On the morning of October 26, workers removed a long chain drilled into the side of Uluru, a block of sandstone larger than downtown London in the middle of the Australian outback. Since the 1950s, the chain has led millions of tourists up the rock鈥檚 sheer face to its summit, 2,800 feet above the desert floor. In stark contrast, at the base of the trail, a simple white sign read,听鈥淲e, the Anangu traditional owners, have this to say: Uluru is sacred in our culture. It is a place of great knowledge. Under our traditional law climbing is not permitted. This is our home, please don鈥檛 climb.鈥�

In spite of this plea, a hundred or so tourists climbed the rock every day. Some fell to their deaths, some relieved themselves on the rock, and all walked over a sacred site on their way to the top. Which is why, in 2017, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park announced that it would officially ban climbing by the end of this year. That听spurred a headline-grabbing wave of last-ditch visitors and to the summit.

Ironically, the last surge of climbers is an extension of what鈥檚 plagued the site for so long and only gives credence to the argument for its closure. But it also signals progress in how indigenous sites are viewed at a federal level听and marks a long-awaited victory for the Anangu.

The park, which has been jointly managed by the Anangu government and the Australian National Park Service , has been preparing to close climbing for nearly a decade. A 2010 management plan outlined alternatives to the climb, including a more extensive trail system at the base and better interpretation of the rock鈥檚 spiritual significance. 鈥淲e welcome tourists here,鈥� said Sammy Wilson, an Anangu member who formerly sat on the park鈥檚 board. 鈥淐losing the climb is not something to feel upset about but is a cause for celebration. We are not stopping tourism, just this activity.鈥�

That attitude, says Uluru operations manager Steve Baldwin, has garnered support from both tour operators and the visitors themselves. The percentage of climbers has declined by about half over the past eight years, while total visits have increased, indicating that more people are abstaining from summiting the rock. Indigenous park managers have also developed a curriculum for guides to focus more on the religious aspects of the location. 鈥淎lmost every single tour, someone will say to my guides, 鈥業 wanted to climb, but after hearing that, I鈥檝e changed my mind,鈥欌�� Baldwin says.

Uluru, with its joint management strategy and investment in ethical alternatives, could become a successful example for other culturally sensitive tourist destinations. But such intervention from federal government听is rare and sluggish鈥擜nangu leaders have been pushing for the rock鈥檚 closure for more than 30 years. In many parts of the world, the travel industry is still entwined with a colonial history that continues to exploit local culture and sacred places, profiting off stolen land or degrading sites in exchange for entrance fees. But the answer isn鈥檛听to stay home and watch Netflix. While it might not be possible to practice perfect tourism, there are ways to do better: engage with the culture and history of sacred places, visit听sites interpreted by their traditional owners, and avoid overcrowded destinations. Here, we鈥檝e outlined how you can do your bucket list better.

Riviera Maya, Mexico

In the Yucat谩n鈥檚 Mayan Riviera, home to boozy Cancun to听the north and the ancient temple sites of Chich茅n Itz谩 to the west, the issue is as much about degradation as equity. Many of the most famous pyramids, including听the Temple of Kukulcan, have been closed to climbing in recent years for the sake of preservation, but the larger issue is that Maya听people are largely left out of the interpretation of the sites. 鈥淢aya听people are an active part of Mexico today, but that鈥檚 not a story that鈥檚 told to tourists,鈥� says Richard Leventhal, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania who works closely with communities in the region. Instead, he says, 鈥渢here鈥檚 a sense that the great Maya听culture has disappeared,鈥� and the Maya听are excluded from the interpretation of classical historical sites. The country鈥檚 federal system also funnels revenue from popular sites like Chich茅n Itz谩 and Tulum National Park into the national museum system instead of local cultural preservation efforts, and artifacts found in the region are often sent to Mexico City for storage.

Go Here Instead: Traci Ardren, an archaeologist at the University of Miami, recommends taking a trip to Yaxun谩, a small farming town 100 miles inland from the coast, which once sat at the crossroads between several Mexican empires. Unlike the resort towns of Playa del Carmen and Tulum, many of which are owned and operated by expats, there are no formal hotels or restaurants in the area. As an alternative, Ardren recommends that visitors arrange听homestays and food with the help of a local guide. The town features the remains of a , thousand-year-old temples, and an 80-foot听vine-covered pyramid rising out of the jungle, as well as a museum and cultural center that鈥檚 run by the local Maya听community.

For an understanding of how contemporary Maya people听view their archaeological heritage, visit the in Tihosuco, a two-hour drive south from Yaxun谩. The museum is just one piece of a larger Tihosuco Caste War Project, a collaboration between Leventhal, other American researchers, and the community to explore听a little-known 19th-century war of independence fought by the Maya听against the Mexican government. Designed for an international audience, the museum houses spectacular artifacts from the war, and it鈥檚 possible to visit old churches and haciendas in the surrounding jungles. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very different view of tourism to understand the people behind those great things,鈥� Leventhal says.

Machu Picchu, Peru听

More than a million people visit Machu Picchu each year, which forced the Peruvian government to in 2017, though it was double the number recommended by Unesco. And even with the听trains-planes-and-automobiles itinerary听required to reach the Citadel from beyond Cusco, that visitor count still averages 6,000 per听day. Easier access would not only exacerbate that problem听but also threaten another culturally听significant site. In the Incan town of Chinchero, at the mouth of the valley leading to Machu Picchu, an international airport is under development. Despite outcry from archaeologists and locals alike, the government has broken ground. Monica Ricketts, a Peruvian-born historian who helped to stop the airport earlier this year, describes the project as an ecological and cultural disaster: the bulldozing will threaten a pristine archaeological site that鈥檚 known as the gateway to the Sacred Valley, while the resource requirements could drain lakes that provide water to Cusco and surrounding towns. 鈥淭here鈥檚 ancient farming going on, growing some of the best potatoes in the world,鈥� Ricketts听says. 鈥淧eople literally live on this water.鈥�

Go Here Instead: Peru is full of underappreciated destinations, from the in the north听to the Atacama Desert鈥檚 . If you do want to see the center of the Incan empire, however, spend time in the Sacred Valley, which the majority of tourists pass straight through on their way to Machu Picchu. Besides the dozens of temples, farms, and ancient salt flats, Ricketts suggests visiting and supporting the town at the center of the fight against the airport. Chinchero is home to the remnants of an unaltered 500-year-old royal estate, working aqueducts, and terraced farmland dating back to the height of the Incan Empire. It鈥檚 also the home of a thriving weaving community. Women in still use traditional dyes and techniques and offer tours and demonstrations. Some of them are organizing against the airport, which they say could destroy both the tourism they rely on and the ecosystems that fuel their livelihood.

Mount Fuji, Japan听

Two years ago, declared that Mount Fuji was 鈥渁t the breaking point.鈥� Since 2013, climbing has been limited to a brief window in late summer to protect tourists unprepared for fickle weather. This means that hundreds of thousands of people pack onto the mountain over a handful of weekends. As seen with Uluru, that鈥檚 led to some predictable problems: thrown just off the trail and traffic jams to the summit.

Do It Right: Mount Fuji, unlike many of the other locations on this list, is sacred in large part because it is a climbing destination. Since the 1600s, religious pilgrims have hiked from temples at the base to watch the sunrise from the 12,388-foot summit. The key is to climb respectfully. To start, visit on a weekday, when the crowds die down. Climbs to the top,听the , 鈥渟hould be accompanied by an overnight stay or a short stay at a mountain hut on the way,鈥澨齛s opposed to so-called bullet climbing,听or racing straight听to the top and down again in a single day. The goal, the council says,听is to preserve those ancient pilgrimage practices. So climb it鈥攂ut also visit a shrine at the base, stop in at the huts on the route, and treat the mountain not just as a peak to be bagged听but a tradition to take part in.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

The sprawling temple complex faces many of the same threats as other hyperpopular religious sites in the region. Since the ruins were named a Unesco听World Heritage Site in the early 1990s, the gateway city of Siem Reap has exploded in popularity. Nearly 3 million tourists flocked to the area in 2018鈥攁bout a third of all visitors to Cambodia. While the temple site itself is protected by strict rules on where to walk and what to touch, the traffic has taken a toll on the literal foundations of the region. According to a , hotels and other tourism businesses have tapped the underlying aquifer with thousands of illegal wells, sucking out tens of thousands of gallons per听day. That causes the sandy soil to collapse, threatening both the city and Angkor Wat itself. In other words, pretty soon听the site could begin to sink.

Go Here Instead: Unfortunately, in Southeast Asia face similar threats from overtourism and mismanagement. Sri Lanka鈥檚 Cultural Triangle, in contrast, is less visited and built to accommodate domestic pilgrims and monks. Both Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, which were once capitals of classical Sri Lankan kingdoms, are home to intricately carved temples, historic stupas, and complex systems of aqueducts and reservoirs dating back thousands of years. Between the two cities is Sigiriye, a 600-foot piece of bare rock with an ancient palace carved into its top. Some places, like the temple at Anuradhapura鈥攈ome to a from the sacred Bodhi Tree鈥攁re active worship sites, and you鈥檒l need to respectfully observe local practices, including covering your shoulders and knees听and wearing white.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, United States

There are a couple of strikes against this national memorial. First, it was carved by an alledged white supremacist 听as a monument to a colonial, expansionist, Anglo-Saxon America. That history is especially disturbing when you consider its location: the Black Hills of South Dakota. Sacred to more than 20 Native nations for thousands of years, the originally placed the entire region under indigenous control. But six years later, a few prospectors discovered gold in a Black Hills creekbed. In the subsequent rush, the United States听launched a against the Lakota and other nations to control the area鈥檚 mineral wealth. That history still informs the present: until the 1970s, Native communities were prohibited from holding religious ceremonies in their sacred sites, and resource extraction and tourism development continue to disrupt those practices. To many nearby indigenous communities, Mount Rushmore is a damning reminder of that broken treaty and the ensuing massacres, literally carved on听a sacred mountain range.

Go Here Instead: There鈥檚 not really a comparable replacement for Mount Rushmore, and it鈥檚 hard to find places that tell the Native story of the area. But Teanna Limpy, a tribal historic preservation officer with the Northern Cheyenne Nation, says that鈥檚 slowly shifting. 鈥� is redoing its whole interpretive center with Native input. Now听they don鈥檛 finalize anything until they talk to us,鈥� she says of the complex cave system and surrounding park, an hour south from Mount Rushmore. Limpy also points to , in the northeastern corner of the Black Hills, as a success story. The mountain is an important pilgrimage and prayer site for a number of cultures, including the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Jim Jandreau, the park鈥檚 manager and a registered member of the Lower Brule Lakota, says he actively seeks input from surrounding Native communities in managing the area. That鈥檚 meant giving religious visitors more access听and being upfront with tourists about the complicated history of the mountain. 鈥淲e try to enlighten people to why the tribes feel the way they feel, why the dignity of this place was stripped away and is finally coming back,鈥� he says. If you do visit, treat Bear Butte as you would a church鈥攊t鈥檚 possible that people will be praying nearby听or have left offerings off-trail鈥攁nd make time to ask park staff about what it means to manage a religious site on public land.

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Sail a boat about 12 miles from the coast of any ocean and you鈥檒l find yourself in international waters. Out there, the laws of the modern world fall away, and more importantly, so does almost any kind of societal scrutiny. In ($30, Knopf), journalist Ian Urbina investigates the corrupt and exploitative world that exists on the high seas, which we all benefit from but rarely take time to face. 鈥淎n escape for some, the ocean is a prison for others,鈥� he writes in the introduction.

The book is structured as a series of essays on legal gray areas at sea, with examples like a ship that provides lawful abortions in international waters and the story of a man set adrift in the Atlantic . Urbina began reporting many of these chapters while working as , where he broke stories on sea slavery in Southeast Asia and cold-blooded executions of fishermen by Taiwanese rivals off the Horn of Africa. (He previously for his role in reporting on former New York governor Eliot Spitzer鈥檚 involvement in a prostitution ring.) Taken as a whole, this body of work is a devastating look at the corruption, exploitation, and trafficking that thrive on the open ocean.

While Outlaw Ocean isn鈥檛 an adventure tale, Urbina nods to the excitement of the high seas. 鈥淔ull of devouring storms, doomed expeditions, shipwrecked sailors, and maniacal hunters, the canon of sea literature offered a vibrant picture of a watery wilderness and its untamed rogues,鈥� he writes as he ponders the appeal of the ocean. Urbina himself is often in the middle of the action. At various points, he finds himself on the deck of an Indonesian anti-poaching ship as it faces off with a heavily armed Vietnamese patrol, on a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society boat in pursuit of a ship that had been poaching Patagonian toothfish (politely branded in stores as Chilean sea bass), and caught in the middle of a simmering political conflict over fishing rights in Somalia that threatens to boil over into a coup. The writing is straightforward but clever鈥擴rbina packs sentences with a lot of information, but they never seem bloated. Atmospheric moments, like when Urbina describes the 鈥渇aint gurgling鈥� of seawater around the legs of an abandoned offshore platform, are rare but eerie and beautiful when they do appear.

Urbina鈥檚 reporting is clearly driven by a sense of responsibility to the people he meets, and the book offers a glimpse into his relationship with his subjects that isn鈥檛 visible in his newspaper articles. It鈥檚 not that he鈥檚 out to change each life he encounters鈥攖hat would obviously be futile鈥攂ut that he doesn鈥檛 want these stories to go untold. He tries, for example, to untangle the web that traps so many of his subjects into involuntary servitude at sea. For a few short pages, he visits a Thai karaoke bar that doubles as a 鈥渁 staging ground in the human-trafficking pipeline.鈥� There, a many-tentacled system of abuse stretches between sea and shore: young girls are pressed into prostitution, then used as a lure for boys from rural Myanmar and Cambodia鈥攁lso teenagers鈥攚ho will be trafficked into sea slavery. 鈥淥f all the evil things I saw while reporting鈥� the karaoke bars were perhaps the most sinister,鈥� he writes. In the moment, he鈥檚 paralyzed and openly uncomfortable with his journalistic remove.

His reporting has had some success bringing changes to this system. In the past decade, pressured by the investigations of Urbina and others, the Thai government cracked down on illegal fishing and sea slavery鈥攚hich often go hand in hand. But it becomes evident that fixing the fishing industry is like squeezing a balloon: put pressure on one spot, and it bulges elsewhere. Some of the worst Thai actors switched their registrations to Djibouti, which is not subject to such close media scrutiny and has turned an apparent blind eye to the problems. When Urbina visits Somalia to observe what seemed a successful effort to tamp down piracy, he鈥檚 instead forced out of the country with threats of assassination. The local government has tacitly approved of and profited from poaching by those same Thai-owned, Djibouti-registered ships at the expense of local fishermen, and Urbina鈥檚 presence becomes a threat.

