Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2022 i AFAR

BONNIE TSUI Writer Bonnie Tsui’s parents first met at a swimming pool in Hong Kong, so it’s only fitting that she’s in love with water. The author of Why We Swim (Algonquin Books, 2020), Tsui contributes to the New York Times and loves to take dips in the chilly waters of the Bay Area, where she lives. In Making Waves (p.100), Tsui profiles the world’s largest year-round open-water swim group. “We’re wired to be called to the sea, to want to be around it,” she says. “Our brain activities change around water. It does so much for mental and emotional well-being.” Keep up with Tsui’s ocean adventures on Instagram @bonnietsui8. LATRIA GRAHAM Writer South Carolina–based writer, storyteller, and cultural critic Latria Graham is one of AFAR’s new Unpacked columnists. In…

Priya Adhikari’s journey to becoming the only woman helicopter pilot in Nepal started with being in the right place at the right time. In 2010, she was working as a flight attendant and happened to be at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport when a helicopter captain asked her to go on a rescue mission. Why her? She wasn’t sure, but she listened to his instructions and took a seat inside the aircraft. Then her world changed. “When the helicopter took off, I was like, What the hell is this? I want to fly this machine,” Adhikari says. Within four months, she had taken out a loan from her parents and was in the Philippines, training to get her license. When she returned to Nepal, she worked 365 days a year to…

Once you begin bird-watching, no street, sky, or forest ever looks the same: Birds are everywhere, and their comings and goings tell stories most humans aren’t attuned to. Hiring a guide or joining a birding group is worthwhile, whether to open your eyes to nature around a city or to lead you across pristine bird habitats on a once-in-a-lifetime expedition. Want to go it alone? Thanks to a slew of avian identification apps, self-guided birding has never been easier. The birder helping others get started SUSAN MYERS Senior tour leader, Wings Birding Tours Worldwide It’s very hard for me to define the joy I feel when I see a bird; it’s a bit like trying to define why you feel joy when you see a beautiful sunset or taste a…

Mangrove Rhizophora 80 Number of mangrove species in coastal locations around the world, including Florida, Costa Rica, Panama, Tanzania, and Indonesia The mangrove is the only tree in the world that thrives in salt water. A mangrove root system acts as a nursery for marine life, including crabs, fish, and sharks. Maa One of the names for a forest goddess believed to inhabit India’s mangrove-rich Sundarbans National Park. It means “mother.” In parts of Indonesia, mangroves are used as treatments for ulcers, asthma, stomach and muscle aches, and other ailments. 539 mi2 Size of Sundarbans National Park, the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest, which stretches into both Bangladesh and India The mangrove is critical in the fight against climate change, but it’s one of the most endangered trees in the…

Cruisers are back on the water: dancing on open decks to live music, joining guided expeditions for close-up views of glaciers and penguins, and stepping off river ships to amble around such cities as Luxor, Egypt. In other words, they’re safely traveling. It has been a rocky two years for cruise lines. After early COVID-19 outbreaks on ships, the industry essentially shut down in March 2020—and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) stopped ships that visit the United States from sailing until June 2021. The industry started to get back on its feet in the summer of 2021, only to face further set-backs due to the Delta and Omicron variants; in January 2022, the CDC deemed cruises a “very high-risk” activity (the agency lowered cruising to “high-risk” a…

Before my first safari six years ago, I envisioned lodges reminiscent of Out of Africa—think leather steamer trunks, dark wood, pith helmets, and lots of khaki. I’ve now experienced close to a dozen safaris across the continent, from Zimbabwe to Tanzania, and I’ve come to believe that the safari industry’s colonial vestiges should remain firmly in the past. Luckily, change is coming—albeit slowly. Here are a few things visitors to Africa’s wild places can expect in the coming years. BEYOND THE BIG FIVE Tourists usually go on safari to glimpse the “Big Five,” a grouping that refers to some of the continent’s most charismatic species. Travelers are perhaps unaware that the term itself is an antiquated hunting phrase that contributes to over-crowding in such areas as Kenya’s Masai Mara National…

Let me back up. The Tamakis—my family—are a hearty people but not especially rustic. While I was growing up, I don’t think anyone uttered the term “camping” once. My uneasy feelings on the matter were cemented by a bogus summer camp and some mildly traumatizing Girl Scouts trips. The familiar feeling of being out of place in predominantly white surroundings added to my aversion to camping. Up until 2020, I had attempted to camp twice in my four years with Ben, my wilderness-loving mountain man. Throughout our relationship, he would take off to the woods with family and friends while I happily stayed home in Brooklyn. I had never understood the appeal of sleeping on the ground when you had access to proper shelter, but when the world changed, like…

