While we’re on the subject of what awesome travel is all about, here is an example of precisely the opposite. You can call this human stupidity at its finest. This August, a fight broke out in a disco at 3AM on a Carnival cruise ship. The fight got out of hand and spilled over into an adjoining art gallery and destroyed a $10,000 painting. Multiple TVs were trashed and several people needed medical attention. The fight, by the way, was caused by a group of drunken teenagers, over a song.
Carnival Cruise Lines wisely kicked the ten people responsible for the brawl off the ship, at a port in Mexico, to return home by their own devices. Mexican authorities also threw some of the offenders in jail.
This is exactly what travel is NOT about. I’m the first guy to admit that I’ve blogged about doing some pretty intense and strange (and often questionable) things. But a group of teenagers, on a cruise ship, and you know as well as I do, probably paid for by their mommy and daddy, starting a fight, damaging property and hurting people because they’re drunk and have nothing better to do is f^%&ing stupid and irresponsible.
I believe we’re on this planet for a reason. For those of us fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel, this is a gift that, frankly, most humans on planet Earth simply don’t have. And responsible travel, and adventure travel, is about learning about other lands and cultures, celebrating our similarities and differences, and learning as much about ourselves as about this amazing planet that we’re blessed with and have the obligation to protect.
Cherish the opportunity to travel. Don’t piss it down the toilet like the idiots in this video have obviously done. You can quote me on that.
Aside from being kidnapped in Cambodia and chased by an Elk in Banff (ps don’t pet then during mating season), this was my first true adventure travel experience. I went cage diving with great white sharks at Guadalupe Island in October 2007 for five days with Shark Diver, a San Diego-based company that gives divers with enough cajones the chance to dive with Jaws and his buddies. Truth be told, the sharks were nothing like Jaws. Most of them were pretty mellow. They’d usually pop by the cages shortly after we put them in the water and made sporadic appearances throughout the day. They’re very intelligent creatures – nothing at all like you’d expect after watching Jaws and the shark porn portrayed on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week in 2009. Great white sharks are magnificent creatures that are vital to the health of our oceans. Unfortunately, their less-than-cuddly image has made them a target for killing, as with most other shark species. Patric Douglas, Luke Tipple and their collaborators at Shark Diver have done an admirable job of raising these issues in the media. They also offer what is truly a once in a lifetime experience to dive with these amazing creatures