These failures can make the book feel Sisyphean. No matter how relentlessly Urbina chases a scofflaw ship or an abusive captain, the sea can swallow them up. In a moment when Brazilian fascists are burning the Amazon and of Americans are living in a state of anxiety as we anticipate a worsening climate crisis, where are we supposed to put this news of the gross realities of the ocean? Urbina doesn鈥檛 spend much time linking American consumers and the abuses he chronicles, but the connection is obvious. The ships that pack cargo across the ocean also push stowaways overboard. The shrimp that goes into cat food could well have been caught by slaves. Urbina doesn鈥檛 have an answer for how to avoid complicity in this system, but one thing is certain: abuses will keep happening as long as no one is watching.

Don鈥檛 Miss: Another Great Read About a Little-Explored Frontier

Jill Heinerth鈥檚 career as a professional cave diver, which she recounts in her memoir ($30, Ecco), began with a pair of burglaries. In the mid-eighties, on her first night attending university and living in a seedy corner of Toronto, a man with 鈥渞ed-rimmed and crazed鈥� eyes broke into her student apartment and pushed his way through her bedroom door before she slashed him with an X-Acto blade. A few months later, while Heinerth was home on break, she chased a different would-be robber away with a handful of kitchen knives. The first encounter leaves her shaken, but the second makes her realize that she鈥檚 braver than she thought. The burglaries give her the courage to shed听an 鈥渋ll-fitting life鈥� as a graphic designer in favor of one spent exploring some of the deepest, most dangerous water-filled caves on earth.

The rest of the book traces Heinerth鈥檚 path into full-time cave diving, from days spent beach bumming in the Caribbean to her early dives amid north Florida limestone to the loss of friend after friend deep under the surface. Along the way, she wrestles with questions of belonging and confidence in a male-dominated sport. The writing can be a little over-the-top鈥攖he line 鈥淭his is awesome!鈥� makes repeated appearances鈥攂ut the worlds Heinerth conjures up are captivating: underground bivouacs, days-long journeys inside mountains, a 鈥渕ulticolored shag carpet鈥� of isopods and sponges and crabs living beneath an Antarctic iceberg. Despite the tragedies she鈥檚 witnessed, it鈥檚 easy to understand why she keeps going back into the depths.

The post This Book Investigates the Dark Side of the Open Ocean appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

When Allison Parc launched her French-whiskey company,听Brenne, in 2012, she says she was regularly mistaken as a promotional model, not the founder of the business. 鈥淪ome people would ask me if I really liked drinking whiskey, even after listening to the steps it took for me to create the whiskey in their glass,鈥� she recalls.

It鈥檚 not always easy to be a woman in the whiskey business. 鈥淔ewer than 1听percent of distilleries are owned by women,鈥� says Karen Locke, who owns , an agency that helps distilleries with marketing and branding. Before starting her agency, she spent 11 years as a spirits writer, and she says she is seeing more and more women make their way into leadership roles. That鈥檚 a good thing, because women are damn good whiskey makers.

鈥淲omen are beginning to make their mark in all aspects,鈥� says Rhonda Kallman, founder of Boston Harbor Distillery. Kallman started her career in the spirits industry as cofounder of the Boston Beer Company, which makes Sam Adams. Recently, she听was a panelist during the fifth annual Woman of the Vine and听Spirits Global Symposium, in Napa, California.听鈥淭here were 700 women in the industry that attended,鈥� Kallman says. 鈥淭o me听that was a remarkable sight, as it shows that things are starting to change.鈥�

These women-made whiskies听are innovative and delicious.

Brenne French Single Malt

What, you鈥檝e never heard of French whiskey? We hadn鈥檛 either until entered our lives. 鈥淪o, funny thing鈥擣rance has been the largest consumer of Scotch per capita, but when Brenne launched in 2012, there were very few people distilling French whiskey,鈥� even in France, says Parc. After a career as a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet,听Parc decided to enter the spirits business and became obsessed with French whiskey, which, like most French foods, centers on terroir. Aged in France in cognac casks, this single malt has fruity notes and undertones of that top brittle on a听cr猫me br没l茅e. We especially love that when Parc was first starting out, she couldn鈥檛 secure a distributor in New York City, so she distributed it herself鈥攂y bike. The company will release fewer听than 300 cases of Brenne 10, which has aged ten听years, this year. $59.99;听available 听

Catskill听Provisions听New York听Honey Rye

Using honey produced on her 32-acre farm in Long Eddy, New York, 听CEO and founder, Claire Marin, has been blending rye whiskey on-site for three years听and is now taking the plunge and beginning her own distilling operation. 鈥淚 just finished building a distillery, and I made my first mash bill last week,鈥� Marin says, referring to the mix of grains that are fermented into booze. She鈥檒l also make a batch with rye wheat grown on the farm this spring. Between running a farm, a small specialty-foods company, tending 300 honeybee hives over three different counties, and now distilling whiskey, Marin has her hands full. But she鈥檚 managed to blend a perfect, slightly sweet rye. (She sells about 1,000 bottles a month.) She drinks hers with a dash of amaro and a twist of orange at the end of a long day. $43.59;听available

Skrewball Peanut Butter

Peanut-butter whiskey? Hear us out. The best things about whiskey are its toasty, fruity notes. Both toast and fruit go perfectly with peanut butter. So Peanut Butter Whiskey is not that weird when you stop to think about it. Skrewball was founded by husband and wife duo Brittany Merrill Yeng and Steven Yeng. Brittany听put her biochemistry degree to work figuring out how to get peanut butter to meld with alcohol. The result is a shot that鈥檚 peanutty but definitely not sticky or chunky. 鈥淧eanut butter was one of the first foods my husband had in America after arriving as a refugee from Cambodia,鈥� she says (she听left her job at a high-powered law firm to start Skrewball). 鈥淭o him, peanut butter is the taste of America.鈥� Steven听had a lot of experience bartending, so he tends to do customer-facing duties. Really, even if you鈥檙e a skeptic, this bottle is worth a try. It鈥檚 definitely more whiskey than nut butter. The peanut taste is subtle. But don鈥檛 just trust us:听the New York World Wine and Spirits Competition听just gave Skrewball a gold medal in the flavored-whiskey category. $21.99;听available throughout Southern California

Old Dominick Distillery听Huling Station

The first craft distillery of Memphis, Tennessee, which plans to produce 132,000 bottles of booze this year, isn鈥檛 owned by a woman. But it hired a woman as the company鈥檚 master distiller, and in doing so,听Alex Castle, 32, became听the state鈥檚 first female distiller. She鈥檚 a graduate of the University of Kentucky, where she studied chemical engineering. 鈥淚 definitely get a lot of surprised looks when people find out what I do for a living, and I think it鈥檚 a combination of being a woman and also being young,鈥� she says. Castle has been shepherding the first three of the company鈥檚 whiskeys through the distilling and aging process, and it鈥檚 going to be a few more years until they鈥檙e ready for sale, she says. In the meantime,听she鈥檚 earning loyal fans with the brand鈥檚 Huling Station, a four-year-old bourbon that was distilled before听 even had its own equipment. It has plenty of spice, a few dark fruit notes, plus caramel and vanilla on the nose. $32;听available 听

Republic Restoratives Rodham Rye听

Yup, it鈥檚 named after that Rodham. 鈥淲e wanted to create a brand to commemorate what we thought would be a historic inauguration,鈥� says Pia Carusone, founder of the Washington, D.C.鈥揵ased . 鈥淚t turned out to be historic听but for different reasons than we thought.鈥� After the election, it听put the whiskey听on hold for a few weeks听but then came back to it. 鈥淲e realized there might be an even more important reason to create a whiskey inspired by women,鈥� Carusone says. Rodham has a lower mash bill than most ryes, so it isn鈥檛 quite as piquant. If you don鈥檛 think you like rye whiskey, this is the one to try. Carusone loves it in a Sazerac, but it鈥檚 also lovely sipped neat. $79;听available

Boston Harbor听Putnam New England Single Malt听

Rhonda Kallman听is finally working on her first true love: whiskey. 鈥淚 love everything about alcoholic beverages鈥攊ngredients, complexity of flavors, the conviviality associated with it, and how it makes you feel,鈥� she says, adding that spirits听in particular听are fun because they get better with age, and that adds a whole new level of interest to the equation. Even though Kallman was one of the pioneers of craft brew and knows firsthand how hard it is to nab shelf space when big brands dominate the landscape, she says that being small in the spirits business has been surprisingly hard. Still, Kallman is forging ahead with a single malt aged in new American oak barrels and bottled at 100 proof. Her favorite thing about her job is tasting each day as the whiskey progresses. And, yes, she drinks her whiskey neat. $74.99;听the company can ship through , in Rhode Island

Oliverlane听

Co-owner Ashley Pham started working on this cucumber-and-mint-infused whiskey in her Manhattan apartment. 鈥淭he first batch was a passion project,鈥� she says. 鈥淥ur hunch was that blending fresh ingredients in whiskey could make it smoother and mellow out the typical fiery finish.鈥� It turned out to be more complicated than she thought. The first few iterations were a hot mess. Finally, she hired a master blender to help. 鈥淗e instantly understood the vision and agreed to work on the recipe,鈥� Pham听says. For a year, she tested the blender鈥檚 concoctions. None of them were what she wanted, and she was about to give up when听the perfect sample arrived. The final product was . Pham, who has a听master鈥檚 in computer engineering, still holds a day job at a tech firm. But as Oliverlane grows, that may change. Pham says it听plans to produce thousands of bottles this year. OK, cucumber-and-mint-infused whiskey sounds like spa water spiked with听alcohol, right? It鈥檚 not. The cucumber and mint are听subtle. It mostly tastes like whiskey but doesn鈥檛 burn with the same ferocity. If you like your whiskey neat, you鈥檒l be happy with Oliverlane neat. If you go for cocktails, try it topped with a hit of club soda. $44.99;听available 听

Kikori听

Rice whiskeys are having a moment, and this one should absolutely be on your list. More delicate than wheat- or corn-based spirits, it鈥檚 the kind of drink you could sip every day and never grow tired of. Company founder Ann Soh Woods, who came to the industry from a business and marketing past, is overseeing the distilling, aging, and bottling process in Japan before the spirit makes its way to the U.S. 鈥淚 created Kikori as an outlet for two seemingly unrelated passions: a love of Japanese culture and traditions, and a fondness for great cocktails,鈥� she says. She鈥檚 perfectly managed to do both. Kikori is great straight from a glass, but it also blends effortlessly into a blood orange sour or Kikori mule. $49.99;听available 听

Kikori Blood Orange Sour

• 1.5 ounces听Kikori Whiskey
• 1 ounce听fresh blood orange juice
• 0.5 ounce听honey syrup (equal parts water and honey, stir until dissolved)
• 0.5 ounce听fresh lemon juice
• 1 egg white
• Dash of Angostura bitters

Add all ingredients to a shaker听and dry-shake. Then add ice, shake again, and double-strain into a glass. Garnish with a blood orange wheel.

Backwards Distilling Company听American

This听, based in Casper, Wyoming, is run by siblings Amber and Chad Pollock. Amber, who entered the spirits industry after working as a school music teacher, handles the business side of the operations (she still teaches private violin lessons in her free time), while Chad does the distilling.听Their听parents help out, too. Besides bringing their gin, vodka, rum, and now whiskey鈥攚hich they plan to produce 3,000 bottles of this year鈥攖o market, Amber听has also been working hard to help elevate Casper鈥檚 cocktail culture. Tia Troy, who works on behalf of Visit Casper, describes her听as 鈥渁 force.鈥� When she鈥檚 not writing cocktail recipes for her own tasting room, she鈥檚 helping other bars with their menus and Casper to become a craft-cocktail destination. Last summer听she was appointed by Wyoming鈥檚 governor to an economic diversity council, and while she鈥檚 still relatively new to the industry, she鈥檚 already made her way onto the board of the American Craft Spirits Association. Amber drinks her Backwards American Whiskey neat, in a Manhattan, or听in her newest creation: a听Granny Smith whiskey sour. $45;听available at liquor stores throughout Wyoming

Granny Smith Whiskey Sour

• 2 ounces听Backwards American Whiskey
• 0.5 ounce听fresh lemon juice
• 0.75 ounce听simple syrup
• 0.75 ounce听Granny Smith apple juice
• 1 egg white

Shake all ingredients together with ice, strain back into shaker and shake vigorously again without ice, pour into a rocks glass, and spritz with a lemon peel for garnish.

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So you鈥檝e finally figured out a way to work remote. Good for you. Now for the hard part: Where should you live? Or, rather, where should you spend the next week or month before moving on to the next spot? We鈥檝e rounded up a list of co-working and co-living spaces everywhere from major cities to beach towns that love digital nomads like you and make it easier to do your job.

Hossegor, France

Located on the southwestern coast of France, Hossegor is a world-famous surf destination on one of Europe鈥檚 longest white-sand beaches. The town has six surf breaks鈥攖he site of surf competitions like the Quiksilver Pro France鈥攁nd old-world charm, with cobblestone streets and bakeries on every corner. Stay at (from $23 a night), a modern hostel five minutes from the beach that opened in 2017. Private and communal rooms, a bar and caf茅, communal living area, yoga, and massages make it easy to plug in for a productive day at the 鈥渙ffice.鈥�

Ubud, Bali

Bali is a digital nomad mecca for good reason: It has affordable听short-term rentals, a growing number of quality co-working spaces, and a vibrant culture of expats. (from $500 per week) converted a boutique hotel in Ubud to a co-living site with 24 rooms around a pool and an open-air rooftop work space. There are also yoga classes, movie nights, and dinners cooked in a communal kitchen. If you need help figuring out how to land a job you can do from anywhere, check out WiFly Nomads鈥� in Bali, a crash course in everything you need to know about snagging a remote job.

New York, New York

Spend your days working鈥攁nd running through Central Park, kayaking around Manhattan, or bouldering at Chelsea Piers鈥攁nd your nights going to concerts and eating Korean barbecue or bowls of steaming ramen. At (from $197 a night), a futuristic hotel in Midtown with robot luggage service, self-check-in kiosks, and a concierge app, you can work from a massive outdoor terrace or in the hotel鈥檚 designated co-working lounge. Its rooms feel more like compact train cabins, but each has a small workstation. Or check out , which opened on the Lower East Side in 2017 and offers luxury rooms for less than $200 a night and has communal work tables in the upper lobby.

Vienna, Austria

Take a break from the grind to work on your German, tour听Vienna鈥檚 museums, visit a thermal spa for saltwater baths, or simply run through the city鈥檚 many parks. The family-owned (from $84 a night), located across the street from the city鈥檚 central train station, has co-working stations in the lobby, which you can rent for up to 30 days and include lockers, a printer, and even an espresso machine. Plus: Rooms come with a hearty Austrian breakfast spread each morning.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

At in Siem Reap, Cambodia, you can snag a private or shared room just a short jaunt from the Angkor Wat Temple. The co-living space offers weekly or monthly accommodation packages (from $109 per week) that include bike rental, airport transfers, breakfast and lunch, laundry service, and, most important, reliable Wi-Fi for getting things done. Post up at a desk or a hammock and spend your free time visiting the temples, riding tuk tuks around the city, and buying silk scarves and bulk spices at night markets.

