Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

A couple of weeks ago I set out in the world on what was supposed to be one week in California,  more specific San Francisco, Napa and Monterey. Little did I know about a certain volcano lurking in the shadows ready to erupt. But not many days after the  plane put its nose wheel on the ground did the beast start bursting out clouds of ashes covering most of Europe. Returning to the airport seven days later it was really no surprise that the flight was cancelled. An hour later, after twentytwo tries to tackle an automatic answering machine with the airliner basically telling us “We are in awe over the situation. Please call back later. Click.”, we managed to talk to a person in the ticket office advising that just rebooking the ticket was likely the best option. First available seats (if the volcano would just calm down) was in four days.  Now it was more a matter of coping with the situation and finding out how to cover the basic needs.

The first reaction is “money”. Do you have money to manage through the situation? Even with a good travel insurance neither they or the airline company would prepay anything. “Collect receipts and we’ll pay you back” was the answer from the travel insurance. This was not that much of a problem, even though it seems like the payment will be a couple of weeks late. But for many other people sleeping in the airports for three and four days was the only solution. That is really not good enough. I can not help to feel that the airliners and travel insurance companies should feel some ashamed by their handling of the situation. I can understand they may have been caught a bit off guard by the enormous rush of people, but they saw this coming easier than the common man. I also can not help to think that it is really the job for a travel insurance agency to be there to assist when everything else fails.

Secondly, if you have the money, you think about where to stay. Being in the airport the first thought was just to find a basic motel or anything close by to get roof over your head. We were also told it was difficult to find available rooms. Silly. Of course it was difficult to find available rooms in the airport hotels: They suddenly got a couple of thousand new customers over a couple of days. It must have been like chrismas and new years eve at once. It took us a couple of hours after checking in to the “very mediocre” airport hotel before checking online and finding lots of available rooms downtown. Next day was moving day.

Third, you start to think about the responsibilities you have. Either work, family or friends. How do you take care of business while being away? Carrying with you a laptop and having internet access these days give you almost everything you need. I sat in a hotel room in downtown San Francisco in evenings and in the mornings with phone conferences over Skype staying in touch with my projects. I had full access to my server and files back home and could really run my business from there. The only issue was the timezone difference (9 hours). My “new business hours” were approx 6 hours per day; 2 hours in the evening (23-01) and 3 hours in the morning (05-08) local time meaning start and of business day in Oslo, and 1 hour in the afternoon to check e-mails before going out to dinner. It was not a bad situation. Just not used to it. Other people in same situation also used their laptops to have “breakfast over Skype” with their family back home. Not really a good substitute I would guess but for a period of time it seemed to work.

Fourth, and this is where it starts to get nice, you start to think about what to do with all the extra time. I was really supposed to be back home working and doing all sorts of “normal day stuff”. Even though I could run my business from there, being in that situation puts you in a “force majeure mode” where you acknowledge that it is actually acceptable to be a bit offline as well. So what to do with all the extra time. Well, you enjoy it. You go out to continue to explore the world. Eating good food, drinking good wine. Meeting nice people. Seeing awesome nature. Sitting in the park watching people. Contemplating how adaptable we are. Because we are, really.

Situations like this might throw us overboard for a minute. We might be confused, in despair, and run around like headless chickens for a while. But give us some time to calm down and  rationalize and we will come out of it most likely on top, with a bit more “life repertoire” and we will adapt to most situation. Even though I am quite convinced this applies to people in most situations and location, I must confess that SF surely is not the worst place in the world to adapt to.

When travelling to new countries, what is the major obstacle ? Language!
Reading through the Matador Network I see they just came out with a post on One page printable language phrases from single-serving.com which I think is a really great idea ! They offer both one-page phrasepamphlets to put in your pocket for a lot of different languages. I counted at least 20 with full pamphlets covering both Basics, Introductions, Around Town, Numbers and more… For some of the languages they also offer mp3 files to get a feel of the tone. Really great - and the best .. it is free

Just wanted to give you a look at the winter in Oslo these days. It is terribly cold, but it sure can be beautiful too:

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Both for those of us who enjoy and charish the possibility of being alone – without being lonely – and for those of you who just doesn’t get it yet; Collette Bernhardt  recently wrote a post for Matadorlife on “Being With Yourself: Lessons in Lone Ranging“.

