”

Ready to enter the contest? Click on through to our contest page for more details and to fill out the KEEN HybridLife Photo Contest Entry Form.

Community Connection:

We’re running a few other contests right now. Check out the Matador-ZOZI Costa Rica contest and the Glimpse photography contest.

Here’s the idea behind 48HR Magazine:

A group of writers, editors, and new media professionals decided to get together and crowdsource a magazine that would be produced in 48 hours. By putting out a call on Twitter, the group behind 48HR Magazine would generate buzz for a couple weeks before unveiling the theme of the first issue: hustling.

The theme was sent to all writers who signed up for 48HR’s news alerts and the challenge was for them to turn around a piece within 24 hours; the editors, in turn, would review all submissions, select pieces for inclusion, and then produce a real magazine–a digital version and a print version–within the next 24 hours.

More than 1,500 writers submitted pieces about “hustling,” among them Matador Sports editor, Adam Roy. And of the 70 pieces selected for publication, Adam’s was among those, too.

Adam’s piece, “How to Be a Better Liar,” is available in the print version of the magazine, which can be purchased for $10 USD from MagCloud.

Community Connection:

To learn about other interesting writing and new media projects, be sure to check Matador’s The Travelers Notebook, our blog about all things media-related.

A young woman in Puerto Rico shows off her goat. Photo: Francisco Collazo

Every Friday–though I’ve been lax for a while– I like to use this space to feature Matador members’ photos.

We do this on our other blogs, too– Matador Trips features members’ photos in their weekly “Wordless Wanderlust” series, as well as in regular photo essays–but what makes the Pulse Friday Photo different is that it’s a single photo featuring a person you’ve met or seen during your travels who exemplifies a sense of place.

If you have a photo you’d like us to consider for this series, send it to julie[at]matadornetwork[dot]com.

A few criteria to keep in mind:

*We require crisp, clear high resolution photos.
*The orientation of the photo should be horizontal.
*Each photo must be sized to 930 pixels wide. The height can vary.
*The photo should feature the person facing the camera (no backs, please), though the person doesn’t necessarily need to be making eye contact with the camera.
*Each photo should be accompanied by a caption describing where the picture was shot and what it shows.

Want more opportunities to show off your photos? Join Matador’s Flickr pool.

Community Connection:

Want to perfect your photography skills and earn a living as a travel photographer? Read up about MatadorU or join our class today!

Photo: sskennel

I don’t know how often you browse through the profiles of fellow travelers in Matador’s travel community, but do it more often: there are thousands of incredible people just like you waiting to share their stories and experiences.

Some of them, though, happen to do so for a living.

In light of the fact that we’ve just opened the application period for Glimpse correspondents, it seemed like a good time to introduce you to some of the professional journalists in the Matador Travel community.

1. Francisco Alarcon

Francisco’s hometown is Ciudad Juarez, Mexico… one of the least safe places for journalists on the planet.

He currently lives in El Paso, where he is a journalism student and a reporter for a local Spanish-language newspaper.

2. Alexis Grant

Alexis Grant, a regular Matador contributor, graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, worked as a reporter at the Houston Chronicle for three years before taking a temporary leave from the profession to backpack around Africa.

Her trip gave her plenty of writing material–so much so that she spent the period following her return from the trip writing a memoir about it. Her memoir finished, she’s now looking to pick up where she left off as a journalist. You can read more about her in this interview or on her blog.

3. Conner Gorry

Conner, an American expat who has called Cuba home for just shy of a decade, has written a whole shelf of guide books and other travel-related articles for publications like Cuba Absolutely and others, but her day job is working as the senior editor of the MEDICC Review, “the only peer-reviewed journal in English dedicated to Cuban health and medicine.”

She recently returned from a trip to Haiti, where she reported on Cuban doctors’ work in post-earthquake Port-Au-Prince. Keep up with her on Twitter or her blog.

4. Andrew S. Lewis

Andrew, a recent arrival to the Matador community, describes himself as a travel journalist who “focuses on the coasts of the globe,” filing stories for surfing publications.

His mission? To “help Americans understand that the world is not flat, and that three miles off our coasts the ocean does not, in fact, drain off in some Niagra fashion into the deep of space.”

Friend him up here on Matador and follow his blog.

5. Mei-Ling McNamara

Mei-Ling is a long-time Matador member who lives in London, where she works as a journalist and producer. Much of her work has focused on human rights issues, and she has collaborated with the International Red Cross and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Community Connection:

Are you considering a career in travel journalism? Read Sarah Stutteville’s article “To Be (or Not to Be) a Travel Journalist” for some first-person insight on the profession.