SOME DISASTERS announce themselves with a roar, others with barely a whisper. No alarm bells go off when a species goes extinct, or when birds alter their migratory patterns from vertical (north to south) to horizontal (east to west) due to climate change. There are precious few warning signs before endangered destinations, such as the Philippine island of Boracay, buckle due to littering and vandalism of habitats, causing the decimation of entire ecosystems. It’s no secret that we are in the midst of a climate emergency, even when we don’t see the daily proof. Is there an ethical way to travel the Earth and not cause it harm? I believe so. But it takes planning, deliberate choices, and respect for the people and places we have the privilege of visiting.…

“We can do a little ‘hike and fly,’ what do you think?” I’M ON THE PHONE with Yael Margelisch, the 2021 world champion of women’s para-gliding, and she wants to know if I am free the next day. We had discussed meeting the following week, but the forecast was now for snow. The next morning was our best bet. Could I drive two hours from my home in the French Alps to Verbier, Switzerland, that night? Margelisch, 31, doesn’t mess around. In addition to the world champion title, she holds two official world records in women’s paragliding, including the longest distance covered in a single flight: 343 miles, during 10 hours and 20 minutes in the air. She’s traveled around the globe to compete—Ecuador, Argentina, Turkey—but she says she’ll…

Joyce Beckwith’s day begins early. By 4:30 a.m., she is awake; an hour later, she is having coffee with her passengers and doing preflight inspections on her hot-air balloon in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. As burners blow three-yard-long flames into the balloon’s envelope, Beckwith mentally maps the course of her flight, which will carry roughly 12 passengers at a time over the 151-square-mile area in southern Kenya. “In ballooning, we learn every day,” she says. “Because the balloon is guided by the wind, no two flights will be the same.” Beckwith initially wasn’t interested in being a pilot. As an outdoor hobbyist, she cherished regular trips with her balloon pilot husband, but was content to create bespoke travel packages and provide high-end concierge services for clients visiting Kenya and the…

RECREATION Seeing the Forest for Its Trees as told to Sally Kohn Jane Billinghurst first started working with legendary German forester and “tree whisperer” Peter Wohlleben in 2015. She was the editor and translator of his best-selling book, The Hidden Life of Trees, which fundamentally changed the way many people—including Billinghurst—think about forests. Combining their forces more deliberately this time, the pair coauthored a new book, Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America, which blends Wohlleben’s professional and scientific expertise with Billinghurst’s awe and wonder as a nature lover and master gardener. Billinghurst shares how to walk, hike, and wander with more attention—and intention. Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America (Greystone Books, April 2022) by Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst What was a…

1 / Alladale Wilderness Reserve North of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, this reserve has planted nearly 1 million native trees, from Scots pines to willows. The project has restored damaged peatlands, reintroduced the red squirrel to the reserve’s 23,000 acres, and begun a breeding program for Scottish wild-cats. Their long-term goal? Reintroducing wolves. 2 / Dundreggan Situated in the heart of the Caledonian Forest, the Dundreggan estate was the hunting grounds for kings in the 14th century. After hundreds of years of over-grazing and timber felling for farmland, this part of the forest disappeared. Since 2008, more than 250,000 native trees have been planted in an effort to revive the forest, which will sequester carbon, reduce flooding risk, improve soil and biodiversity, and benefit the local community through nature-based…

ON AN ABSURDLY picturesque Thursday evening at Encinitas’s Moonlight State Beach, a stretch of white sand on the coast of Southern California, 50 of us circled up under a 100-foot-tall palm tree. Bryan Mineo, an enthusiastic 37 year old with the abs of a Marine and sleeve tattoos that reflect his dual passions in life—the ocean and music—gave us our brief. Sprint to the ocean with buoys, swim for 500 yards, exit to pick up beach trash, dive back in the water for another 500 yards, and emerge to pick up more litter. Rest, then repeat. For the nonprofit One With the Ocean (OWO), the world’s largest open-water swim group, it was just another Thursday night “SLOG,” or what Mineo, OWO’s founder, described as the swim version of the Swedish fitness…