San Francisco, California

If you鈥檙e working for a tech company or starting your own, you鈥檒l probably need to spend some time in Silicon Valley. (from $49 a night) makes it easy to temporarily call San Francisco home. Part hotel, part co-working space, Startup offers a basic room and a communal work space that you can reserve for $20 a day. Plus, you鈥檒l network with other startups and get feedback on everything from web design to IT help. While in the Bay Area, you can surf Ocean Beach or Bolinas before work, or spend your days off mountain biking Mount Tam and sailing around San Francisco Bay.

Bejuco, Costa Rica

This quaint seaside fishing and farming town is known for its beaches: long, pristine stretches of golden sand with few tourists and ample surf breaks. Stay at the co-living property run by (from $420 a week), where you鈥檒l sleep in a poolside bungalow just minutes from the ocean. There鈥檚 plenty of quiet space to plug in alongside fellow roaming workers, but don鈥檛 miss the outdoor sunset yoga at Encantada, just down the beach.

Vail, Colorado

From May until October, is offering a 30-day sabbatical package (from $1,850), which lets you spend a month living in the hotel like a local鈥擲UPing Gore Creek, picking veggies at the farmers鈥� market, and riding lift-accessed mountain bike trails straight from your door. Your stay includes access to the gym, a loaner cruiser bike, tickets to local music festivals, GoPro cameras to borrow, and even kitchen appliances like espresso machines and waffle makers. If you鈥檙e not on sabbatical, the has desks for rent in nearby Avon and Edwards.

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By some stroke of topographic luck, some of the best roads for biking are located in the world鈥檚 top food and wine territory. Here鈥檚 where you can feed your burn like a king.

California

TerraVelo Tours
Just when glamping fatigue was setting in, TerraVelo Tours came along and reimagined the fancy camping concept for cyclists. Launched in 2014, TerraVelo runs itineraries in Utah and Wyoming, but gourmands should head to California. Start at Point Reyes National Seashore, hit Napa Valley, Highway 1, redwoods in the听, and finish up with surfing on the Lost Coast听in Mendocino County. Daily rides range听from 20 to 89 miles. In addition to canvas tents with memory-foam beds, perks include a juice and wine bar, sunrise yoga, an in-camp masseuse, and a team of chefs preparing pork loin sandwiches and duck confit chile rellenos.

from $5,990.

Italy and Sicily

Cinghiale Cycling Tours
Andy Hamsten鈥攖he only American cyclist to win the Giro d鈥橧talia鈥攍aunched Cinghiale Cycling Tours in 1997, focusing exclusively on rides throughout Italy. Trips are geared toward more serious听riders, with most rides between 30 and 40 hilly miles per day. Itineraries geared toward super-serious riders tackle mountain passes and intense descents daily. Tuscany is the classic itinerary鈥攍oaded with cooking lessons, wine tastings, and authentic restaurant meals鈥攂ut Cinghiale also offers trips to Sicily and the Dolomites.

from $3,450.

France

Gourmet Cycling Travel
What happens when a former pro cyclist and a chef with Michelin-star experience team up? Gourmet Cycling Travel. The founders, cyclist Simon Kessler and chef Jonathan Chiri, personally听lead every trip鈥攊n Spain, France, and Italy. Kessler鈥檚 love for the Tour de France inspired him to created a TdF Final Week itinerary, which takes riders through three regions to see three Alpine stages of the Tour, including Alpe d鈥橦uez, plus the finish stage in Paris. Each day of the eight-day trip has options for noncyclists, so while you climb Ventoux, your companion can take a cooking class or go on a hike. The day鈥檚 adventures are exchanged back at cush hotels over lengthy, wine-fueled meals.听

, $6,495.

Australia

Gray and听Co.
Gray and听Co. prides itself on catering to the world鈥檚 most discerning active travelers. The guest-to-guide ratio is two to one, and trips include a full support team and accommodations ranging听from villas to chateaus. Over-the-top itineraries span the globe, but food and wine lovers looking for an unexpected experience should consider Australia. Gray and听Co. can craft trips for the Barossa Valley and Kangaroo Island, Tasmania and Daylesford, or Western Australia. Days include plenty of pedaling, plus stays at luxe foodie hotels like the Louise and Southern Ocean Lodge.

听per day.听

Cambodia and Vietnam

Trek Travel
If you鈥檙e a fan of Trek bikes, then you鈥檒l definitely be a fan of Trek Travel:听You鈥檒l ride听a Trek bike that鈥檚听selected to match your riding style. Itineraries span the globe and can be customized to satisfy both the hardcore and those just learning to use clipless pedals. Trek Travel鈥檚 12-day Cambodia and Vietnam itinerary takes riders past rice paddies, temples, and beaches. Day four offers serious riders the challenge of tackling Paradise Pass, the highest pass in southern Vietnam. Each night, cyclists retire to a five-star hotel, such as Evason Ana Mandara, and days are sprinkled with visits to food markets, traditional restaurants, museums, and local villages. Bonus: Anyone who takes a Trek Travel vacation receives $300 off any 2015 5 Series or 6 Series Trek Domane, including Project One, and the Trek Emonda SL6 and SL8 models.

Argentina

DuVine Cycling and听国产吃瓜黑料 Co.听
DuVine Cycling and听国产吃瓜黑料 Co.鈥檚 itineraries are packed with fancy hotels, awesome food, and top-of-the-line bikes from brands like Cannondale and Giant. The most challenging part of the six-day Mendoza trip is avoiding a hangover. Cyclists pedal through the Luj谩n de Cuyo and Uco Valley vineyards; rest stops take the form of wine tastings at Catena Zapata and Salentein. The trip is geared toward weekend cyclists, with daily mileage ranging from nine to 28.6. Calories burned are quickly replenished with local specialties, such as empanadas and chimichurri. At night, guests recharge in luxe hotels, including the Vines Resort and听Spa, where they鈥檙e treated to a meal cooked by celeb听chef Francis Mallmann.听

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It鈥檚 time for a real vacation in your own shack by the sea, where the sun is hot, the waves are perfect, and checking your Twitter feed isn鈥檛 an option. When it comes to pure, hedonistic escapism, it鈥檚 tough to beat these ten places, whether you鈥檙e looking to walk long white sand beaches where elephants swim nearby or dive with eagle rays and recover with a dinner of recently spearfished red snapper. Go now, before reason takes hold.

Azura Quilalea, Mozambique

Go wild next to the Indian Ocean

Best For: An on-water, multi-sport marathon.

In the middle of an underexplored marine sanctuary in the Indian Ocean, this 86-acre island is thick with baobab trees and is a hot zone for wildlife鈥攆rom Olive Ridley and Green Hawksbill Turtles to humpback whales and dolphins. There鈥檚 a -certified dive center on site. Sign up and swim with 375 species of fish, including schools of potato bass and hunting jacks, or stay above it all by sailing in a traditional dhow or rowing a kayak. Deep-sea fishing is also an option. The ways to commune with the water are endless.听 After a $2.5 million renovation, the nine-bungalow resort is state-of-the-art, but still low energy鈥攖he owners designed the coral stone villas to have two options: Eco or Luxe. With the flip of a switch, you decide how much power you want to burn. Our suggestion: Go Eco, which provides only basic lighting and a fan. The alternative: Air conditioning and a minibar. Eight villas are spread out over two white sand beaches that are plenty long enough for privacy.

When to Go: April through October is hot and dry.

How To Get There: Fly to the closest major airport, Pemba, Mozambique, then take a puddle jumper to the Quirimba Island, followed by a 20-minute boat ride to Quirea Private Island; from $595 per person, per night;

Barefoot at Havelock, Andaman Islands, India

Explore the best beach in Asia

Barefoot at Havelock bar

The bar at Barefoot at Havelock

Best For: Dive fanatics who think they鈥檝e seen it all.

OK, so you鈥檝e crossed every shark in the ocean off your diving life list, but have you ever swum with a ? The coral reefs surrounding Havelock Island teems with sea turtles, barracuda, tuna, stingrays, and, yes, even an occasional endangered dugong. The trouble will be gathering enough motivation to leave the comfort of legendary Beach No. 7, a 1.5-mile stretch of sand so pristine that once rated it the best in Asia. The 18 bungalows, with hardwood floors and palm-thatch roofs, are nicely spaced on seven acres鈥攅ach within spitting distance of the sand. Go austere and book one of the eight Nicobari villas, which have no television, Internet, or telephone. Fill your days with snorkeling, diving, jungle walks through 100-foot-tall maruma trees and wild orchids, expeditions to distant volcanic islands, and Ayurvedic treatments.

When to Go: December to May is the best time for scuba diving.

How to Get There:听 Fly to Port Blair from Calcutta, Chennai, or New Delhi, then take a two-hour ferry to Havelock Island. The resort is a 30-minute drive from the ferry; from $91 per person, per night for a Nicobari villa;

Vatulele, Fiji

Take your pick of dive, sailing, and fishing options

Best For: Honeymooners with cash flow.

A splurge to this 12-square-mile island just off the south coast of Fiji鈥檚 largest island, Viti Levu, will cost you. But it鈥檚 the spot to indulge every tropical fantasy there is, from diving underwater fortresses to dining on fresh lobster in candlelight on the sand. With at least 14 offered, you can aim to see everything from rainbows of coral to barracuda. You could also wile away the day sailing, kayaking, fishing, or swimming. Go ahead, just save some time for the villas, all 19 of which are just a stone’s throw from the perfect white sand. Keep it basic with a beach bure, a two-tiered palace with a king-sized bed, AC, a wine cooler, and twelve doors that open on to a private terrace facing the South Pacific. For the quietest experience, rent a villa farther down the beach, which offer a freshwater plunge pool and an outdoor shower shrouded in the jungle.

When to Go: April to early October

How to Get There:听 Fly to Nadi, Fiji from Los Angeles, then take a 25-minute flight to Vatulele. Price: Doubles from $751;

Che Shale, Malindi, Kenya

Kite surf when the wind blows. SUP when it鈥檚 not around.

Best For: Kitesurfers who dream about consistent 18 to 25 knot winds that blow all day, almost every day, 300 days a year.

At Che Shale, a chic cluster of seven bures that sits on a 3.5-mile long deserted beach, there is nothing to get in the way of a kite. The owner, Justin Aniere, is a third-generation Kenyan who 12 years ago. When the wind dies around November some of the best deep-sea fishing spots in the world are off Malindi and Watamu and the glassy bay out front is perfect for SUP lessons. Sleeping quarters are open and breezy thatch-roof bures with designer furniture, comfy daybeds, and open-air showers. Out back, for the budget-conscious, there are solar-powered, basic bandas with a double bed, a covered verandah with table and chairs. Not convinced. They are built on stilts, and only 30 steps from the beach. On the unlikely days when the kiting conditions aren鈥檛 right, walk the beach, hike the dunes, or explore the bustling city of Malindi, with its Swahili food and African markets, 30 minutes away.
Note: Be sure to check before you book.

When to Go: July to April

How to Get There: From Nairobi, fly to Malindi. Che Shale is a 30-minute drive from Malindi; Che Shale bures from $105 per person, per night; Kajama rooms from $46 per person per night;

Song Saa Private Island, Cambodia

Become one with nature

Best For: Eco-minded travelers who like to be first.

This brand-new, beautifully designed, luxury resort with 27 strategically placed villas is the first of its kind in Cambodia. Built on two islands known as 鈥淭he Sweethearts,鈥� which are connected by a footbridge, the place is so in tune with its surroundings that it established its own marine sanctuary, a no-take zone covering 247 acres and extending more than 656 feet out from the farthest edge of the coral reefs. The seven ocean view villas, each with their own private beach, are decked out with a daybed, sundeck, swimming pool, and, for those who want to wax poetic, a writing desk. Don鈥檛 waste your time inside. Circumnavigate the islands with a mask and snorkel, explore the archipelago in a kayak, or take a nighttime boat cruise to swim in the ethereal phenomenon known as bioluminescence.

When to go: February-May; November-December

How to Get There: Fly from Siem Riep to the city of Sihanoukville, which is only a 30-minute boat ride from Song Saa. Ocean-view villa from $1,415 per person, per night, all-inclusive;

Niyama, Maldives

Find urban chic in the middle of nowhere

Best for: Hipsters who want to take cocktail hour underwater.

Niyama ups the ante of resort decadence with 鈥淪ubsix鈥� the first-ever underwater club where djs spin world music and you overlook swimming creatures through glass walls while dancing. With a nightclub vibe and 87 ultra-modern villas, you won鈥檛 exactly be stranding yourself alone on a desert island here. But you will have plenty of escapist diversions like guided snorkeling tours to coral reefs teeming with fish, a private sail around the atoll on a traditional wooden sailing dhoni, a spa open 24 hours a day, and dreamy stretches of palm-lined sand beaches. Reserve a studio with a pool, where you can lounge on a deep, elevated couch that sways in the breeze and overlooks a pool lit by fiber optics, just a few steps to the edge of the ocean.听

When to Go: December to April

How to get there: Fly to Mal茅, the capital of the Maldives, on nonstop flights from a number of cities, then take a 40-minute seaplane flight right to the resort. $1,300 per person, per night;

Jashita, Tulum, Mexico

Escape the hustle and rest easy in the Caribbean

Best For: Quick, luxurious escapes from the East Coast.

Technically, you won鈥檛 have your own cabana at this new boutique eco-hotel just north of Tulum. But the top two suites are still worlds away, each with a giant palapa roof and private terrace where sunbeds present a sweeping view of the Solimon Bay. It鈥檚 all in the Venetian family: Enrico, the father, designed the chic space, his wife Monika, decorated it, and Enrico鈥檚 son, Tommaso, not only manages the hotel, he spearfishes dinner. Just a few steps off the protected beach, the Mesoamerican reef runs all the way to Honduras. Dive and snorkel with eagle rays, turtles, and tropical fish or help Enrico catch dinner by deep-sea fishing for marlin, sailfish, dorado, wahoo, or kingfish. Lounge by the pool, take a yoga class, sign up for a kitesurfing lesson, or venture inland to snorkel in cenotes and explore the Mayan ruins of Tulum.听

When to Go: Year-Round

How to Get There:听 Fly into Cancun from any major U.S. City, rent a car and drive 1.5 hours south on Mexico 307; Doubles from $350 per night, three-night minimum;

Punta Teonoste, Nicaragua

Surf鈥檚 up and nobody else is around

Best For: Serious surfers who have time to explore.

Forty-five minutes down a dirt road from the town of Tola, no one just happens upon Punta Teonoste, a beautiful cluster of palapas on the 鈥淧acific Riviera鈥� near the fishing village of El Astillero and Popoya, one of the best surf breaks in Nicaragua. Sixteen freestanding, two-story palapas with hammocks out front and a private outdoor shower in a tropical garden out back are nicely spaced around a massive thatched-roof open-air dining room where the French chef uses only the freshest local ingredients like shrimp and lobster harvested by local fishermen. The half-mile-long deserted beach out front is not only gorgeous; it鈥檚 also the perfect spot to take a two-hour lesson from the on-site instructors. Serious surfers, however, will want to expand their horizons and take advantage of the boat tour that prowls the coastline, hitting some of the best breaks in Nicaragua. For the non-surfers, Punta Teonoste employs two local men to run an on-site to protect and nurture the hundreds of turtles born on the beach. There鈥檚 also lazing around the pool in a chaise or hiking a mile up a well-marked trail for a gorgeous sunset view of the beach and beyond.

