06 Track 6

Unit 3

Travel adventures

Chapter 2

Travel for Good

Page 47

Travel for Good

Travel can inform and educate, as well as connect people from all over the world. Through travel, people have the capacity to change the world for the better. Read how these socially conscious individuals are using travel to affect change around the world.

Video Kid

A New York City high school student is bringing adventure to a new generation.

Every traveler knows that learning some of the local language is part of the fun of visiting new places.

But frontside flipside… backside crooked-grind… kickflip? This is the language of the skateboarding world. It’s what is permitted 15-year-old Booker Mitchell to travel to countries like Spain, Nicaragua, and Brazil.

With the help and support of his filmmaker mother and his father, Mitchell rights and stars in a series of short video segments on the Internet that reveals the world through the eyes of young people.

Viewers can go to his website and follow the star as he navigates different countries by skateboarding and surfing with local kids.

“Travel shows for grown-ups have these really excited hosts who talk about museums,” says Mitchell. Our motto is ‘Live Life Outside’ and we’re trying to show how young people really live.”

These online episodes show the gregarious teen as he visits new places, makes friends, and discovers the music, art, food, angiography of different countries. His mother says,

“Ever since he was little, Booker kept journals. Wherever we traveled, I took videos. One day we realized we were documenting the world as a kid experiences it.”

And with each trip comes new revelations. One recent expedition to the Amazon taught Mitchell an especially important lesson.

“You wouldn’t expect anyone in the Amazon to know how to skate. But I made friends and realized that even in the middle of nowhere, kids live the same way I do. Lesson learned: Always bring my board with me!”

Across the Continent

Two adventurers are walking across a continent to raise money for clean water. When travelers speak of doing a trip from Cape Town to Cairo, one thing seems certain:

They’re not talking about walking. But a pair of adventurers is doing just that. Amy Russell and her teammate Aaron Tharp are walking the 11,000-kilometer stretch from South Africa to Egypt, with the aim of finishing their journey into years.

They are raising money for Charity: Water, an organization that delivers clean water to people in developing countries.

Russell, 24, says that her two-year adventure is the most direct way of documenting the effect that clean water can have on remote communities. It also benefits some of the 800 million people on the planet who don’t have access to safe water.

Russell uses her blog to describe the trip’s highs and lows, discussing everything from border crossings to obscure food to different perspectives on the AIDS crisis in Africa.

When asked what inspired her to take on the challenge, Russell replied: “I have strong convictions about fighting injustice and poverty and sustainable ways, which led me to be an advocate for Charity: Water.

I saw this trip as a potential way to support them and help and the world water crisis.

Russell rejects the idea that travel is temporary and that its effect is short-lived. “I think travelers should be advocates. If you see a situation that needs help, get involved with an organization that gives voice to the people you met.

When you let your travel experiences change you and return home with your new mind-set, you’ll be a better person for it, and in turn create a better world everywhere you go in the future.”

Clever Risks, Great Rewards

One man is finding creative ways to raise money for the causes he believes in.

Deep sea caves, towering cliffs, migrating whales: Tasmania’s raw beauty sets the perfect stage for ecotourism. For Robert Pennicott, a tour operator, the Tasmanian coast is also the reason he got into philanthropy, having co-founded a coastal conservation fund in 2007.

In its first year, the fund helped save more than 50,000 seabirds from attacks from Wild cats. This initial success turned Pennicott into a daringly innovative philanthropist.

In 2011, he circled Australia in a rubber dinghy to raise money for research into eradicating polio. The trip took 101 days and injected nearly $300,000 into the polio vaccination fund, proving that clever risks can produce great rewards.

“When I die, I want to have made a difference in the world,” says Penny caught, who gives at least a quarter of his tour company’s profits to conservation and humanitarian issues. “Every little bit helps, and a lot of little contributions add up to make a big difference,” he says.

Pennicott will soon bring his polio philanthropy to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria, the last three countries where the disease remains widespread. His latest project brings him closer to home − he’s working to rid the ocean of plastic trash.

“The scale of this problem is enormous, “he says. About 100,000 marine animals and a million seabirds each year are killed after eating or being caught in plastic. Pennicott says travelers can do their part by choosing responsible tour companies that invest in conservation.