With mixed feelings, Rob Verger recently signed on for a tour of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. He looks back on the experience—and the photos he was allowed to take.
Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.
The former AP correspondent traveled up the Congo River. Frank Bures asks the author of “All Things Must Fight to Live” about following in the wake of Joseph Conrad.
Some bureaucrats joke that they would never claim expertise about countries they had not at least flown over. In an excerpt from his new book, Parag Khanna argues that real global understanding can only come from serious travel.
Lonely Planet author Robert Reid reviews Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” and weighs in on the controversy surrounding it
TRAVEL BLOG
5.7.08
Eighth-Grade Science Projects and the ‘Calypso King of Barbados’
Remember that papier-mache volcano that some kid (or, more accurately, his parents) built every year for the junior high science fair? It never did manage to teach me how volcanoes work—later, I’d only recall the bubble and hiss of the Sprite mixture foaming out the top. But recently, while trying to get a handle on the local music scene in Barbados, I came across something similar: this educational volcano video, set to a hit soca track by Barbadian calypso legend Red Plastic Bag. Maybe something like this would have helped me pay closer attention in science class. Then again, maybe I would have only remembered the song. It’s plenty catchy.