When to Go: November to April

How to Get There: Fly into Managua, rent a car, drive to Rivas, then follow the directions found ; five-night surf package including all meals, transportation to and from Managua, three days of two-hour surf-lessons, and a massage, $1,450 per person.

Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef

Go on safari, Aussie-Style

Best For: Going beyond the back of beyond.

This solar-powered Northwest Cape tented outpost that sits on the World Heritage , is as far away as it gets. The digs may be tents, but they aren鈥檛 lacking in the essential amenities: cozy king beds, plush towels, a compostable toilet, and, beyond the flap, a veranda with forever views of the Indian Ocean. But you鈥檙e not going to be inside much. The coral reef just a few strokes off the beach supports 500 species of fish, 250 species of coral, and 600 species of mollusk. This is one of the best places in the world to dive with whale sharks, manta rays, and Hawksbill, Green, and Loggerhead turtles. Less than two miles behind camp is Mandu Mandu Gorge, a geographic wonder with fossil limestone formations, red kangaroos, rock wallabies, and a 30,000-year history of Aboriginal use. As if that鈥檚 not enough, there are also deep-sea fishing charters, kayaking excursions, and an unpolluted sky to gaze toward every night.

When to Go: Year round, but April through June is ideal.

How to Get There: Sal Salis is 838 miles north of Perth. From Perth, fly to Exmouth (flights on Qantas Airlines offered Friday, Sunday, Wednesday). From Exmouth Sal Salis is a 47-mile drive. Arrange for transfers in advance; doubles from $787 per person, per night;

Bosque del Cabo Rainforest Lodge

Earn your sand

Best for: Jungle lovers.

From Tucan, a beautifully intricate thatch-roof cabana with a private outdoor shower, there are stunning views of the Pacific. It just takes a few steps to get to the beach. This lofted aerie with a deck out front, sits on precipitous, Cabo Matapalo on the Osa Peninsula, where the Pacific meets the Golfo Dulce. It鈥檚 500 feet above the ocean, but the waves crashing on the beach below are omnipresent, the hike to the sand through the dense jungle is awe-inspiring, and the palm-backed Pacific beach that stretches for miles is worth the walk. That鈥檚 only the Pacific side. Backwash Beach and Pan Dulce Beach on the Golfo Dulce side, a 45-minute walk away, are idyllic for swimming. The surf breaks of Cabo Matapalo are some of the least visited in Costa Rica and the deep-sea fishing for marlin, sailfish, tuna, and dorado is the stuff of trophies. But Bosque del Cabo, with its 20 cabinas and casas scattered throughout the 750-plus acre property, is primarily a nature lodge. A labor of love started by expat Americans Phil and Kim Spier in 1990, the lodge sits among manicured gardens and every day a deluge of wildlife, from scarlet macaws to agoutis to pumas, visit. Over the past 20 years the Spiers have created a community in paradise, supporting everything from the to a bilingual school in nearby Puerto Jiminez to , a non-profit conservation group committed to preserving the region鈥檚 unbelievable biodiversity.

When to Go: Year-Round

How to Get There:听 From San Jose, Puerto Jimenez is an eight-hour drive or a 50-minute flight. From Puerto Jiminez it鈥檚 an hour drive over a dirt road. Bosque del Cabo can help arrange in-country transportation; deluxe cabinas from $190 per person, per night;

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The Top 10 Films at Sundance

I hit up the last month to scope out ten of the most affecting adventure and environmental films, and found flicks that had the rare power to depress and inspire me at the same time. Chasing Ice, a documentary about James Balog鈥檚 climate change project, is 75 minutes of stunning cinematography鈥攂ut it鈥檚 also a eulogy for the world鈥檚 disappearing glaciers. The Ambassador is an absorbing documentary about journalist Mads Brugger鈥檚 gutsy journey into the heart of the blood diamond business鈥攂ut it鈥檚 also a sobering expose on a deeply corrupt industry. Then there鈥檚 the provocative yet infuriating Atomic States of America, which examines the history of nuclear energy, and the visually spectacular yet haunting Beasts of the Southern Wild, a fictional account of how climate change might play out in southern Louisiana. We also included a few films that you might not expect, including Detropia鈥攁 film about Detroit that speaks to the need to reassess our cities. Check out our coverage for all ten films, some of which will be coming to theaters and cable networks in the next year.

A Fierce Green Fire

A new documentary by Mark Kitchell tracks the history of environmental activism

Pick an environmental documentary at random and chances are it tackles some hot-button issue. is a gentler breed of environmental doc, in which director plays earnest chronicler of a movement that we鈥檝e all come to take for granted.

Kitchell tracks the history of environmental activism by spotlighting five milestones: 1) the 鈥檚 crusade to keep the Grand Canyon free of dams, 2) the , where residents protested Hooker Chemical for dumping 20,000 tons of toxic waste in their backyard, 3) the creation of , 4) the to preserve the Amazon rain forest, and 5) 鈥檚 campaign for climate change education. The film is plodding at times, but what ultimately emerges is a retrospective of the movers and shakers who鈥檝e paved the way for environmental activists of the future鈥攁nd their collective conviction is inspiring.

The most illuminating insight arrives by way of Kitchell, who notes that the environmental renaissance began, in part, when humans observed the first images of Earth from space. That moment, Kitchell says, forever altered our perspectives of our role on the planet. It鈥檚 a stirring notion to keep in mind the next time you find yourself gazing at a photo of the big blue dot.

Detropia By the Numbers

Two filmmakers capture stories of survival in a decaying Detroit

Detropia

A scene from Detropia

The media fetishizes the Motor City鈥檚 decline with pictures of abandoned factories, dilapidated storefronts, and homes ablaze. It鈥檚 a creation that has led international tourists to stop in the city. In , which premiered at the over the weekend, directors and capture the urban decline without turning it into decay porn. Graffiti and overgrown lots abound, but the focus is on the citizens as they cope with the very-real consequences of a city in financial turmoil. For example, how will they respond to the mayor鈥檚 request to move into a centralized area? Here鈥檚 a look at the city as profiled in the movie, by the numbers.

1.86 million The population of Detroit in 1955.

713,000 The population in 2010鈥攖he lowest total in 130 years.

150,000,000 The amount of Detroit鈥檚 budget deficit.

10,000 The number of homes that have been demolished in the past four years.

50 The percentage of manufacturing jobs lost in the Motor City in the past decade.

40 The number of square miles that are inhabited in Detroit, filling less than one-third of the city鈥檚 139 square miles.

25,000 The price for a loft apartment.

Two Number of Swiss tourists in the film who travel to the city to witness the decay.

The Atomic States of America

Directors Don Argott and Sheena Joyce trace the evolution of nuclear energy

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, casts a timely inquiry into the viability of nuclear energy, a technology with enticing advantages but horrific fallout consequences.

Directors Don Argott and Sheena Joyce trace the modern nuclear renaissance to the 鈥減eaceful atom鈥� campaign, launched by the U.S. government soon after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ads and PSAs touted nuclear energy as a constructive technology鈥攖he way of the future鈥攁s Americans welcomed facilities into their backyards. An energy source that emits no greenhouse gases, infuses local economies with jobs and decreases dependence on foreign oil? Hell, yes.

Joyce and Argott carefully consider the flip side as they visit communities that have been rocked by nuclear leakage and hit with inordinately high rates of cancer. They point to a series of cover-ups at nuclear facilities where evidence of leakage and meltdowns have been found. They question whether the United States imposes strong enough safety standards on facilities such as in Buchanan, New York, which lies on two fault lines.

The testimony from victims is emotionally compelling, but Atomic States is ultimately driven by evidence鈥攅nough, surely, to urge nuclear proponents to consider whether the potential consequences outweigh the benefits. Or as one activist explains, 鈥淲e haven鈥檛 reached the point where humans can responsibly split atoms.鈥�

Lost On Vacation

Filmmaker Kieran Darcy-Smith talks about his new international travel thriller, Wish You Were Here, which premieres at Sundance 2012

Kieran Darcy-Smith filming in Cambodia

Director Kieran Darcy-Smith filming in Cambodia

Actor Joel Edgerton

Actor Joel Edgerton

In , the new psychological thriller from director , two couples from Australia go on vacation in Cambodia and return home with one less person. Secrets emerge as they try to figure out what happened. We spoke to Darcy-Smith about his grueling two-week film shoot in Cambodia.

The movie starts off almost as an ad for Cambodian tourism, showing off the beaches and the nightlife. But then it spirals into a traveler鈥檚 worst nightmare. Did the Cambodian government ever express concern about how the country would be portrayed?
That鈥檚 a really good question. I don鈥檛 think they ever read the script. I think they were more interested in how much we were gonna pay and whether or not we were gonna sign the documents and how official we were gonna make things. I don鈥檛 know. I鈥檓 a little concerned, I guess, how it might be perceived by some people, because it鈥檚 not a negative slight on the country or people at all. Again, trying not to give anything away, but there鈥檚 underground or underworld elements to every society. There鈥檚 a small underbelly of that particular country, but you find the same in Sydney. There鈥檚 movies shot in Sydney that show the same thing. I just hope there鈥檚 no sensitivity around it. I think people will get that it exists in every society.

What were some of the challenges unique to shooting in Cambodia?
I had a five-and-a-half-month-old girl and a two-and-a-half-year-old boy and my wife was in the lead role, so that was pretty challenging. Plus Felicity [Price, his wife] and I were really ill. I fell into a sewer up to my neck on day one, and then I got really, really ill. I had really bad dysentery, and a really bad flu. We were shooting 15-hour days.

So you have dysentery and the flu, but you鈥檙e on a tight shooting schedule. Did you take days off?
Oh no, no, but it鈥檚 funny, the adrenaline kicks in and you just do it. I was having the time of my life. It鈥檚 such a challenge. They don鈥檛 really have a big industry there, so the gear, with all due respect, was second-rate. We had a lot of issues with lights and technology. The crew we were working with, they didn鈥檛 speak English at all, so we had interpreters working for us and you get these lost in translation moments, so it slows things right down. Everything about it was difficult, but we certainly got what we wanted.

You shot part of the movie in Sihanoukville. Can you describe what it was like to film there?
It鈥檚 beautiful, and it鈥檚 crazy, too. I can鈥檛 give anything away, but all that stuff towards the end of the movie is shot in the real deal. At the back of the port is a brothel area and it鈥檚 all run by gangsters. It鈥檚 arguably one of the most dangerous parts of the country, but it鈥檚 a magnificent country. The first time I went there was 1996, when the war was still on. You couldn鈥檛 get anywhere because the was everywhere.

When you shot in Sihanoukville鈥檚 seedier streets, how did you go about clearing the area for a movie shoot?
The fixers did. It鈥檚 all really about money. As long as you sort of connect with the right people and pay the right amount of money, you鈥檒l be safe and looked after. And we were really well-looked after. Everyone was on our side. We were working in an area that was sort of gangster-run, but they weren鈥檛 gonna let anything happen to us. I hope I鈥檓 not saying anything out of school. I just love everything about the people.

How did you go about picking locations?
We did an initial location scout, where we went to Vietnam and cast our actors, or some of them. Then we went to Cambodia and cast the Cambodian crew. Then we just went out for two weeks to all these different regions with a really great company that facilitated and all these other big movies [that were shot in Cambodia]. So they knew the lay of the land. Actually, one of the guys who writes for , he鈥檚 the Lonely Planet Cambodia dude, he was really helpful in connecting us. So we spent a couple weeks cruising the country. I had very specific locations in mind because I鈥檇 been there.

Did you run into any issues with shooting in locations that still have land mines?
No, not where we were. You鈥檝e really gotta head to the border regions now. They鈥檙e doing a lot of great work with clearing the mines. In 鈥�96 it was a different story. They鈥檙e still doing it. There are teams out there every day.

The House I Live In

Eugene Jarecki discusses his new film about the government鈥檚 war on drugs, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentaries

Movie screenshot

Screenshot from the movie The House I Live In.

In the past decade, Eugene Jarecki has directed documentaries on Henry Kissinger (), Ronald Reagan () and the military-industrial complex (). At this year鈥檚 Sundance Film Festival, he premiered his latest film, , an in-depth examination of the nation鈥檚 war on drugs. Jarecki traces the roots of the war to Richard Nixon鈥檚 famous declaration in 1971, and then illustrates how the battle has become an ineffective enterprise and an unexamined method of suppressing the poor. Jarecki sat down with 国产吃瓜黑料 to discuss the film, which .

Why did you want to make this film?
There are people I knew, in particular African-Americans, who were suffering from what seemed a surprising kind of aftershock of the Civil Rights movement. There was one family I was particularly close to, the matriarch was Nannie Jeter. They, and I, all thought we were all on a post-Civil Rights path where we would kind of share in the same American promise. Instead, as I met privilege and possibilities, they met a lot of struggle. Over time this has stayed with me a lot. It鈥檚 been a theme in my life: What happened to the Jeter family? When I asked Nannie what she thought went wrong, she said she thought it was drugs, that the primary enemy that had attacked her loved ones was drugs. And then of course I wondered why had that happened to them and not my family, and why did it seem to be happening to a lot of African-American families? That led me to ask further questions of experts in the field of addiction, and also society and law. What鈥檚 going on here? They all looked at me like the inquiry about drugs was only half the story. Drugs were a problem for people, but as David Simon says in the film, whatever drugs hadn鈥檛 destroyed, the war against them has.

How hard was it to find critics of the war on drugs?
As I started to go around the country, I couldn鈥檛 find anyone who would defend this war. It has cost over a trillion dollars, there have been over 44 million arrests. It has made us the world鈥檚 largest jailer鈥�2.3 million people in prison. That鈥檚 more in absolute numbers than any country in the world, including totalitarian countries. We incarcerate a far higher percentage of our own people鈥攏ot just in absolute but in relative numbers鈥攖han any other country, including China. China has about 2.3 million people in jail but they have a population of about 1.5 billion people. We have 2.3 million of just 280 million, so about 1 percent of our population is in jail. This is China, which Americans sort of single out as the country of disregard for human dignity. So that鈥檚 startling. You look at all those figures, you can鈥檛 get anyone in their right mind to defend a system that has failed in every way to reduce demand, reduce supply. More Americans use drugs than before, so it鈥檚 failing on every level and costing a fortune.

You bring up the fact that Nixon initially approached the war on drugs by spending lots of money on treatment, not law enforcement.
Despite his war-like rhetoric, behind the scenes he was spending two-thirds of his money on treatment, not on law enforcement. So he knew, and yet he was willing to play the political game of using tough-on-crime rhetoric to get elected. His success in doing that formed a mold that politicians have followed ever since.

