National Geographic’s 2012 “Travelers of the Year”
There appear to be a few common threads in what people want to know when hearing a travel tale: What was the most bizarre thing you saw there? How did you prepare for your trip? Biggest regret? What would you say to someone who wants to do something like this but is afraid?
The questions asked of National Geographic’s “Travelers of the Year” hit upon age-old questions that reveal that people want to travel more, but don’t always know how, whether that stems from fear of leaving one’s comfort zone or the perceived lack of time or funds. The discussion tonight with photographer Theron Humphrey of This Wild Idea, teenager Booker Mitchell of Booker Travels, high school librarian Paula Busey, and travel writer Heather Greenwood Davis of Globetrotting Mama demonstrated the variety of ways in which people make space in their lives to travel.
Booker’s words resonated with the audience and the others in the panel when he emphasized that you don’t need that much time or money to travel: You can be a traveler in your own city. You can choose a new way to walk (or skateboard, in his case) to work every day, and in a city the size of NYC you’d never see the same thing two days in a row.
Heather, who traveled to many different countries on an extended trip with her husband and two young children, noted that most people expressed concern when she told them what she was doing – concern that she was endangering her kids by taking them out of school and into the rest of the world for a year. She felt this was mostly fear directed at places that were far away. This kind of distance is, of course, more than geographic. Psychological distance is more difficult to overcome than physical distance. Paula spoke about how she brought a Maasai warrior to meet her high school students in Colorado as a way of beginning to bridge that distance.
Theron, spurred on by a broken heart, a death in the family, and a dull job in product photography, hit the road for a year in his truck interviewing and photographing strangers. Every day for a full 365 days, he recorded a person’s life story through photographs and interview clips. The impressive result is This Wild Idea, funded entirely by a Kickstarter campaign, as well as a couple of fun side projects. He drove 66,000 miles around the United States, walked up to strangers every day, and learned about the real value of personal connection. Because after all, travel isn’t about being able to say you saw the pyramids at Giza or flew around the world, it’s about your own experience. It’s about how it changes you.
This was an inspiring conversation, and one that more people need to have. If you’re interested in reading more about these stories and others, go to Travelers of the Year. Video from tonight’s event will also be up on that site when available. Go forth and learn!
February Already?
It’s been a little quiet on the blog lately, as I’ve been working a lot, traveling a bit, and planning for the summer. I’m doing a second read-through of Swann’s Way, then it’s onto the other books in In Search of Lost Time (resolution #1). The cold has been keeping me from doing longer bike rides, but I’m trying to make running a habit and finding that it’s more pleasant to run outdoors than in place on a treadmill. Winter weather does give you some perspective, though – now I’m excited when I find that a day is going to be above freezing.
Snapshots in Time: Shaw, LeDroit Park, Bloomingdale
Neighborhoods are ever-evolving, and even in a few years’ time you can track how your city is changing. Here are a few photos from this morning around Shaw, LeDroit Park, and Bloomingdale, neighborhoods that are experiencing the growth of new large-scale development alongside smaller residential projects, restaurants, and more.
“Progression Place” is a mixed-use development that is currently going up next to the Shaw-Howard Metro station at 7th and S Street NW. It’ll consist of the United Negro College Fund’s national offices, additional office spaces, (probably higher-end) residences, and retail.
Pictured above is the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, which despite its name is located at 2nd and Rhode Island Ave NW in the LeDroit Park neighborhood.
Bistro Bohem is a Czech restaurant in Shaw, close to the edge of the U Street corridor, that opened in March 2012. I haven’t tried it, but they serve pierogies, brats, goulash, and unique cocktails (including one with absinthe). Next door is a condominium.
Still don’t have a proper camera to replace the one that was stolen, so these are just snapshots from my phone. I probably will wait to buy another DSLR, but if anyone has recommendations for a decent point-and-shoot camera that is also lightweight, I’d love to hear them!
Recommended read: “Walkable City” by Jeff Speck
The latest book by renowned city planner Jeff Speck is Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time (2012). This is a follow-up to Suburban Nation, his popular work on sprawl in America’s suburbs.
