June 9, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Behind the Scenes, Travel Reading | Leave a Comment
I’ve been reading a book called The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World.
The author is a man named Eric Weiner. In the book, he is traveling around the world, stopping in countries where the people have a reputation for being “happy.”
He is trying to discover whether or not there is something about the landscape, the climate, the economy or the culture that makes those particular people happier than others.
In many of the countries to which he travels, he meets ex-pats, or people who weren’t born there but have decided to live there.
For example, he meets an American woman in Bhutan that had been living there for decades. In Iceland, he met an American man who decided to sell off his life in the United States and declare Iceland his home.
I was always interested when he ran across these characters. For a while, way back in 1998, I was an ex-pat of sorts. I lived in Buenos Aires and taught English. But I wasn’t as hard core as some of the other English teachers I met. Some of them had been living in Buenos Aires for years. And some were living and working Buenos Aires, but they’d only moved there after living and working in Japan, in Thailand, in England. I was just playing at being an ex-pat. They were serious about it.
I developed a deep fascination and respect when it came to ex-pats. I wondered just how long I would be able to last living outside of the United States. That trip was the longest I’ve been away – eight months.
And so, when I started Global Roam ink, it felt only natural that I would include a regular series of articles about ex-pat life. I was very excited to publish the article “Is There More to Colombia Than Kidnappings and Cocaine?” which is about an American couple that moves to Cartagena.
And now Global Roam ink is working on it’s second issue. This second time around we’ll publish a story about a bi-cultural family living in the United States. The mom is from South Dakota, but the dad is from Honduras.
It will be appearing shortly.
Global Roam ink: The Beginning
April 1, 2008 at 7:00 am | In Behind the Scenes | Leave a Comment
If you’re reading this, you’ve made it to the Global Roam ink blog. Welcome! I’m so excited to have a reader!
Global Roam ink has been a long time in the making and it’s grown way beyond my modest, initial plan, which – of course – started with a trip.
Those who know me know I come with a history of travel. I love to journey abroad. Thankfully my career as a public school teacher left my summers free so I could pursue my wanderlust. I filled up my twenties with teaching and travel.
But when I turned 30, I left the classroom behind to embark on a second career: writing. Yet I couldn’t shake my nagging wanderlust. I still schemed ways to get myself onto an airplane.
My last big trip out of the country was a big one indeed: My husband and I quit our jobs to travel across the world. We dubbed this trip our Global Roam.
For me, travel has always sparked introspection. When I get far away from home, and stay away for a while, my brain starts asking questions.
Once I’m exposed to life in another land, it becomes very obvious to me that my life back home isn’t the only way to live a life. There are other options. Other ways. Suddenly, nothing seems more stifling than going home and carrying on with my life just as it had been before I left.
So it was during this last big trip, this six-month Global Roam, that I got to thinking about new directions my life could take upon going home.
I wanted to combine all the things I loved doing: traveling, writing and teaching. I came up with this plan to start an online travel magazine that would cater to teachers and students.
Through it, I wanted to inspire and encourage kids to first learn about the world, and then get out there and go experience it. That’s why you’ll find that each feature story comes with a corresponding Student Activities page.
Inside the Teachers’ Lounge are lesson plans and reading guides saved as pdfs so that teachers can quickly print and copy the activities for use in their classrooms.
In a nod to the trip that sparked the brainstorm that started it all, I christened the magazine “Global Roam.” The “ink” was added later for a bit of fun, and because – even though it’s all online and technically not using any ink – it’s still a magazine.
And I’d love to know what you think of the magazine! So drop me a comment and I’ll do my best to make Global Roam ink just as user-friendly as can be.
And so…
Here’s to this issue and all future issues, too!
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