At one point you ask what originally made drugs such a perceived danger, and you trace it back to the illegalization of opium as a way to criminalize the Chinese in the 1800s.
I learned that from [historian] , who was in the film. What we did with the Chinese with opium was so very similar to what we did with crack cocaine. Because in America in the 1860s鈥攖he analogy is amazing鈥攖he number one user of opium was a middle-aged white woman. In this country, the number one user of crack is a white person. And yet the white woman didn鈥檛 go to jail and the white people don鈥檛 go to jail today. Instead we put the Chinese away, and we put the Chinese away in a very similar way to the way we put black Americans away. The Chinese got put away because we made one way of taking opium illegal. In the contemporary context, we did the same thing with crack. Crack is a form of cocaine and is actually the same chemically as cocaine鈥攜ou鈥檙e just taking it in a different way because it鈥檚 cooked with baking soda and water. They made opium illegal but not all opium. They only made smoking opium illegal because that was what鈥檚 called the delivery mechanism that the Chinese used. So both with crack and opium, the laws that have been passed were laws passed against a particular delivery mechanism. The drug itself is of varying legality and illegality determined quite arbitrarily by those in power, and I find that parallel very haunting.

You make the point that many of the drug users and dealers, who tend to get the blame in the war on drugs, are actually acting rationally within a system that is irrational.
How many American wars can we describe that really are rational? And the drug war is simply our longest war, which represents our greatest and longest departure from reason. To have thought you could declare war on a chemical or series of chemicals and not know implicitly that you鈥檙e really declaring war on the users of those chemicals, now you have war against a large section of your own people.

Do you think 鈥渨ar on drugs鈥� should be banned as a slogan?
The Obama administration has abandoned it. The director of , who鈥檚 also known as the drug czar, doesn鈥檛 call himself a drug czar and doesn鈥檛 call it a war on drugs. That鈥檚 commendable, but it鈥檚 kind of window dressing if the policies stay the same. And the Obama administration has not paired its abandonment of the term war on drugs with meaningful policy reform.

You shot this film in more than 20 states. Is that the most legwork you鈥檝e put into producing a movie?
In terms of geography, I鈥檝e never traveled as far and wide. I didn鈥檛 wanna leave any stone unturned. I didn鈥檛 want someone to watch the movie and say, you know, that鈥檚 true on the east coast, but it鈥檚 really different down here in Oklahoma. Or that鈥檚 true in Oklahoma, but in California we do things really differently. So I wanted to make sure that I had enough places that if you heard a cop in Providence share his reservation about the war on drugs, you could go down to New Mexico and find a cop there saying the same thing, and in Seattle. What you find is a tremendous amount of overlap. You get a judge in Sioux City, Iowa, saying precisely the same things that a perp sitting in a Vermont jail told me. They agree about the unfairness of the law. The judge feels bad that he鈥檚 giving a sentence that he doesn鈥檛 agree with because his hands are tied by what are called mandatory minimum sentences, and the perp is sitting there about to spend a tremendous amount of his life behind bars because of mandatory minimum sentencing laws.听

What are some of the reactions you鈥檝e had to the film so far?
I think people are shocked. People feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the human cost that鈥檚 involved, and they wonder what they can do about it. The next time a politician comes around and says vote for me because I鈥檓 gonna put away all the bad guys, they鈥檙e gonna be able to say that person is simply pandering to me for my vote.

Bear 71

A new interactive movie documents the journey of a grizzly bear in Banff National Park

Bear 71, an interactive online documentary that premiered at the , opens with an ominous epigraph: 鈥淭here aren鈥檛 a lot of ways for a grizzly bear to die. At least, that鈥檚 the way it was in the wild.鈥� A second later, you鈥檙e watching close-up footage of a 3-year-old grizzly trapped in a snare at . As we learn from the female voiceover, told from the bear鈥檚 perspective, the snare snapped shut with the 鈥渂reaking strength of two tons.鈥� But she鈥檚 not dead. Instead, park rangers tranquilize her with a shot of Telazol, tag her with a VHF collar, and release her back into the wild鈥攃hristened as Bear 71.

For the next 20 minutes, the poetic narration paints a portrait of Bear 71鈥檚 life over the course of a decade. The bruising narrative informs you that, for example, trains have in the last decade (bears roam the tracks in search of grain leaked from trains). Or that 鈥渂ears and humans here live closer together than any other place on earth.鈥� Or that there are 44 ways for animals to cross Banff鈥檚 highways鈥攅ven though, as Bear 71 wryly points out, 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing natural about a grizzly bear using an overpass.鈥�

Short grizzly videos accompany the narration, and when the videos aren鈥檛 playing, you can use your mouse to navigate over an interactive map of Banff. As your pointer glides across the terrain, you encounter wolverines, moose, wildcats, and other fauna鈥攅ach represented by a thumbnail that enlarges into a video. Co-creators and collated the footage from a collection of one million images shot by motion-sensor cameras around the park.

There鈥檚 a technology theme at play here, but the more gutting message of Bear 71 is the way in which human presence鈥攔oads, trains, tourists鈥攈as affected Banff鈥檚 natural habitat. (It鈥檚 all heightened by a powerful soundtrack that includes , and .) Essentially, animals are being punished for acting naturally in an increasingly unnatural environment. In Bear 71鈥檚 words, as she frets about the future of her cubs, 鈥淭hey鈥檒l have to learn not to do what comes naturally. And I wonder, maybe the lesson is too hard.鈥�

To watch the full movie and interact with Bear 71, go to .

Skateboarding Canon

Stacy Peralta talks about his new documentary Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, which premiered at Sundance 2012

Stacy Peralta Filming

Back in the day

Stacy Peralta

Stacy Peralta

IN , Stacy Peralta returns to his skateboarding roots to chronicle the young skate team he created in the 1980s. Combining archival footage and present-day interviews, tells the stories of the teens he groomed into skating legends: Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Rodney Mullen, Lance Mountain, Tommy Guerrero and Mike McGill. We sat down with Peralta in Park City to talk about the film, which premiered this week at .

You mentioned at the Sundance premiere that you were hesitant to do this film at first. Why?
Because I play a dual role, director and subject, and I did that in [and Z-Boys]. I was worried that I was going to be viewed as a narcissist. That鈥檚 why I put 鈥渁utobiography鈥� in the title, so if people have an issue they at least know I鈥檓 stating it from the top. It was my wife鈥檚 idea. She knew my worry. She said, 鈥淟ook, people write autobiographies all the time, and they make films.鈥漇o you know what? It鈥檚 a good idea.

You found a wealth of archival footage. Was a lot of it yours?
A lot of it was ours. All these guys lived outside of Los Angeles, so whenever I would fly them in for a contest, I had to photograph them all the time鈥攂ecause I needed the photographs for ads. So they鈥檇 come in and shoot tons of stuff. They鈥檇 go to the contest, I鈥檇 put 鈥檈m on the plane, and they鈥檇 go home. So we had this archive of probably 1500 photos, 50 hours of footage, over a 10-year span. So I had to go through all this鈥攕ort through it鈥攁nd try to make a story out of it.

Have you been in close touch with everyone in the original crew?
We see each other once in a while, but everyone鈥檚 very busy. Being up here [at Sundance], we鈥檙e staying in the same home. We鈥檝e not been together like this in over 20 years. It鈥檚 so much fun. We stay up every night, drink wine, have the fire going, Tommy鈥檚 playing guitar. It鈥檚 been a blast.

When you do these movies that rely heavily on archival footage, are you itching to shoot action scenes?
You know, I鈥檝e shot so much action in my life, what I鈥檓 interested in now is just telling stories. I just wanna tell a story. If the story requires me to go shoot action, I鈥檒l do it, but so far it hasn鈥檛 required that because I鈥檝e been telling stories from the past.

Some of the most suspenseful moments in the film are when the boys come up with never-before-seen moves. Are there as many new moves being invented today?
They are still being invented today, but from what I understand they鈥檙e more like variations. These guys came into the sport at a time when the canvas was still very blank. A lot of the maneuvers they developed became iconic, groundbreaking maneuvers that today every skateboarder incorporates. We were just talking about that. What if Rodney or Tony had been born now? They wouldn鈥檛 have had that opportunity because the groundwork has been laid. Not to get lofty, but I almost look at these guys as like Chopin. He wrote the etudes, which were the studies. They kind of laid down all the things for future musicians to study. Not to suggest that they鈥檙e on that level, but just to say that they had a chance to be architects.

You do get the sense that you鈥檙e watching history in the making.
Yeah, what鈥檚 interesting is that so much of that footage, when I was making the film, I couldn鈥檛 believe they were doing that at such young ages. And I was there. So that was a surprise.

It鈥檚 interesting to watch you produce the skate videos, because it鈥檚 sort of the equivalent of YouTube today. How do you think YouTube and viral videos have affected skate culture?
I think it鈥檚 made the action sport video moot, because from what I understand, kids now go out and shoot a few tricks, post them on YouTube and that鈥檚 it. They don鈥檛 even do videos because it鈥檚 instantaneous. It happens right now. Whereas videos we shoot over a six-month period then release it, and then they play for two years.

Do you ever watch YouTube videos?
I鈥檝e spent so much of my life doing this that I don鈥檛 typically [watch YouTube videos]. Once in a while someone sends me a link and says you鈥檝e really gotta see this skateboarder, he鈥檚 really doing something different. And I did see a kid this past year from Spain that was doing things like, 鈥淥kay, this guy鈥檚 on a whole different plain.鈥� Another kid from Japan was doing something so different and unique. Nothing where you go, 鈥淥h my God.鈥� But you could tell this guy was interpreting a different language.

Your films are always set in California, specifically on the coast. Would you like to move elsewhere at some point? Maybe focus on snowboarding, for example?
I鈥檝e never been interested in snowboarding. I don鈥檛 know why. There鈥檚 something about the white mountain, it doesn鈥檛 have enough urban to it. I鈥檝e been asked a lot of times. I don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 next, either. The things I want to do just require getting money and financing.

What do people approach you for these days?
I don鈥檛 get approached too often. I鈥檓 kind of on my own little planet. I don鈥檛 have an agent or manager. If I wanna make a film, I have to go out and get financing on my own. I鈥檝e been a skateboarder my whole life and we鈥檙e kind of outsiders. I find myself like that in the film world, and I finally realized this is just the way it is for me. I鈥檓 never gonna be let in the front door, it鈥檚 always gonna be in the back. I鈥檓 gonna continue to climb over fences. But I realized maybe that鈥檚 the way I want it.

You have a knack for getting surfing and skateboarding legends to open up and even cry. How do you generate such intimacy?
Well, you wouldn鈥檛 know it from this conversation, but I don鈥檛 typically say much. I鈥檓 a very quiet person, but since you鈥檙e asking all these questions and you seem actively engaged, I鈥檒l talk. Typically I鈥檓 the one asking questions. Typically I listen more than I speak, and if I鈥檓 at a party I鈥檓 glued to the wall, usually by myself. I鈥檓 just not comfortable, so I typically just try to engage people by asking them questions.

As you interviewed these men who you鈥檝e known for 30 years, did you come to see sides of them that you hadn鈥檛 seen before?
Yes, it鈥檚 been really, really incredible getting to know these guys as adults. Really incredible. We were together at a very tender time in their lives and my life as well, and we developed a bond. It is as strong today as it was then, but now I鈥檓 getting to know them as fathers and husbands, and we talk about our problems and issues. It鈥檚 really, really funny to hear them talk about problems with their own kids.

Do you hear echoes of what you dealt with when they were kids and you were the adult?
Yes. [Laughs.] And to hear what they鈥檙e going through with their kids is really funny. It鈥檚 good material to share laughs with.

Any specific examples?
Steve Caballero was talking about one of his daughters growing up. She鈥檚 15 and she won鈥檛 listen to him anymore, and he鈥檚 having to re-figure out how to be a father. He鈥檚 gotta back off a little bit. I was just thinking, 鈥淭oo funny!鈥�

There鈥檚 a touching moment in the film when Rodney and Tony buckle under the stress of competition. What role did you play in helping them through this phase?
Well, Rodney was different because when he left, he wasn鈥檛 there for me to be there for him. So he had to deal with that on his own. Tony at least was in San Diego, and I dealt with him and his brother. What Tony didn鈥檛 talk about was I wrote him a letter saying, look, whatever you need, you do. Because he loves competition鈥攈e just needed a break. He had had so much success so fast. He鈥檚 not an emotional kid, but when that happened to him鈥攁ll those kids that spat on him, all those things people said about his dad鈥攈e was hurt. So I think he needed time to [tears up]. God, I get鈥� it鈥檚 really weird, when we did these interviews I got so involved I became a crybaby. I had to continue to stop because I got so emotional. Anyway, he needed a three-month period to just get perspective on where he was at. What he realized is how much he loves [competing] but needed to figure out a way to come back with a different tack, a different relationship with it.

When you interview Rodney in the present, he鈥檚 incredibly insightful. Did you know that about him?
I did not know that he was as articulate as he is. It blew my mind. Before we started shooting we all got together to get any reservations out of the way, and when Rodney spoke, I thought, 鈥淥h my god, we鈥檝e got a film here. This guy is gonna be sensational.鈥� But he was even better than I thought. I had a whole interview prepared for him and he took it somewhere else. Lance did the same thing, as well. He really came and took me a place I wasn鈥檛 expecting.

Are you still skateboarding?
I am. I skateboard and stand up paddle surf like a maniac. I鈥檓 addicted to it.

Where do you go?
Central California. I ride a small board performance board. I have to do a sport. It鈥檚 important for my head, it鈥檚 important for my spirit and chemical balance. If I don鈥檛 do that, I鈥檒l go to the gym, but I have to keep physically active.

The Ambassador

Satirist and filmmaker Mads Br眉gger talks about going undercover to infiltrate the African blood diamond business

Traveling by boat

Traveling by boat

In , a documentary which premiered at the last week, Danish journalist procures an ambassadorship in Liberia and uses his diplomatic freedoms to infiltrate the blood diamond business. He pays a diplomatic title brokerage $135,000 and, with his newly minted ambassador title, travels to the Central African Republic under the pretense of building a match factory. His real mission is to capture the murky dealings of the country鈥檚 diamond industry on camera. This is Br眉gger 鈥檚 second stunt documentary. In his first, , he traveled to North Korea as part of a phony theater troupe鈥攁ffording a rare look at inner workings of the communist regime. The intrepid journalist spoke with 国产吃瓜黑料 about his risky seven-week operation in Africa.

It鈥檚 astonishing that you pulled this off. Were you surprised that you got as far as you did?
Yes. What was surprising was that I used my father鈥檚 name, but if you really deliberately and methodically Googled [the name], you will eventually find out that I鈥檓 a filmmaker. I was really afraid that that would happen at one point or another, but nothing ever happened.

Why did you keep the name?
I had to, for these passports for the diplomatic title brokers. They want proof of your identity, so I had to give them a copy of my Danish passport and so on. But you know, it鈥檚 what says in , that whatever will make the most money will happen. And if you have a lot of money, anything can happen in Africa.