“It turns out the way we move largely determines the way we live.” (55)
What I really enjoy about Jeff Speck’s writing is that he explains city planning concepts in a way that is universally relatable – to anyone with or without a background in planning, whether a resident of the city or the suburbs. It’s clear his writing is meant to grow mass support for urban living and walkable cities, and though he employs plenty of statistics to make his arguments, he keeps the material from sounding dry or inaccessible.
Speck moved to Washington, DC after leaving his home in South Beach, Miami, and has also lived in the various towns and cities he has helped plan. This means he can draw upon plenty of firsthand experience of what makes a city livable and capable of drawing new residents. (If you live in DC, you’ve likely seen his flatiron-style home at 10th and Florida Avenue NW.) His city planning experience also lends itself to his writing, and he pulls many real-world examples of the advantages of walkability and what makes certain cities so magnetic.
Speck centers the text on his “General Theory of Walkability” which centers on four conditions of what makes a good walk. It must be (1) useful, (2) safe, (3) comfortable, and (4) interesting. From this theory, he then presents ten steps for creating a more walkable city. As a self-proclaimed generalist, he recognizes that to design a city one cannot disregard cars, bicycles, transit, or the other elements at work. Speck makes sure to touch on these points in turn. The result is a book that is tuned into the physical and cultural landscape of cities today, as well as the demographic and geographic shifts currently at play in America. Jeff Speck didn’t write Walkable City for the planners, but for the people who live in these communities.
Jeff Speck’s Twitter feed is @JeffSpeckAICP.
Year 2012 in Cycling
When I first moved to DC, I bought a used Trek mountain bike from a seller on Craigslist for $140. I used it to get from home to school and work and back, riding down from Columbia Heights in the morning and back up through Adams Morgan in the evenings. And knowing nothing of bicycle maintenance at the time, I once let a wheel get so badly out of true that I eventually had to alternate between carrying it and half-lifting, half-rolling it the six blocks to the nearest bike shop.
My housemates and many of my friends also rode to get around – it’s just the most practical mode of transportation within the city – but I can’t recall riding for the pure pleasure of it. Cycling was simply a more reliable option than taking the bus: my commute always took the same time and I didn’t have to wait 40 minutes at night for a bus that never came. (That used to happen pretty often when I worked late shifts at work.) On my mountain bike I was slow, but faster than when I was on foot.
2012 was the first year I rode for more than pure transportation purposes. I bought my first new road bike with a recommendation from my friend, who’s an avid road cyclist. I led a team of a six to ride in the Bike MS charity ride in June, which meant I had to train for distances I had never even imagined riding before: a total of 100 miles over two days. Besides getting food poisoning a couple weeks before the ride and losing a lot of fitness there, the ride went well and everyone on my team finished the ride happy and exhausted. We polished off a couple pizzas and about half a chocolate cake afterwards. By then I also knew to keep my chain clean and lubed and how to change a flat tire, and the function of most bike parts.
I’ll pull just a few numbers about my first year of getting more into cycling. Most of these stats come from Strava, where I’ve recorded maybe 80-90% of my rides this year.
Most Elevation Gain in One Month: 9,910 feet in August. I did some riding in Maryland, rode the Reston Bike Club (Metric) Century, and part of John’s Hoppy 100 ride, which I hope he makes into an annual event. I know people that climb more than this in a single ride, but I’m happy with my progress.
Most Mileage in One Month: 391.2 miles in October. This includes a weekend ride to Harpers Ferry and back, the Seagull Century, and several commutes. It’s also the month I got my Surly, which replaced my road bike and became my do-everything, pleasure-to-ride bike.
Longest Single Ride: 127.1 miles. This was my first brevet, the Flatbread 200k.
Mileage on Capital Bikeshare: Over 150 miles. This number may even be closer to 200 miles, considering I usually don’t record my short Bikeshare trips. It’s a great service to get around town, and I’d say a year-long membership is essential for anyone living in DC.
Total Mileage for 2012: 2,397.3 miles since mid-March. I’m shooting for at least 3,000 miles next year.
Below is a screencap displaying my local ride map for the year, created with Jonathan O’Keeffe’s multiple ride mapping tool. The line thicknesses represent frequency of riding specific routes. Suggestions for where to ride more in 2013? Arlington streets don’t appear to be represented, though I take the Custis Trail quite often.