I will also recommend, by Michaela Lola the “6 Reasons to Wander Alone” at “BraveNewTraveler” describing some of the joys of being on the road alone.

Together with a client (large international corporation) I recently attended a workshop looking at, and discussing, cross-culture elements and awareness. I found the workshop to be very interesting and giving, so I figured I’ll try to give a brief recap of it here.

Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one category of people from another

Geert Hofstede

What is Culture? Culture is a shared system of attitudes, values and beliefs. First of all I found it interesting to discuss all the elements that, when brought together, constitutes to what we call culture, and identify all the different types of culture we have:

• National & regional culture
• Corporate culture
• Professional culture
• Gender and age
• Religion

And within these you have different dimensions; direct vs indirect cultures, rules vs. relationship oriented cultures, time, hierarchy, individualist vs. collectivist cultures, non verbal communication. All these types of culture we can break down to many elements. Just think of the differences in language, dress code, food, public holidays, way of thinking, beliefs, attitudes and values.  All these elements are important factors that contribute to a diverse community. And for an international company it’s important to both be aware of, respect and take care of the different dimensions in this. Building and preserving a corporate culture can, in my opinion, only be done by respecting each employees personalculture.

Now, working together in a corporation like this does demand that you are able to sort out the different dimensions of this. Escpecially being aware of the non-verbal communication is extremely important. It’s not a secret that working together across boundaries like language, time zones and different tools for communication can cause misunderstandings and discontent . Being aware of this is half of it. The other half is adapting and contributing to adjustments in a positive way.

Imagine that you have a project with project members and stakeholders from United States, Brazil, UK, Germany, Norway, Russia, Malaysia and Japan. Most of the meetings are probably over web or phone, so the project teams are more or less “virtual”. Communication will be only in written or orally and you will seldom see any body language unless you use video conference. It’s quite likely that during your project you will face more than one challenge due to cultural differences and misunderstandings. Just trying to arrange a meeting that works well in each timezone will be a challenge. We also need to think about all the hidden messages in what we say. Some cultures are more direct and some have more hidden expression. Just look at  the possible meanings of these statements:

So being aware of the cultural filter of each other and the fact that when we say something we “encode” it, and the receiver doesn’t necessarily “decode” it the same way, is very important. Another important thing is also to be aware of the pitfalls of stereotyping and generalizing. However, looking at the different ways of decode/encode messages it was interesting looking at the Lewis model which in fact “stereotype” this in National Cultural Profiles. This is a way of looking at the majority of certain countries and how you can expect to experience the different types  of behaviour and leadership.

Looking at these different profiles we can clearly see how one can misunderstand one another as there are so clear differences in how we:

• talk vs. listen
• network through official channels or through connections
• plan in details or in general principles
• show or hide feelings
• do confrontations logically, emotionally or not at all
• handle direct truth vs. diplomacy

Let us remember it doesn’t have to be another country. You can easily find cultural differences, for instance between a project manager and a programmer.  Being a project manager I see some clear benefits of being aware of these issue and try to be open about them when managing cross-cultural teams:

• Bring cross cultural communication up as an issue at a very early stage and let the team be aware of it
• Define basic project team culture and rules
• Make team members curious to learn about the others
• Prepare agenda and do action minutes with deadlines in your meetings
• Limit number of participants and include the “silent” colleagues
• Avoid criticism in public and do not dominate

Cross-Cultural Awareness is a very large topic and not easy to summarize in a workshop, minutes or a blogpost. But it is important for each of us, both in working with other cultures and in our everyday life. So…

• Know yourself
• Be open and curious
• Get to know the other

And by that

• Improve effective communication and cooperation

illustration by: Ron Tandberg

Both in our everyday life and on journey we are faced with new people and that often means making up an opinon on that person, his/hers beliefs, actions and way of life. Christine Garvin just wrote an interesting post at the BraveNewTraveler where she debates this issue and how we as humans interact with others based on what is often only our first impression. Maybe we all have something learn by some inner soul searching and maybe a more critical approach to our own fear and prejudice.

Be careful everybody, this is dangerously good; Matador Nights just came out with their recipe on How to Make THE Perfect Caipirinha. And for those who don’t know what a Caipirinha is – you should. But like I said; be careful! To say that it is potent is kind of an understatement. Saúde!