Why did you decide to make the film?
First of all, I thought in the genre of hybrid role-play films, it would be the next level. Instead of playing a diplomat, I would actually become a diplomat, which raises the stakes significantly and makes everything much more interesting. Also because by becoming a diplomat, I would gain access to a very closed world that you seldom hear anything about. I speculated it would be possible to document and describe the power circles and the kingpins in a failed African state and by doing so, making a very genre-shaking Africa documentary.

You were going undercover in a country where diamond businessmen get assassinated. Were you on edge the whole time?
Of course there were moments of great concern and paranoia, but once paranoia and great concern is a permanent state of mind, you start to relax in a strange kind of way. Also, when I involve myself in role-playing as extreme as this, I become what I鈥檓 portraying. Which is a way of surviving the ordeal, but that actually also makes it fun.

Did you break out of character when you were alone?
This sounds very schizophrenic, but I was in character all the time. That鈥檚 because the hotel where I had my consulate is like the [hot spot] of for powerful people. They all come to the hotel for meetings and drinks and affairs with their mistresses and so on, and because I was there all the time I had to be in character all the time.

Were there any moments where you were sure you鈥檇 be discovered?
A very interesting moment is when I had a reception at my consulate, and one of the guests was a military intelligencer officer from a detachment of South African soldiers who are stationed in the Central African Republic. This man deals directly with President Bozize and so was very influential. He was at the reception and I was trying to keep him at arm鈥檚 length, because it is his job finding out about characters such as me. And then he approaches me and says, 鈥淢r. Ambassador, I need to have a confidential talk with you.鈥� And I鈥檓 thinking, 鈥淭his is the end.鈥� We go to a suite next door and he says, 鈥淎mbassador, I know you cannot comment on this, but I will say so anyway. I believe that you have all the hallmark characteristics of a highly-seasoned leader of intelligence service, which I believe you are.鈥� And I鈥檓 saying, well thank you, I cannot comment on it, but it takes one to know one. And then we laughed in this snobbish kind of way and went back to the reception. Even though it was a harrowing moment, it also made me very proud because it was the ultimate compliment.

In your last documentary, The Red Chapel, you went undercover in . Which documentary felt more dangerous to shoot?
It鈥檚 difficult to compare them. In a way, [The Ambassador] feels riskier because in a place such as this, it is so unpredictable what will happen next. You are having whisky sour cocktails with the son of the president. Ten minutes later you could find yourself in a torturer鈥檚 dungeon. Not because of something you have said or done, but because somebody told the president鈥檚 son something about you which may not even be true. There is no causality principle in the Central African Republic, which makes it quite a challenge to be there.

Did you have a game plan going in, or were you winging it?
I think in terms of situations. I knew I was going to make the matches factory [as a front for his diamond business], and that I had this Indian guy flying in. I knew that I was going to invest in a diamond mine with Monsieur Gilbert. These are the main anchors of the film, and everything else I more or less left to chance.

How much of this was shot on hidden cameras?
Most of the meetings I had in my consulate office is hidden cameras, but when dealing with the Africans, most of the Central Africans didn鈥檛 mind. We were filming on this . They look like still cameras. They shoot very high-grade HD. And for a Central African person, that does not in any way relate to film or television-making鈥攖hey thought Johan [the interpreter] was kind of an amateur鈥擨 would tell them in the beginning that he was my press officer, because it sounds swanky, and that he was documenting my exploits and endeavors. But they didn鈥檛 care really, so I stopped explaining. And they totally ignored him. So we were able to film scenes where I was thinking, 鈥淗ow come they don鈥檛 say anything about the camera?鈥� Even things where Monsieur Gilbert would say, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 going on here is very secret. If anyone finds out we鈥檒l all go to jail.鈥� While he鈥檚 saying so, the camera is right next to his face. They don鈥檛 care. They鈥檙e not that media-savvy. Or maybe they are鈥攎aybe they are at the next level.

You finally get your hands on some diamonds towards the end of the film, but you don鈥檛 reveal what happens to them. Were you worried about implicating yourself?
It鈥檚 because I don鈥檛 want to take the mystery out of the film. I had to take the diamonds when Monsieur Gilbert brought them to me, to keep up appearances. But I had to get rid of them as fast as possible, because if I were to be stopped by the mining police and they would find them, biblical punishment would rain down on me. So I took them and went alone to a diamond dealer outfit in Bangui, which is run by some Syrian-Armenians, and sold the diamonds to them. So I actually became a diamond dealer, and the money I made I gave to the pygmies to incorporate the match factory.

Can I ask how much money you sold them for?
It wasn鈥檛 a seller鈥檚 market because I didn鈥檛 have the papers 鈥� [the buyers] would also have a problem with these diamonds. So I might have made ten thousand dollars?

Some people have expressed skepticism about the authenticity of the film. They think it鈥檚 staged, or at least partly staged.
The only thing in the film which is fiction is me and Eva, my assistant, because she is also the production manager of the film. Everyone else is real. Nothing has been staged. Everybody is what they are. It is not a mockumentary, so apart from myself and Eva, it鈥檚 really as pure a documentary as you can make. But I understand why they think so, because a lot of the characters in the film are almost like comic book heroes and villains. Monsieur Gilbert and the head of the secret service, they are this close to clich茅. If it was a feature film and you would show up with a person such as Monsieur Gilbert, with a machete scar and a gold tooth, you would say this is too much, you have to tone it down.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

A movie about climate change wins the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance

is a climate change doomsday tale like no other climate-change doomsday tale鈥攖hink meets听 with an environmental twist. The terrifically unpredictable film evokes a visceral concern for what lies in wait when ecological disaster strikes. It then asks how one is supposed to come to grips with the notion of impending catastrophe. The answer is: celebrate the hell out of what you have right now.

The movie centers on an impoverished but wildly spirited community in a fictional Louisiana bayou called The Bathtub. Early on, a schoolteacher ominously instructs her kids that climate change is transforming the ecology of their community. 鈥淵鈥檃ll better learn how to survive now,鈥� she warns. To ratchet up the looming threat, scenes of life in the bayou are interspersed with surreal cutaways to a pack of pre-historic aurochs that, once frozen in glaciers, have now been loosed from the melt. Throughout the film, the ferocious beasts stampede closer to the bayou, a metaphor for approaching disaster.

When the storm finally hits, it floods The Bathtub鈥檚 ramshackle homes, transforming lowlands into murky rivers and wiping out the animals and plants once relied on for food. Rather than despair, the Bathtub鈥檚 steely citizens drink and laugh and feast on the grub that remains. The two main characters鈥�6-year-old Hushpuppy () and her mercurial father, Wink ()鈥攚ill not be fazed. They troll the water for catfish, which they hunt by hand. Wink tries to drain the bayou by blowing a hole in the levee. 鈥淚 got it under control,鈥� he roars. Well, he doesn鈥檛, exactly鈥攈e鈥檚 actually dying鈥攂ut that doesn鈥檛 make his attitude moot.

In press notes for the film, director writes, 鈥淲ith the hurricanes, the oil spills, the land decaying out from under our feet, there鈥檚 a sense of inevitability that one day it鈥檚 all going to get wiped off the map. I wanted to make a movie exploring how we should respond to such a death sentence.鈥� If you haven鈥檛 already gathered, this is not a pragmatic exploration of ways to avert said death sentence鈥攆or those answers, try a documentary. Instead, Beasts offers a much more esoteric take on climate change, and it鈥檚 well worth a watch when it comes to a theater near you.

Chasing Ice

Photographer James Balog and director Jeff Orlowski talk about the grunt work behind their new documentary project, a beautiful and frightening chronicle of so much melting ice

Chasing Ice

Trekking in

Checking the cameras

Checking the cameras

Chasing Ice

In the water

DOCUMENTS THE WORK of , The North Face sponsored photographer who launched the in 2007. The goal? Illustrate the effects of climate change. The method? Place 27 time-lapse cameras at receding glaciers around the world to record their history. The results are magnificent鈥攁nd terrifying. We spoke with Balog and director about the nitty gritty detail that went into the making of the film.

What was the most remote camera location, and what was the journey like to get there?
Orlowski: Getting to Greenland alone you have to go through Copenhagen now, so we would have to fly from Colorado to the east coast to Copenhagen, back to Kangerlussuaq.

Balog: Kangerlussuaq is on the west coast of Greenland. It鈥檚 sometimes a couple of stops to get from Copenhagen to there.

Orlowski: Then another flight at least in Greenland, then helicopters.

Balog: Or boats or dog sleds to get out to the actual camera site. There鈥檚 one site where there鈥檚 two cameras currently up in northwestern Greenland, at Petermann Glacier. That is up in a place where there is probably no human being except maybe every second or third year. It鈥檚 really way, way out there. I can鈥檛 tell you what the latitude is. It might be about 78 or 79 degrees north up in the northwestern corner of the country. There鈥檚 no villages within hundreds of miles, no military bases or weather stations or anything. It鈥檚 just out there.

What are some of the more harrowing conditions you鈥檝e had to endure when trekking out to the cameras?
Balog: I think temperature-wise it would be Greenland in the wintertime, and that was minus 30 degrees, basically. Wind-wise and storm-wise, it鈥檚 probably Iceland.

Orlowski: Adam and I had some bad winds in Greenland, the katabatic winds just coming off the glacier. It鈥檚 a temperature difference that creates these really high-powered winds. We were camping in 90-mile-per-hour winds. Our tents broke, the aluminum poles sheared in half. We lost a couple tents from heavy winds. The temperature in Greenland in the wintertime, those were minus 30 degree temperatures and we got frostnip touching cameras. I thought I was gonna die one night because our heater wasn鈥檛 working, and I woke up in the middle of the night because my teeth were chattering so much鈥攖hat鈥檚 what woke me up. There were some cold, cold conditions.

Balog: And Iceland has incredibly violent storms. There鈥檚 a volcano right up above the glacier and the air masses tend to come from over that volcano and down to where the cameras are鈥攁nd you get these violent bursts of wind and storm that come in these pulses. It鈥檚 kind of uncanny how it gets this rhythm going. It鈥檒l be mildly unpleasant for 15 minutes, then for about five or 10 minutes you鈥檙e getting ripped every which way and eaten up by the snow and the wind. In the summertime it鈥檚 rain, but it鈥檚 almost as violent.

Orlowski: When we鈥檙e in Greenland, we are out in very, very remote locations. A helicopter drops us off. We鈥檙e there camping for a week with all of our provisions. There are some landscapes where there鈥檚 no wildlife at all. You鈥檙e just out on the ice. All you hear is water. And there was one time where, due to bad weather, a helicopter couldn鈥檛 come pick us up. James was stuck there for five days without any opportunity to get back. It was full-on, 鈥淪orry we can鈥檛 get you, we鈥檒l get you in a couple days.鈥� Fortunately he had enough food to last.

How much does your gear weigh altogether on these trips?
Balog: It just depends on what the objective of the trip is. I don鈥檛 think we ever left the Denver airport without 800 pounds or 1,000 pounds of gear. In the beginning of the deployment, when all that stuff got shipped to Greenland especially, I don鈥檛 know. 1,500 pounds? 2,000 pounds? It goes up on U.S. Air Force flights that go from a National Guard base near Albany. It gets airlifted on a C1-30 up to a base on Greenland. Then we have to put it on the commercial flights to go further north. The logistics are crazy. It鈥檚 all you think about for a while.

Orlowski: The first time we went to Greenland, James made me and the whole team look at everything we were bringing. We laid everything out in James鈥檚 garage and he approved everything that was coming. I thought, 鈥淲hy are we going through this level of scrutiny?鈥� Then I learned the helicopters costs $4,000 an hour and we were paying thousands of dollars on excess baggage on every leg of these trips. Hundreds of dollars on some, thousands on others. We were paying per kilogram so every extra thing with us counted. You were bringing only the absolute necessities. We also get very good at hiding our excess weight from the airlines. When you go to check-in, they give you baggage tags on Air Greenland for how much weight you鈥檙e allowed to bring onto the plane. So we would each check in separately. We would hide all our extra gear that we were gonna carry onto our plane with somebody. We鈥檇 check in individually with a very small lightweight bag that they would approve, and then we would try to sneak onto the plane with all the extra camera gear, lenses, bodies, video cameras. And most of the time it was successful. But it became an art form of sneaking the camera gear onto the plane.

Tell us about your cameras. James, you had to build them yourself because they didn鈥檛 exist.
Balog: It was about four-and-a-half months worth of developing the technology for this thing, at least in the first wave of it. You have two basic problems: One is the electronics of telling the camera when to fire, and giving it power so that it can fire. And then the other problem is protecting the equipment against the weather. I was doing a lot of things by trial and error to see what would actually work. And it was really complicated.

How did you anchor and winterize the cameras to withstand harsh conditions year-round?
Orlowski: They had to withstand 200 mph winds and negative 40-degree temperatures. And James had to build a system that could endure huge variations in temperature. I think a lot of that was trial and error. And when we installed stuff, we learned as we were installing them what was working and what didn鈥檛 work, and we ended up creating a system that could be modified for almost any landscape. The first time we went to Iceland, we were installing a system we had designed for tripods. We were gonna use the tripods, secure them to the ground, and when we got there we realized the ground was too soft. The tripods would shift and they wouldn鈥檛 stay.

Balog: There wasn鈥檛 nearly as much bedrock to stand these things on as we鈥檇 thought.

Orlowski: So we ended up having to mount them into the mountainside, and we had to completely redesign the system. We kind of created two systems: one that could be mounted against a cliff face or a wall, and one that could be mounted directly into the ground. And those two systems allowed us to work in pretty much any environment.

Balog: We discovered the first problems in Iceland. That was March of 2007. It was the first field test of all these ideas. As soon as we got there it was like, 鈥淥h shit.鈥� All this thinking and all this work to build a support system, and all the boxes and boxes of gear that went with that idea. And it was already ordered and billed for 25 cameras. I had 25 cameras worth of gear that was suddenly junk. We ended up donating it to the University of Colorado鈥檚 engineering department. In any event, we were running down to the local hardware store 50 miles away, trying to cobble together pieces and parts in new tools and all kinds of stuff to build a new theory about how to put these up on the cliff faces along the volcano.

Orlowski: And a hardware store in Iceland is not exactly a well-provisioned hardware store. It was definitely jerry-rigging a system that would work, that we later improved as we went back and re-tested them. That very first camera we installed, it was on a cliff and got completely knocked off. This rock fell, cracked a hole in the top of the camera box and the whole thing sheared right off of its mount. We鈥檝e had cameras buried under snow in Alaska, under 20 feet of snow. The cameras were mounted to bedrock using the bolts you would use to go rock-climbing with, that are designed to support thousands of pounds of weight as you pull on them. We had four of those in the base of the camera and another four cables securing this thing, but when we went back to one of these systems, we had to dig it out from under the snow. The entire system was shaking. It was completely loose. The weight of the snow had pulled the bolts out of the rocks.