I’m sure all this riding balances out the beer.
Year 2012 in Drinks
This post is a continuation of this project to record every drink we have this year, complete now with a full year’s worth of data.
I recognize that we’re only two points of reference and therefore can only draw conclusions about our own habits, but the concept of quantified life seems to be enjoying its heyday at the moment. People are getting creative about what they track and how they visualize it: Nick Felton’s design-oriented Annual Reports were my original inspiration. Tracking one’s bike rides is popular, as you can see with Strava and posts like this from a fellow rider in DC. People are measuring what they eat, where they travel, and how they spend their days. This piece in the New York Times, “The Data-Driven Life”, describes a guy who even explored how much time he spent doing his roommate’s dishes – along with everything else he spent time on throughout the course of each day.
Alcohol consumed seems like as good a metric as any to track over the course of a year. Never having taken this kind of count before, we were frequently surprised at our totals – after a month, three months, or an entire year. Adam and I lead fairly active social lives in Washington, DC, where there are plenty of options for going out. We rarely go clubbing and prefer the bar scene or relaxed parties at friends’ houses. And this seems to be reflected in the data: we’re on average 21 times as likely to choose a beer over a mixed drink or hard liquor.
Year 2012 Totals
From January 1st, 2012 to December 31st, 2012
| Crystal
Total Number of Drinks: 505 |
Adam
Total Number of Drinks: 833 |
Both of Us
I usually have the most drinks on a Saturday, while it’s Fridays for him. On Saturdays I have more than twice as many drinks on average than on Mondays (the day with my lowest drink averages). I’m more likely to go out closer to home, and Adam goes out closer to work. That’s probably due to the fact that there aren’t very many good places to grab a drink near my office, which isn’t in the city.
Number of drinks for both of us also trend down overall throughout the entire year. However, the numbers trend upward going from the beginning of the year into the summer, then drop in late summer and trend upward again towards the end of the year (and the holiday season).
Click to zoom.
More to come. Let me know what you think or would have been interesting to note!
Year 2012 Recap: The Good, the Bad, and the Goals
2012 has been a memorable year.
I traveled to Boulder in the spring to visit a good friend, took an end-of-summer trip around Iceland, and spent a long weekend in Atlanta with two of my oldest friends. I rode my bike over a hundred miles in a single day (twice), followed ongoing transportation projects in the area, and organized a couple of local rides that turned out to be very popular. I went on a 50km/31mi hike that lasted 12 hours and left me with more memories than blisters (though it gave me plenty of blisters). I spent a lot of time in a tent, though I would have liked to spend more. I read some great books and also started writing more. I made lots of new friends and reconnected with others.
There have also been some bad moments in the year, such as the time my friend got into a bad crash. Or the time our apartment got burglarized. But these have also served as important learning moments, teaching me and those around me that although you have to be careful, you can’t prevent everything.
On another note, Adam and I spent the year tracking our drink consumption and are working now to summarize that information. We’ve got a year’s worth of data. It makes for a good feeling to track an aspect of our lives for an entire year, and in total it comes to something like 16,000 fluid ounces of beverages between the two of us to make sense of – so as you can imagine, this’ll take some time. We’ll find out if the metrics we tracked were the worthwhile ones, and see what else we can cull from the data.
For now, I can easily see that the brewery I most represented this year was New Belgium, a Colorado-based brewery that is well-loved in DC. Their traveling festival, Tour de Fat, even came to Washington, DC for the first time this year. Adam’s most represented brewery was Chocolate City. The Chocolate City brewery is practically next door to us, so we’re lucky to be able to fill up growlers on Saturdays.
We had beers from about 121 distinct breweries this year – and I say “about” because tonight’s drinks are still to be recorded. It’s hard to say whether there’s an observer effect here, whether we’re drinking more or less or opting for more variety because of our decision to record our drinks.
Looking forward, here are my resolutions for 2013. I’m keeping them to the goals I really want to focus on and think are achievable this year. Besides these, I have other projects in the works that will become better realized the new year.
- New Year’s Resolution #1: Read all of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I’m going to begin by rereading Swann’s Way (the first volume of seven volumes total), since I last read that four years ago. Just some 3,000 pages to go.
