Don George
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Articles by Don George
How Smart Brands Use Data to Grow: A Story Anyone Can Understand
Ever wondered why online ads seem to know what you like? Meet Asha, a small business owner from Kerala. She runs a home-based brand selling handcrafted spice blends — aromatic masalas passed down from her grandmother’s recipes. Like many small business owners in India, Asha tried promoting her products through Facebook posts and WhatsApp forwards. But after weeks of effort, she saw lots of “likes” but hardly any orders. Frustrated, she asked herself: “How can I get real sales, not just attention?” 1.
Zinc Flake Coatings: How It Came About and The Direction It Is Going
Zinc flake coating is a generic term for coatings and is used by several chemical providers globally. Zinc flake, by design, will lay and overlap on the products when coated. This allows for a blend of zinc flakes to formulate a uniform coating coverage. This specific coating is relatively thin (8-12 µm) and will produce a high level of corrosion protection for any part. Zinc flake coatings generally are a mixture of zinc and aluminum flakes, which are bonded together by an inorganic matrix.
In Tété’s Footsteps: The 2023 Pathfinder Issue
Autumn 2023 A Note from the Editors It began with a book, encountered in the 1950s by a teenager in a small village in Togo. That book’s descriptions of a frozen, distant land ignited an eight-year journey from the equator to the Arctic, where Tété-Michel Kpomassie became the first African to explore Greenland. About half a century later, Nigerian-born storyteller Lola Akinmade Åkerström came across Tété’s own book, “An African in Greenland,” and saw herself in his story.
As Japan Reopens to Tourism, an Insider's Guide to Tokyo's Neighborhoods
Japan will lift is travel restrictions, effective Oct. 11, 2022, allowing individual visitors after a 2 1/2-year shutdown. That opens the way for Tokyo, one of the world’s most exhilarating cities. But it also be one of the most forbidding. I lived here from 1977-1979, and the first entry in my journal reads: “Tokyo first impressions: an infinite, intimidating labyrinth of concrete and people.
GeoEx's New Anthology: The Best of Wanderlust
This is a special time for Geographic Expeditions. As we emerge from the travel hiatus of the past two years and treasured destinations reopen their borders, we at GeoEx are also celebrating our 40th year of sending our cherished travelers, you, around the world on trailblazing, transformative journeys. Our adventure as a company started with pioneering trips to formerly forbidden regions of Tibet and China in 1982.
Zinc Flake Coatings: How It Came About and The Direction It Is Going
Details By Don George and Steve Hlywa, Michigan Metal Coatings Plating 20 November 2020 Hits: 3164 Zinc flake coating is a generic term for coatings and is used by several chemical providers globally. Zinc flake, by design, will lay and overlap on the products when coated. This allows for a blend of zinc flakes to formulate a uniform coating coverage. This specific coating is relatively thin (8-12 µm) and will produce a high level of corrosion protection for any part.
Out of the Ashes
Good and bad, life and death — now especially, polar extremes threaten to set our world ablaze. But even when surrounded by charred ruins, discovery beckons. Because where others might find an elegy, we see the potential to nourish the ground beneath our feet. In the summer 2021 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you stories of hope emerging out of the ashes.
The New World of Travel Writing
As a writer, editor, and teacher, I care about travel writing that matters. My own journey of learning about and reflecting on the ever-evolving world of travel writing and publishing is a continual one, propelled each year by the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference, held each summer in the Bay Area, where I live.
Earth Day: Three Epiphanies Underneath a Cherry Tree
By Don George | April 23, 2020 In the past few weeks, I have written about making my ASAP List of places I want to go as soon as we’re able to wander the world again, without waiting for an uncertain Someday. I have also written about the surprising truth that some places are getting booked up for 2021, so you may even want to book your ASAP travels now. This week I want to share a much more personal tale, but one that I hope will resonate with you, too.