You鈥檝e experienced so many setbacks along the way. Were there moments where you felt you should scale down the project?
Balog: There were a lot of times when I really felt like I was over my head, because of the electronics. Not only did I not know about some really obscure questions of how electrical systems worked, I was kind of mentally resistant to learning about it. And when I tried to learn about it, I found the guys who were trying to explain it weren鈥檛 doing a very good job. They had been in an electronic world for so long, they couldn鈥檛 speak to laymen about it. So eventually I got aggravated with the electronics, as I so often do still today. It was like, 鈥淕od, this is just driving me crazy that I have to do this.鈥� But as with all the big projects that I鈥檝e done, it pushed me into new creative and technical territory in pursuit of the aesthetic ideal I was after. So I kind of had to grit my teeth and bear it. But believe me, it was about 15 times a day I was thinking, 鈥淕eez, I鈥檓 over my head on this,鈥� or 鈥淒ammit, I don鈥檛 like this,鈥� or 鈥淗ow did I ever get involved with this craziness?鈥�

How frequently do you check on the cameras and upload the photos?
Balog: It depends on where they are. If the site鈥檚 relatively accessible, like they are in Iceland, we can get there three or four times a year. Greenland it鈥檚 once a year, Montana it鈥檚 once a year.

How many photos do you take in one year?
Balog: It depends on latitude and how much daylight there is, but one year is equal to approximately 4,000 frames that we鈥檙e shooting once an hour. That鈥檚 4,000 frames per camera.

Orlowski: How many frames totally have been collected so far?

Balog: We鈥檙e somewhere in excess of 800,000. We鈥檝e kind of lost track, but now each camera is shooting every half-hour in most cases. Some are shooting every 20 minutes, but basically every half-hour it gives you about 8,000 frames.

Do you get excited when it鈥檚 time to visit a camera and retrieve new photos?
Balog: It鈥檚 like opening presents on Christmas morning. Every time you go to a camera, it鈥檚 like, 鈥淲ow, here we are, here鈥檚 the goodies, let鈥檚 see what we have.鈥� And of course at the same time, you always have this sense of dread in your gut, like oh god, what if it didn鈥檛 work? That anxiety about the failure was much more acute in the beginning of the project, when we really needed to have the technical things working. We needed content. In the world of academic science, if you do the experiment, you get points in heaven. But in the world of picture-making, you don鈥檛 get points in heaven for experiments. You only get points in heaven for having a picture.

Which glaciers have shown the most alarming decay?
Balog: It鈥檚 hard to define that because are you dealing with volume of ice? Or are you dealing with percentage of change in relation to the size of that glacier? Because a little glacier can have a lot of retreat in relationship to its size. On a percentage basis it can be enormous, but it doesn鈥檛 deliver the volume of ice that a big glacier having a little bit of change is doing. So how do you describe it? I think one of the most dramatic examples certainly is Columbia Glacier in Alaska. That鈥檚 now had almost three miles of retreat since we鈥檝e started the project. We actually just got an email from one of our partners in Anchorage over the weekend. There鈥檚 actually a beach that鈥檚 now formed where the ice used to be.

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Dan Austin

Age: 36

Organization:


The original idea was straightforward enough. While planning a bike ride through the Cambodian countryside in 2006, Austin, an author and documentary filmmaker, and his brother, Jared, a pedia颅trician, decided they wanted to donate their bikes to a local orphanage. Then they found out the orphanage housed 88 kids. “It was like this lightning bolt,” says Austin. In just five days, the brothers, with the help of Web-savvy friend Nick Arauz, founded a nonprofit, launched a Web site, and linked it up to PayPal. “Being able to accept donations online easily and securely was a tremendous help,” says Austin. Each bike costs $88, and by the time they got to Cambodia, they had all the money they needed to buy bikes for every orphan. “When you buy a bike, we give your picture to the child,” says Austin, “and then we take a picture of the child with the bike holding your picture and give it back to you.” It’s a winning strategy: Over the past three years, 88bikes has given away several hundred bikes to children in Uganda and Peru and has projects under way in India, Nepal, Vietnam, and Ghana. One of the main keys to 88bikes’ success is understanding the limitations of social media. “We’ve got a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter page聴all that stuff,” says Austin. “But you’ve still got to take time to chat with people and forge one-to-one connections.”

Tim DeChristopher

Tim DeChristopher

Age: 28

Organization:


DeChristopher is facing two federal felonies, ten years in prison, and $750,000 in fines. Last December, he bid on, and won, close to $1.8 million worth of oil-and-gas rights near Utah’s Arches National Park. The crime: He couldn’t pay. He’d bid in protest of any drilling. “We didn’t get the Civil Rights Act because the last bigot in Mississippi stopped being racist,” says DeChristopher, an economics student at the University of Utah and climate-change activist. “It was because people stood up and were willing to go to jail.” In February, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar shelved about 80 percent of the land parcels DeChristopher bid on, and DeChristopher has since founded the nonprofit Peaceful Uprising to promote nonviolent protest. In the coming months, he and pro bono lawyer Pat Shea, the BLM director under President Clinton, will make the precedent-setting argument that DeChristopher’s action was designed to slow climate change and therefore falls under the lesser-of-two-evils defense. If DeChristopher wins, climate-change protestors have a legal shield. Despite the gravity of his situation, DeChristopher recommends acting for climate change in any way possible. “It’s terrifying,” he says, “but sometimes you jump off the cliff, then build your wings.”

Reza Baluchi

Age: 36


Organization:


Baluchi’s advice for those looking for a way to help? Get moving. “When you run, you have a lot of time for thinking. Think of what you can do to make the world a better place. For me, if I help people, it makes me happy.” Baluchi’s stats prove it:

43: Number of days it took the former pro cyclist and peripatetic Iranian-American this summer to run across the United States聴3,300 miles from L.A. to New York, more than 76 miles per day聴raising money for UNICEF.

14: Number of New Balance shoes he wore out during his cross-country run.

15,000: Number of calories he burned per day.

38: His resting heart rate.

11,720: Number of miles he ran around the perimeter of the U.S. in 2007, raising money for a Denver children’s hospital.

49,000: Miles clocked on a goodwill bike ride through 55 countries that ended at New York’s Ground Zero in 2003.

85,000: Miles he plans to cover, on foot and in a specialized paddleboat, on his five-year, human-powered journey to all the world’s countries. Along the way he hopes to become an ambassador for peace聴meeting with world leaders, helping schools and local organizations, and inspiring others.

Brad Ludden

Brad Ludden

Age: 28

Organization:


While Ludden may be photographed with his shirt off more than Matthew McCon颅aughey聴Ludden was on 国产吃瓜黑料‘s cover in 2000, and a few years later Cosmo named him Bachelor of the Year聴he’s not just a pretty torso. The pro kayaker’s idea: Build a cancer patient’s confidence by teaching him or her to kayak. After his aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer, Ludden founded First Descents in 2000 to provide what doctors call the other half of recovery聴the emotional cure聴to young cancer patients. Ludden has now taken 600 of them, ages 18 to 39, down rivers. “A week on the water reminds them that they’re not fragile,” he says. Past participants tell him that kayaking restored their courage, allowing them to bridge the gap between treatment and daily life. Though he’s still kayaking intense water聴Ludden recently filmed the documentary The River Ward in Madagascar聴he’s changing focus. “More and more, I find fulfillment in teaching people,” he says. So what’d he do with the $10,000 Cosmo gave him for the bachelor title? Promptly donated it to First Descents. “Share your passion with somebody in need,” he says. “It’ll make both your lives better.”

Geoff Tabin

Age: 53

Organization:


Tabin’s life was transformed when he saw a team of Dutch physicians in Nepal cut into a local blind woman’s eye. “At that time in Nepal, it was accepted that their eyes turned white from cataracts and then they waited to die,” says Tabin, who was there to climb Mount Everest. “Seeing this woman restored to sight was incredible.” In 1995, Tabin, along with Nepalese doctor Sanduk Ruit, started the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) in Kathmandu. In addition to facilitating the mass production of inexpensive lenses used in cataract surgery聴the same procedure that costs thousands in the U.S. can be done by HCP for $20 in Nepal聴Tabin and Ruit have trained more than 100 local surgeons. Now, after 15 years and hundreds of thousands of eye surgeries, Tabin is looking to bring the same high-quality, low-cost treatments to sub-Saharan Africa. His goal: to eliminate preventable blindness, a condition that afflicts some 45 million people worldwide. “I still receive great satisfaction from standing on top of a mountain, but it’s pretty minimal compared with watching a patient regain their sight,” he says. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

Eric Greitens

Eric Greitens

Age: 35
Organization:
Greitens’s r茅sum茅 is hard to believe. Twelve-time marathoner with a 2:58 best. Champion boxer. Aspiring mountaineer. Rhodes scholar. Oxford graduate. Author and photographer (his humanitarian work in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Gaza, among other places, was published as a book of essays and photographs). College professor. Navy SEAL. Four tours (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and Africa). A Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. A White House Fellows program. But the reason we chose him out of more than 600 nominees as Reader of the Year? His work since his tours. After a suicide truck bomb hit his platoon in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2007, Greitens visited his wounded teammates and other marines in military hospitals. They all said that when they recovered, they wanted to continue to serve, in uniform or out. The St. Louis based Greitens then partnered with a few veteran friends and used his own combat pay to start The Mission Continues, an organization that trains wounded vets for leadership roles in their communities. He’s since put 31 vets through the program. Greitens, an 国产吃瓜黑料 reader for years, still finds time for six workouts a week, and he’s writing a book about service. “I think people end up benefiting from serving as much as those they aim to serve,” he says. Here’s more, in his own words.

One of the most influential people in my life was my first boxing coach, Earl Blair. He taught me that every single person is capable of tremendous courage if they’re given the right circumstances, the right training, and the right encouragement. When you challenge someone, you let them know you believe in them.

In SEAL training, I learned it’s actually easier to be a leader. When you’re leading a team, your thoughts are always on them. No matter how much I was hurting, no matter how tortured I had been, there was someone hurting worse than me. You don’t have time for your own self-pity.

I take time every single morning to exercise. It’s really important for me to get my head and spirit right before I start the day’s work. I work very long hours, but when I go home, I’m home. When I’m on the mountain, I’m on the mountain. I do not constantly BlackBerry.

My two favorite marathons were the New Jersey Marathon, where I broke three hours, and the Shamrock Marathon, which we ran in Fallujah, Iraq. It was the first marathon where they start the race with a briefing about what to do in the event of incoming artillery fire.

I want every single wounded or disabled vet to be welcomed home and seen as an asset. This year, we want to have 100 wounded or disabled vets as Mission Continues fellows. At some point, if we’re tremendously successful, the organization will grow larger than me.

Clare Lockhart

Clare Lockhart

Age: 36
Organization:
Lockhart’s inspiration came in 2002, when the guns had fallen silent–briefly—around Kabul and she was standing amid the rubble. “There was no guidebook on how to rebuild a country,” says Lockhart, who was part of a team setting up the new Afghanistan government. So the New York-based London native wrote one. First she co-founded the nonprofit Institute for State Effectiveness, in 2005; three years later, she published Fixing Failed States, which outlines how citizens from war-torn countries can organize their societies, economics, and politics. “I wanted to enable the people to empower themselves,” she says. By the time she was 30, Lockhart had visited as many countries, earned a history degree from Oxford and a master’s from Harvard’s Kennedy School, and practiced law in London. Now she’s provided more than $800 million in grants to 23,000 villages in Afghanistan through her National Solidarity Program, and she spent the better half of the past three years traveling on foot, horse, jeep, or helicopter to many provinces in Afghan颅i颅stan. “The people are rebuilding schools, medical clinics, and government facilities in their vision of the country,” she says. Lockhart emphasizes that you don’t have to work abroad to create positive change. “Volunteer locally,” she says. “The closeness of that interaction makes the feedback immediate.”

Ben Horton

Ben Horton

Age: 26

Organization:


Horton is many things: adventurer, photographer, activist. Just don’t call him a photojournalist. “Photojournalism is about presenting a story straight, without personal input,” he says. “For me, I want to influence the story. I want to create change.” To that end, Horton has traveled to the world’s wildest and most endangered landscapes聴including the Arctic in spring 2008 as part of Will Steger’s Global Warming 101 expedition聴to document those environments with his camera. He then publishes and exhibits the images to persuade the public, politicians, and big-time philanthropists like Richard Branson to protect them. “If you present scientific data to a group of people, not many are going to get it,” he says. “But if you put a picture of a landscape in front of them, all of a sudden they have a personal experience with it, and they’ll become inspired to save it.” Says Horton: “Everybody has their own medium, whether it’s writing, music, computers, or artwork. Use it to create change.”

David Rastovich

Age: 29

Organization:


You wouldn’t peg Rastovich to star in a thriller. The man’s a freesurfer, which means he gets paid to surf exotic waves for promotional films. Not exactly a high-stress gig. And yet there he is at the climactic moment of the year’s most talked-about documentary, The Cove, paddling out to cause a ruckus in a sea of dolphin blood. In the scene, Rastovich leads a crew of five wetsuit-clad activists聴including movie stars Isabel Lucas and Hayden Panettiere聴into a clandestine Japanese dolphin slaughter, disrupting the killing with a board circle. “The fishermen flashed the propeller at us and hit the girls in the legs with the boat hook,” says Rastovich, who was born in New Zealand and lives in Australia (and now has arrest warrants out for him in Japan). “Rasta” became interested in marine conservation after giving up contest surfing at age 20. Four years later, he started the nonprofit Surfers for Cetaceans to mobilize an athletic community not exactly known for monkeywrenching. Two days after the group formed, Rastovich was surfing at a local break when a shark bore down on him and a dolphin nosedived in, butting the shark away. “That was all the confirmation I needed that I was on the right path,” he says. Next up? Kayaking down the Australian coast, from Byron Bay to Sydney, alongside the humpback whale migration. The goal: Pressure the Australian government to enforce whale-sanctuary laws in the Antarctic waters where Japanese whalers hunt. “The government made a promise to help out and hasn’t delivered,” says Rastovich. “We’re going to make them honor their word.”

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EXPLORING QUEEN MAUD LAND
Team: [ Andrew McLean, Mike Libecki ]
Location: Antarctica

UNTIL NOW, TRAVERSING a couple hundred miles of ice cap, climbing a new mountain, or nailing a first ski descent has been enough to give Antarctic adventurers serious bragging rights. But when 29-year-old climber Mike Libecki and 41-year-old ski-mountaineer Andrew McLean, sponsored by Mountain Hardwear and Black Diamond, head to Queen Maud Land in November 2003, they’ll raise the stakes considerably, combining all three in a two-month, $60,000 expedition. Using kites to help them tow their 200-pound sledges, they’ll climb routes on the faces of 3,400-foot cliffs like Midgard, Ulvetanna, and Kinnetanna. If the weather holds, the duo will attempt first descents on some of the area’s steep, untouched chutes. “The biggest challenges are the unforeseen variables,” says Libecki, who helped pioneer Arctic climbing in Greenland. “That’s what makes this an ultimate adventure.”
EXPLORING THE HMS BREADALBANE

Team: [ Alfred McLaren, Don Walsh, Mike McDowell ]
Location: Canadian Arctic
UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGISTS spend their lives dreaming about lottery-winning discoveries, and Alfred McLaren, 70, is no exception. In April, his team will investigate the HMS Breadalbane, a perfectly preserved three-masted sailing ship that sank in 1853 while searching for traces of Sir John Franklin and his crew, who disappeared trying to find the Northwest Passage a few years earlier. The ship now rests 350 feet below the ice, 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle. “There haven’t been all that many dives there,” says McLaren, expedition leader and renowned deep-sea explorer. “We could discover anything.” To improve his chances, McLaren will employ a cutting-edge submersible called the Dual Deepworker, made of two side-by-side acrylic viewing domes, which will whiz explorers around under the pack ice.

