The Week That Was #9

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Welcome to my weekly collection of The Odd, The Useful, and The Downright Bizarre.

The Odd: Rhyolite, Nevada Bottle Building - In 1906, in the old ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada a saloon owner named Tom Kelly, built a house out of bottles because lumber was scarce at the time. Reportedly he used some 50,000 beer, whiskey, soda and medicine bottles to build the structure which still stands today. Mr. Kelley was 76 years old when he built the house and it took him almost six months to complete. Read more here…

The Useful: The Rule of Thirds. Ned Levi is a professional photographer who points out the rationale behind the “Rule of Thirds”, the concept that the most eye-pleasing photographic compositions split the field of view into roughly equal thirds, and that the scene’s important compositional elements are placed along these lines or their intersections. It doesn’t matter whether you are using a typical consumer-level, point-and-shoot camera, or the most expensive professional digital SLR, the ‘rule’ has been in use for hundreds of years by generations of artists and photographers, and for a very good reason. It works. Read more here…

The Downright Bizarre: The Illegal Border Crossing Tour in Mexico. Yes, you read it right. This tour apparently lets you the experience the drama and the adrenalin rush of being an illegal immigrant trying to cross the Mexican border in the United States. According to a New York Times reporter who tried it, the locals want tourists to understand the experiences and traumas that illegal immigrants face. During the night-time guided hike you’ll be chased in the dark, shot at by (fake) police, and you may or may not make it under the fence. But you’ll definitely have an interesting story to tell the folks back home. Read more here…

Friday Photo #7: My Island Home, Ikaria, Greece

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This stunning view along the south coast of the north-east Aegean island of Ikaria was taken late in the afternoon from the terrace of my sisters house at Partheni. The beach in the foreground is Kampos Beach, and the cluster of homes in the middle distance are part of the port town of Evthilos. The village on the hillside in the far distance is Karavostamo.

Imagine waking up to this view every morning! Or maybe sitting on the terrace at the end of a long hot summer day, with a Greek coffee, or home made wine in hand, and watching the ever changing colours as the sun slowly sets in the west.

If there is a heaven out there somewhere, this would be one of my ideal visions of it.

Photograph: My Island Home, by Jim Lesses

Location: Ikaria, Greece, April 2008.

Solo Travellers eBook

~ In a previous entry on this blog (Flying Solo) I wrote about some of the pros and cons of solo travel. And since I am someone who likes to travel solo as much as I can, I was immediately interested when I saw a reference to GLAD YOU’RE NOT HERE: A Solo Traveler’s Manifesto on one of the forums on Trip Advisor.

The Manifesto, which was written by Janice Waugh, can be downloaded as a .PDF document, and at only 15 pages is a quick, but useful read. It looks at why you might like to consider solo travel – and while not dismissing the value of travelling with a companion, it does a good job of arguing the case for travelling solo.

Janice says the Manifesto is for anyone who is not only unsure about travelling solo, but for those not sure about what they will get out of the experience. It is also for those whose family and friends don’t understand why you may want to travel on your own. Helpfully, she outlines some reasons for embarking on a journey by yourself.

Like the independence that comes with solo travel.

• As a solo traveller, you can do what interests you, when you want and at a pace that suits you. You don’t need to compromise your choices or explain your decisions.
  
• By travelling on your own you are more likely to mix with other travellers and get out to meet the locals.
  
• Travelling by yourself often forces you to stretch yourself, to move out of your comfort zone, to develop new skills, and in the process allows you to discover things about yourself you may never have known.
  
• Solo travel builds your self-confidence: in your ability to plan, and organise each detail of your journey; your ability to move around in unfamiliar cultures; and even your ability to learn a second or third language – no matter how rudimentary.

As I approach my 61st birthday, and plan my next solo trip for 2010, I am delighted to have read the Solo Traveler’s Manifesto. It has helped reinforce my confidence in my abilities to continue travelling on my own, when sometimes my body and mind try to undermine that confidence.

Although I have travelled solo in the past, without incident or accident, it never hurts to have other people reaffirm your decisions, and offer encouragement and support for future endeavours, and this is exactly what GLAD YOU’RE NOT HERE: A Solo Traveler’s Manifesto does.

Visit the Solo Traveler Blog…