Don George: Five things I learned at TBEX
I approached last month’s TBEX10 in New York – the travel bloggers’ conference organized by Travel Blog Exchange — with a mix of excitement and trepidation. The excitement was because I felt like an explorer on the precipice of a new world, about to stare out onto – and immerse myself in — a landscape I’d only seen in glimpses and snatches.
Don George: Travel writing and the Book Passage potion
Two weeks ago the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference – that annual four-day summer camp for travel creators – magically unfolded in Marin County’s Corte Madera once again. The conference is always one of the highlights of the year for me, and it proved so this year as well. Looking back, I’ve distilled five lessons from this year’s reeling, regaling, roller-coaster ride. 1.
Pearls of wisdom and wanderlust from Pico Iyer
Last month the wonderfully thoughtful and eloquent author Pico Iyer published his 11th book, The Man Within My Head, an intriguing hybrid of autobiography and literary criticism that insightfully illuminates the life and work of Graham Greene – and of Pico Iyer. On his book tour, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of interviewing Pico on stage twice, the first time on Jan. 26 in an event sponsored by Geographic Expeditions in San Francisco and the second in Washington DC on Feb.
Previewing The 2012 Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference
Every year peoples’ lives are changed utterly by the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. I know because they tell me. Every year I get a dozen emails from people who say their careers have taken off, or they’ve been inspired to travel around the world, or they’ve gotten a photo or a story published, or they’ve landed a magazine assignment or a book contract because of something they learned, someone they met, some connection they made, at Book Passage.
La Bonne Vie in Paris
From the November 2012 issue of National Geographic Traveler I first moved to Paris as a French literature undergraduate on a Princeton summer work-abroad program. Living with an aristocratic French family in shabby 16th-arrondissement splendor, I sipped the simultaneous thrills of inhabiting the past, surrounded by 18th-century family portraits, armoires, and settees, and rewriting the present in a foreign tongue.
Books that will make you fall in love with the world
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Poems from Paris
You are going to America You are leaving Paris behind — the old streets you wandered as the sun washed the oranges and peaches and the onions, and the lettuce spilled over the street where the villagers bellied and prattled and squalled; the rich always passed by, and where you knew a cold beer the foolish weekends on the Normandy beach where you almost came to believe your own lies when they lodged deep in blue eyes and brown skin and blonde hair; the wise nights when you were alone and...
Five expert tips for getting started in travel writing
So you say you want to be a travel writer? You want to wander the world, sending back tantalising tales of far-flung adventures to magazines, newspapers and websites. And get paid handsomely for it. Is that too much to ask? Woman with a laptop on Campos do Jordao, Sao Paulo. Image by Superstudio / Taxi / Getty Images. Well, surveying the scene of travel publishing right now is a little like trying to describe a landscape that’s in the middle of a prolonged earthquake.
See World | AFAR
Benjamin’s pants were ragged from sand and salt water, his arms and face burned the color of wood stain. “Welcome to my workshop,” he said, smiling wide and sweeping an arm over the sandy, palm-framed space where the skeleton of a half-built boat lay. Thirty years ago, I met Benjamin on a cruise excursion to the Caribbean island of Bequia. My ship had anchored that morning off the coast of the seven-square-mile island, and two dozen passengers were delivered to the main town of Port Elizabeth.
Surrendering to Seven Sights in Chile's Patagonia - Adventure Collection
I had been hearing about Patagonia for decades. People said that it was a place of soaring beauty and soul-healing expansiveness, that they had lost and found themselves there. I’d seen photos of sharp towers and snow-covered peaks, serpentine rivers and glinting lakes. But as with so many of the planet’s special places, nothing could prepare me for the reality of experiencing Patagonia in person. Its scale was so humbling and exhilarating, its beauty so etched and all-encompassing.
Enchanted by Chile: Three Wine Country Wonders
I recently had the good fortune to visit Chile for the first time, to speak at a tourism conference in Santiago. After my remarks about the American view of Chile and what Chilean travel companies could do to attract more American travelers, the first question I was asked was, “You’ve been a travel writer and editor for four decades.