- New Year’s Resolution #2: Learn to enjoy running. I try this every year, but I think having a dedicated running buddy will help this time around. Our goal is to run a 5K in the spring, maybe work up to a 10K later in the year.
- New Year’s Resolution #3: More civic participation! Volunteer with local organizations and give back to the community. What’s your favorite local cause?
- New Year’s Resolution #4: Ride more brevets than I did last year. Hopefully that’s easy because I rode only one brevet – my first – in 2012.
- New Year’s Resolution #5 is another bike-related one: Ride 3,000 miles in 2013. Evenly distributed that’d be 250 miles/month – doable! In 2012, I rode about 2,400 miles from April to December.
Happy New Year!
Hains Point 100 for Women and Bikes
What a successful event! The Hains Point 100, a century ridden entirely as loops around Hains Point, was an idea by Megan Jones sprouted a few weeks ago. She decided to make it a fundraising ride for WABA’s Women & Bicycles advocacy program, which will work to support women’s cycling in the DC area.
The Census Bureau reports that women make up only 2,985 of the 9,300 DC residents who commute by bicycle. To put it another way, there are more than twice as many male cyclists than female cyclists. WABA’s new program intends to address this gender gap in cycling and get more women on bikes. Megan noted this morning that the ratio of women to men at the Hains Point 100 ride was very similar, but that it was important for everyone to help in this effort.
Lots of great local sponsors – and one not-so-local sponsor, New Belgium Brewing – pitched in to provide snacks, prizes for riders, and donations. Plenty of people brought food (especially baked goods) to keep the picnic table full as well. Hains Point worked as a great location for this kind of ride since it’s a short 3-mile loop and riders could take a break or grab snacks when they came back to the meeting point.
I rode a few laps and got to see lots of DC area cycling folks out today on a beautiful winter day. Megan (and others) successfully rode over 100 miles each, and raised a lot of money to support the cause by putting on this event.
You can donate here: WABA’s Women & Bikes Program.
Candide by Voltaire (1759)
Recently finished reading Candide by Voltaire, one I happened to read on my commute because it was available free on Kindle. Having a Kindle probably does have an impact on the books you end up reading – what’s free, or recommended based on your purchase history, or maybe those you’re too embarrassed to be seen reading on the Metro.
First things first: Candide is funny. Funnier than I expected, and very short, making it a good read for your commute (unless you drive or bike to work). It’s a satire written in the picaresque style, with Candide wandering from place to place in a sort of episodic fashion. Oh, and it’s violent – misfortunes I can’t imagine befall characters at every turn.
Pangloss*, Candide’s mentor, guides him with the philosophy that they “live in the best of all possible worlds” where all things happen in the best possible way, because nothing better could have been possible. This simplistic optimism is satirized throughout the story as Candide’s adherence to his mentor’s philosophy is tested time and time again, in an exaggerated, whirlwind fashion. The idea that every person regards himself as the unhappiest person to live leads many characters to recount their long and tragic lives. Candide and everyone in his life face death time and time again, and happen to find each other again even across the oceans and years that separate them. At one point there’s a ridiculous scene in which Candide reunites with Pangloss despite having watched him hanged earlier in the story. Life was much more brutish in the 1700s. It’s certain that by the end Candide’s philosophy on life is changed, no longer content to accept that all is for the best.
* Fun side note: “pangloss” is a word listed in the dictionary and defined as “a person who views a situation with unwarranted optimism.”
Mapping DC with OpenStreetMap
Mapping DC is the local group of OpenStreetMap users who’s back in action after a few months lull (various folks leaving DC to work on projects around the world). There have been “mapping parties” to work on filling out areas of the map around Washington, DC that are lacking or inaccurate – recent ones having taken place in Hyattsville, MD and at the Congressional Cemetery in DC.
Even if you’ve never mapped with OpenStreetMap before, I encourage you to get involved if you have an interest in improving the map. OSM grows in importance and reach daily, and is becoming more widely used in applications and services such as Wikipedia and Foursquare. Whether it’s small changes in your neighborhood or participating in mapping parties, the community is open to having your help.
Check out the Mapping DC group to learn more about upcoming events. Map locally, think globally.
Aesthetics of Everywhere 