Reading through one of my favorite travel websites I came by The Gutsy Girl’s Guide To Drinking Alone, and the first impression is that this is a post on how girls are to have a drink alone without getting bored or necessarily getting picked up by guys. But reading closer I realize these are great tips for any traveler, single or not, traveling alone or not, just to get in touch with local people and get that “extra flavour” to your journey. Because that is one of the main things it’s all about, isn’t it? I find that the more I travel the more I want to find and get in touch with the local residents, get their tips and experiences, learn about their way of life and see if that doesn’t expand yours just a bit too ;) Happy traveling everybody !

Once again National Geographic have published their annual ranking on “sustainable destinations“. I am a bit surprised the norwegian fjords topped the list again, as they did five years ago. I would think there were more “sustainable destinations”, but that may be my subjective opinion being from Norway. I’m not going into that. I am not going to comment the top destinations at all. But the worst rated places;

Northern Red Sea Coast, Egypt
Packed with shapy mediocre resorts the area suffers from “chaotic development.” Urban sprawl is imminent and the coral reefs are being destroyed.
The seventh worst place

North Coast, Dominican Republic
A land of all-inclusive resorts where visitors hardly glimpse the real life of the place. The quantity of tourism arriving is a very big problem and as a consequence the locals are marginalized and desperate, and the experience is exploitive.

St. Maarten/St. Martin
On the Dutch half of the island tourism has gobbled up the culture, which is now defined by the hotel/casino industry. The French side is overbuilt but has avoided so far the fast-food joints, casinos, and concentration of duty-free shops.

Cabo San Lucas Region, Mexico
Sleepy fishing villages have been transformed into places where drinking tequila shots upside down is the number one tourist attraction and gated communities are the main economic activity.The fourth worst destination

Grand Bahama, Bahamas
True tourism folly—unfinished shells of hotels, tacky shopping areas and cruise ship hell. Wealthy outsiders have bought up all the beachfront, leaving nothing for anyone else.
As a result, the locals are extremely bitter.

West Bank, Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine
The tourism industry in this symbolic town is in shambles because of ongoing Israeli-Arab fighting. No matter what their politics, tourists here will be upset by the giant wall, the intimidating border crossing, the desolate and hopeless feeling of the city. I can think of a couple of other places I feel fighting is causing bad vibes for the holiday also, but this one was a good one. Second worst.

Costa del Sol, Spain
Ahh… Now the worst of them all. Costa del Sol in Spain. A place where both myself and half of Norway has spent vast amount of time;) But I think NG got this one right too:
Costa del Concrete was the big loser in the rankings, staying at the bottom of the list, where it was in 2004. This year it scored even lower, by 10 points. A textbook example of mass tourism run amok with high-rise hotels, crammed beaches, water shortages, pollution, and indifference to local culture.

As a fan of traveling I am sometimes a bit torn between the part of me that want to “see the world”, experience everything the destination has to offer and come home with tons of experience, expertise in my destinations little perks and interesting aspects. The other part of me is interested in slowly digesting the inner soul of the place while I somehow miraculously evolve into a better human being in touch with his inner self. That last one sounds like it’s right out of a magazine, and I guess it probably is. But somehow I want that. Who doesn’t want to know themselves better and maybe come home from a journey with new profound peace in mind and heart. But does it just take a trip somewhere? Anywhere? I don’t think so. I have a feeling I am gonna read a whole lot more magazines on adventure travel and journeys to far away islands, jungles, deserts and even slow cities where I can spend time with me and myself – before I find the combination or moment where I get a match. I will however try. I think everybody have the possibility to, by listening to others experience, with simple means get more out of their travelling. More time to themself, more reflection of their trip along the way and afterwards and perhaps even find more joy in traveling. The last couple of days I have read two articles from BraveNewTraveler going into just this subject. Christine Garvin and Jill K. Robinson touches one part of the subject close to my heart; The importance of quiet time during travel. How to both find and enjoy the quiet moments when traveling. How to make sure you actually get some rest during that trip which was supposed to be vacation but will probably just lead to need for more vacation when you get back unless you take some time off the “tourist-wagon”. The other aspect of this is described in the article of Cameron Karsten; 10 things to learn about yourself when traveling alone. If anybody after reading his piece doesn’t want to go out on a journey on their own, please read it again No really, it’s just nice reading and it gives a certain idea of what we can do to get more out of our trips and journeys, and also maybe next time plan for something a bit more special that will in the end gice us som reward of experience in living life.