These Photos Prove How Wild Burning Man Really Is
Burning Man, an annual event in the desert of Nevada, describes itself as a "temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance." What started in 1986 as two friends burning an eight-foot statue on a San Francisco beach has grown, quite literally, into a statue as tall as 105 feet that is burned down at the end of each event around the summer solstice. Live through some amazing moments at Burning Man 2016 and get inspired to attend this year's event.
Booked in Porto: Inside Portugal's Most Famous Bookstore
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September 20, 2016 Co-owner José Manuel Lello lets us peek behind the stacks at Livraria Lello, in Porto, Portugal, one of the world’s most beautiful bookstores. What’s the backstory? In 1906, my great-grandfather, José Lello, and his younger brother, António, created Livraria Lello as we know it today. It’s located right in the heart of the labyrinthine streets of the old town, where you’ll find some of the city’s most important historic attractions.
Flight delays and making the best of it (Or, Zen and the Art of Airplane Maintenance)
May 1; Leesburg, Virginia — Sometimes you don’t have to travel far to have an adventure: I re-learned this lesson yesterday in the usually predictable confines of Dulles International Airport just outside Washington, DC. I’d been in DC for five fabulously stimulating days and was scheduled to fly home to San Francisco on a 5:35 pm United flight. I arrived at Dulles around 3:00 and settled in for a sandwich and some airport email and reading time.
Learning to Speak Japanese
I recently returned from the National Geographic Expeditions journey “Inside Japan,” which ran from Kyoto to Hiroshima via Mount Koya, Shikoku, and Naoshima. In my role as one of the resident experts on the trip, I was to prepare several lectures to deliver to my fellow travelers. The idea of encapsulating everything I know and love about Japan into discrete talks was daunting. But throughout our travels, reality brought home just how important these kinds of discussions can be.
Crystal Snapshot: Surprising Singapore
Singapore never ceases to surprise me. On my most recent trip, I found that the city had reinvented itself once again. And indeed, residents joked that if you go away for a year, you’ll be lost when you return, because the city will have changed so much.
My Dinner with Nobu
Japanese Chef Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa has swept the culinary world by storm since opening Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills in 1987, and then his first eponymous restaurant in New York in 1994. Today, he has 22 restaurants around the globe, from Beijing and Budapest to Melbourne and Mexico City.
End health care cost shift
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont (BCBSVT) is an independent, not-for-profit Vermont company, governed and managed locally, and our sole focus is Vermont. One of our guiding principles is to put our members first, and at times it is important to advocate on their behalf. It is from that perspective that I offer this opinion.
The Best New Travel Reads of Fall
Two of the hottest books this fall are set in two of the planet’s coldest locales: Siberia and the South Pole. In Midnight in Siberia, author and NPR host David Greene meets singing babushkas in Buranovo and teenagers hawking meteor fragments in Chelyabinsk, as he travels 6,000 miles by train through the frigid rural heart of Russia. Felicity Aston ventures into even more extreme climes when she sets out to become the first woman to ski solo across Antarctica.
The New World of Travel Writing
Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. As a writer, editor, and teacher, I care about travel writing that matters. My own journey of learning about and reflecting on the ever-evolving world of travel writing and publishing is a continual one, propelled each year by the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference, held each summer in the Bay Area, where I live.
The New World of Travel Writing
As a writer, editor, and teacher, I care about travel writing that matters. My own journey of learning about and reflecting on the ever-evolving world of travel writing and publishing is a continual one, propelled each year by the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference, held each summer in the Bay Area, where I live.
Living-History Lessons in Berlin
It’s one thing to stand in a place where a historic event transpired a thousand years ago. It’s entirely different to stand in a spot where history was made during your own lifetime. This lesson resonated for me recently on a mind-expanding cruise around the Baltic Sea. Our voyage included day tours in Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Copenhagen. In each city we gazed at grand, centuries-old cathedrals and statues commemorating epoch-making events.