KAYAKING THE WORLD
Team: [ Brad Ludden, Ben Selznick, John Grossman, Samantha Gehring ]
Location: 46 countries

IT’S BEEN MORE THAN 30 YEARS since the surfing movie The Endless Summer showed us the cool way to do a global road trip. Now 21-year-old Brad Ludden, a pro paddler from Vail, Colorado, wants to update the concept with an expedition he’s calling Endless Satori. The objective: a seven-month around-the-planet kayaking tour, kicking off in July, in which his team will visit some 46 countries and tackle more than 30 rivers. Along the way they’ll attempt first descents on sections of the Blue Nile and White Nile in Africa and a source-to-sea paddle of the Mekong as it flows through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Sponsorship of the $100,000 expedition is being “negotiated,” and Ludden is planning to bring along a film crew. “A few of these trips,” he says, “are going to be full-on heavy, crazy stuff.”
FIRST ASCENT OF INNOMINATA
Team: [ Mark Synnott, Kevin Thaw ]
Location: Himachal Pradesh, India
ALPINIST MARK SYNNOTT and Kevin Thaw, big-wall vets in their thirties who have conquered routes in Africa, Nepal, and Pakistan, looked to India’s Himachal Pradesh to find their next big first ascent, an unclimbed 20,000-foot-plus mountain they’ve dubbed Innominata, Italian for “nameless.” The mountain is a two-day drive and four-day trek from Delhi. Researching the hazy recollections of climber friends from the Dolomites, a single photo, and an obscure Russian map, the two Americans, sponsored by The North Face, are setting up a three-day blitz this August in which they’ll attack using an ultralight alpine style. “When I first got into climbing, I had this sad feeling that I had missed the heyday,” says Synnott. “But now I know these kind of amazing peaks are all over the Himalaya—they’re just very, very difficult to find.”

国产吃瓜黑料 Itinerary 2003

(JAN)

New Zealanders Graham Charles, 36, Marcus Waters, 36, and Mark Jones, 37, attempt the first unsupported traverse of the CORDILLERA DARWIN, a range of glaciated 8,000-foot mountains at the tip of South America.
British mountaineer Christian Bonington, 68, heads to OMAN, on the Arabian Peninsula, to climb the region’s 3,300-foot limestone faces.
Mark Newcomb, 36, and a team of seven, including climbers Carlos Buhler, 45, and Ace Kvale, 46, attempt a winter ski-mountaineering expedition in Tibet’s 22,800-foot SEPU KANGRI RANGE.
Thirty-three-year-old Scotsman Alun Hubbard begins a three-month expedition to SOUTH GEORGIA ISLAND to attempt first ascents of three mountains.
African-American climbers Elliott Boston, 33, Stephen Shobe, 46, and Jean Ellis, 55, join Conrad Anker, 40, for an attempt of Antarctica’s highest peak, 16,067-foot VINSON MASSIF.
(FEB)

Blind mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer, 34, sets off to climb 16,023-foot CARSTENSZ PYRAMID in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
(MAR)

Doug Scott, 61, leads a team to the border of India and Tibet to attempt 23,114-foot NYEGI KANGSANG, the last of the 23,000-foot peaks east of Bhutan yet to be climbed.
A Flemish expedition led by physician Paul Symons heads to LOW’S GULLY in Borneo, one of the world’s last unexplored canyons.
(MAY)

Ed Viesturs, 43, visits 26,658-foot NANGA PARBAT, the 13th summit in his quest to become the first American to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks.
(JUN)

Australian adventurer Tim Cope, 24, begins a 30-month ski and kayak circumnavigation of the ARCTIC CIRCLE.
(AUG)

American Stephen Koch, 34, heads to Mount Everest to attempt a vertical snowboard descent of the HORNBEIN COULOIR and finish his quest to board the Seven Summits.

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IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, after my daughter, Zoe, woke me up for the third time because she was afraid of the snakes, I wondered if maybe this trip wasn't such a good idea after all. Earlier, Zoe had been complaining about leeches, and before that about mosquitoes, and it dawned on me that unless you were raised in the rainforest, accustomed to strangler figs and spiders the size of gerbils, Borneo was a pretty forbidding environment. For a nine-year-old girl reared in suburban Colorado, it was downright menacing. Zoe's 13-year-old brother, Kolya, didn't help things when he authoritatively informed his sister that, as the smallest mammal among us, any predator obviously would attack her first.

Grada-A global classrooms: temples in Bali

I shot Kolya a fierce look that silenced his sibling cruelty, and reassured Zoe that it was unlikely snakes could board our 55-foot houseboat (called a klotok), moored on the banks of the Sekonyer River. Her fears weren't assuaged. Zoe knew the serpents were lurking. Heading upriver that afternoon, past suffocatingly green jungle crawling from the riverbanks and proboscis monkeys hanging in the trees like misshapen, mischievous fruit, a sudden movement in the water had caught our eyes. We were certain it was a crocodile. We were wrong. The animal's head, although almost as big as a crocodile's, belonged to a 25-foot-long python with a body circumference only slightly smaller than my thigh. Within minutes, we saw another serpentine motion in the river, and took in the sight of a bright-green reptile with a triangular head: a pit viper, one of the world's most poisonous snakes.
After Zoe had been coaxed back to sleep, I wondered about the kids' ability to cope with the stress of such an unfamiliar place. We had come to Borneo to see the orangutans of Tanjung Puting National Park two months into our five-month odyssey to visit some of the planet's great ecological wonders. So far the three of us had done a five-day “walkabout” on an Australian rainforest island, snorkeled off the Great Barrier Reef, surfed in Byron Bay, and climbed the highest mountain in Bali. But there were months more to go, and I questioned whether I had pushed the kids too far. My fears abated the next day, when the volunteers at the orangutan research station began bathing in the river, and Zoe and Kolya began to see the water not as a haven for monstrous beasts but as a jungle swimming pool. (Apparently the human activity ensured that this stretch of river was snake-free.) In no time the kids were doing cannonballs off the boat deck. I felt the glee and relief of having nailed the crux move of a difficult climb.

Our round-the-world adventure was born out of loss and grief. In a perverse cosmic joke, my older brother Bob died of breast cancer a year to the day after my divorce was final and my ex-wife moved out of state to go back to school. My children and I were recovering from these dual January shocks when I saw a story in The New York Times proclaiming that nearly half of the world's coral reefs could be dead within my lifetime. The headline underscored what I already knew: Life-forms were disappearing from this planet faster than you can say E. O. Wilson. In that moment, tragedy mixed with promise, and I decided it was time to take the kids to see some of these wonders before they were all gone.

“Before it's gone” became a mantra for the trip, with a triple entendre. The first, literal meaning was to see some of these amazing critters and environments before overpopulation and poverty and global climate change and pollution and development maimed or destroyed them. The second was to seize the opportunity to really spend time with my kids before they left my reconfigured single-father's nest. Kolya would be starting eighth grade, and Zoe fourth, and already I could tell they would be out of the house too soon. Lastly, the big “before it's gone” loomed especially large: my own mortality. After witnessing my brother's untimely death at 48, I knew viscerally there were no guarantees about how long any of us would be around. It was time to do something drastic: I nominated an epic road trip.
I broached the subject with the kids in February, and Zoe was immediately enthusiastic. Kolya began negotiating: Could we go surfing someplace along the way? “Why not?” I replied. Could he take his skateboard? “Sure.” They'd have to miss some school, of course. Not a problem, or as we would say later, “No worries.” Did they want to do an Australia-Southeast Asia-Japan swing, or maybe go all the way around the world? Around the world it was.

By mid-March, the idea had taken firm hold. I investigated plane tickets, researched ecological case studies, became a walking “to do” list: rent the house, get immunizations, and arrange to pay all my bills online from Internet cafes in Sydney, Singapore, Kathmandu, and elsewhere. By the end of June, we were on a plane heading west.

I had planned for our first leg, Australia, to be a gentle introduction to the traveler's way鈥攁nd it was. We rented a camper van, our little tortoise shell on wheels, and traveled among people who spoke English (okay, Australian). We saw kangaroo roadkill and wallabies by our campsite and ate sausage rolls and fish and chips. We spent most of our time in Queensland, exploring the environmental issues of the Great Barrier Reef. Kolya learned to drive the right-hand-drive camper van on outback roads (another promise he had extracted), and we backpacked through virgin rainforests in Hinchinbrook Island National Park.

By the time we reached Bali five weeks later, the kids were primed to settle into Asian travel. With my girlfriend, Tory, who joined us for five weeks of the trip, we rented a car and almost circumnavigated the island over the next couple of weeks. We climbed Mount Agung, a 10,308-foot volcano, after dragging the kids out of bed at 2 a.m. and ascending with flashlights to make the summit by dawn. We spent several days in the town of Ubud, watching Balinese dance and shadowpuppet performances. We snorkeled off of Menjangan Island and spent some time in Amed, a fishing village with great snorkeling and beach massages.

Next stop was Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island. (One of the great ironies of “taking the kids out of school” was that Kolya's class was at home studying geography.) We gaped at orangutans, gibbons, and macaques, as well as kingfishers, river otters, and crocodiles. We also visited logging camps and gold-mining operations that threaten all of the above. Despite the fact that Kolya calls me a “hippie tree hugger” for doing my environmental research, I think he got the point.

On September 11, we were in Singapore. After seeing the searing images of falling bodies and buildings, I wondered again if we should call the trip off. But we carried on, feeling safer in Asia than we might have at home, and also sensing that being part of the world community was better than hiding out in the States. Moving on to Vietnam, we visited Cat Tien National Park, the last mainland-Asian home to the gravely endangered Javan rhino. Tory left us in Ho Chi Minh City, and the three of us went overland into Cambodia before heading to Thailand. In Nepal, the last stop of our ecological tour of endangered places, one daylong jungle walk afforded us a frisson of danger when we saw tiger prints, but no tiger.

We came home through Western Europe, visiting friends and family in Switzerland, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. For the kids, Europe seemed blissfully familiar after three months in Asia.

Highlights? Just doing it, getting out of our quotidian cages and into global orbit; the kids' faces after we had hopped barefoot out of our jeep at dusk to watch an enormous rhinoceros grazing by a riverbank, and realized that we were standing, smiling, ankle-deep in rhino poop; watching Kolya and Zoe sit atop an elephant in the middle of a Nepali river, bathing under the elephant's trunk spray; visiting Ta Phrom, in Cambodia, an ancient temple where Tomb Raider was filmed; swinging from vines in the Australian rainforest; visiting an orangutan orphanage, where one female sucked her own breast and playfully spit the milk at Kolya; Zoe dressing up like a Balinese maiden on the way to a ceremony. And on and on.

Lowlights? They are already receding from memory: the kids tormenting each other with words and fists; what they dubbed the “crack hotel” in Kumai, Borneo, where the power stopped but the mosquitoes didn't; a 14-hour rickety bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh with roadside food sellers offering fried toads to hungry travelers; Kolya throwing up all night at a caravan park in Queensland; Zoe throwing a fit at the excruciatingly slow customs line in Kathmandu.

One story sticks in my mind, my own metaphor for the trip. Two weeks into our travels, we are camping on a mile of white sand, our last night backpacking on Australia's Hinchinbrook island. After dinner, the kids drag me to the deserted beach under a half-moon midway through the antipodal sky. The two of them jump me, and we begin a three-way tag-team wrestling match that mostly involves the kids running kamikaze at me and me tossing them to the sand like a benevolent King Kong. In the tropical night, Kolya and I stripped to the waist, Zoe to her bathing suit. Without a word, we begin a kind of simian step, hunching our shoulders up and down and dragging our knuckles on the fine sand. The three of us peer at each other with cocked heads, vocalizing like monkeys. We start moving slowly, almost in a circle, then faster, and faster, with more abandon and less inhibition. Soon we are dancing wildly along the beach, rolling around and jumping. Kolya dubbed it “monkey-dancing.”

From that point on, we monkey-danced around the world. And even though we're home, there's a little monkey-dancer left in each of us.

Our Trip
Traveling overseas with kids requires extraordinary reservoirs of energy and patience. The basics, however, remain: Travel light, be flexible, and instill a sense of adventure into every misadventure (ask Zoe about our two flat tires in Singaraja, Bali). Go slow, sleep several nights in each place, and build in lots of downtime. Carry snacks at all times.

I planned a rough itinerary, starting with four places of ecological wonder threatened by human development: the Great Barrier Reef, the orangutan habitat of Borneo, the last Javan rhino reserve in Vietnam, and the tiger country of southern Nepal. The rest of the trip involved visiting friends and family, and going to places, like Bali, that I had long wanted to visit. I chose a “round-the-world” ticket, which cost about $10,000 for the three of us and allowed up to 15 stops in 29,000 miles. It's also possible to get cheap fares on the Internet and through bucket shops along the way.
Food and Lodging
We stayed mainly in travelers' hotels, and I quickly determined that the lowest-budget places in books like the Lonely Planet guides were a little too basic for the kids. By bumping up a few dollars (and in many parts of Asia that means paying $15 a night for three rather than $8), Kolya and Zoe were much more comfortable. In every country, they found something they liked in inexpensive restaurants. Did I mention carrying snacks?

Sickness
We avoided all serious illness鈥攑robably because I spent more than $400 on drugs (antimalarials, Cipro, amoxicillin, epinephrine pins) we never used. The basics, again: In many countries, don't even brush your teeth with tap water, and don't eat fruits or vegetables you can't peel or cook.

School + internet
The kids took math workbooks, wrote in their journals, read regularly, and did a class presentation when they returned. They didn't miss a beat. We found internet cafes everywhere, and it's increasingly easy to book hotels and flights online. E-mail was an important lifeline to home and friends, especially for Kolya.

Money
Traveler's checks work great, but also carry some greenbacks in small denominations. Credit cards are good for cash advances and some purchases, although rarely on the low-budget circuit. With American Express accounts, you can sometimes cash checks from U.S. banks to get more traveler's checks. Some days we spent $25 for the three of us, more often $50 to $75, occasionally more. Don't forget to budget for visas, airport taxes, and miscellaneous Third World surprises.

Entertainment
I brought a laptop that could play DVDs and got two Game Boys for long bus rides and planes. Watching South Park episodes in dingy hotel rooms (“Oh, my God. They killed Kenny!”) was hilariously incongruous, and buying pirated DVDs in Phnom Penh was also entertaining, especially since some were filmed with camcorders in movie theaters, complete with people walking in front of the camera to get popcorn.

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