The Best #TripLit for Foodies
Food and travel go together like, well, forks and knives. If you love good #TripLit as much as you enjoy good food, here are five delectable reads from around the world to add to your list. Don George is an editor at large at National Geographic Traveler and the author of Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing. This piece first appeared in Traveler‘s May 2014 issue. Follow Don on Twitter @don_george.
William Dalrymple: Understanding the continent of India
The Last Mughal is the first account in English to give the Indian version of events of the largest anti-colonial uprising anywhere in the world in the entire course of the nineteenth century. Tapan confirmed that in his youth he had been an enthusiastic tantric skull-feeder. WD: I think above all the sheer scale of the place, the variety of different languages, religions and distinct regional cultures.
Following the Road Home
They say you can’t go home again, but after an East Coast trip I made recently, I’ve concluded that it’s not that simple. I was traveling to New York for business meetings, and flew out early so I could squeeze in a couple of days visiting my mother in Connecticut, where I lived until I was 22. The visit astonished me. I had forgotten how glorious Connecticut is in the spring. Mom and I went for two long drives through a countryside bursting with dozens of hues of green.
Letter from Kyoto: Cherry Blossoms in Old Japan
I’m sitting on a tatami mat in my traditional inn, drinking a celebratory Kirin beer and gazing at the full moon though the cherry blossom boughs that arc over the ryokan’s entrance. I feel like a character in a haiku. It’s the end of a glorious two-week immersion in Old Japan. When I arrived, Kyoto seemed to have erupted overnight into a sea of brilliant blossoms, fluffy pink clouds massing over canals and rivers.
Home for the Holidays: A Thanksgiving Pilgrimage to Connecticut
In my family, as in many families around the U.S., Thanksgiving has always been a day to gather with loved ones and celebrate family and home. So when I moved from Connecticut and began to raise a family in California three decades ago, my parents would often cross the country to celebrate the holiday with us.
Lonely Planet Travel Writing (General Reference)
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#BPTravel 2013: Thoughts On Travel Writing And The Journey Of Life
In those final remarks I said some things I'd planned to say and some things I absolutely hadn't planned to say, things that just spontaneously erupted in me as I talked. That eruption, I think, is part of the magic of an event like this, where unexpected connections and mysterious interweavings occur, where you learn things you didn't even know you were learning and grow in ways you didn't even know you'd grown. Here are some excerpts from my remarks.
#BPTravel 2013: Thoughts On Travel Writing And The Journey Of Life
In those final remarks I said some things I'd planned to say and some things I absolutely hadn't planned to say, things that just spontaneously erupted in me as I talked. That eruption, I think, is part of the magic of an event like this, where unexpected connections and mysterious interweavings occur, where you learn things you didn't even know you were learning and grow in ways you didn't even know you'd grown. Here are some excerpts from my remarks.
#BPTravel 2013: Thoughts On Travel Writing And The Journey Of Life
In those final remarks I said some things I'd planned to say and some things I absolutely hadn't planned to say, things that just spontaneously erupted in me as I talked. That eruption, I think, is part of the magic of an event like this, where unexpected connections and mysterious interweavings occur, where you learn things you didn't even know you were learning and grow in ways you didn't even know you'd grown. Here are some excerpts from my remarks.
Five expert tips for getting started in travel writing
So you say you want to be a travel writer? You want to wander the world, sending back tantalising tales of far-flung adventures to magazines, newspapers and websites. And get paid handsomely for it. Is that too much to ask? Woman with a laptop on Campos do Jordao, Sao Paulo. Image by Superstudio / Taxi / Getty Images. Well, surveying the scene of travel publishing right now is a little like trying to describe a landscape that’s in the middle of a prolonged earthquake.
#lpmemories: Some Personal Reminiscences And Reflections
Shortly after the announcement and its aftermath, LP's new owners, NC2, which had purchased the publisher from BBC Worldwide in March, released a statement saying "At the end of last week, Lonely Planet began engaging with its global workforce regarding its plan for the future, which includes a restructure of the business. Since that process began, reports have emerged in the media that Lonely Planet has plans to exit the content business.
Five expert tips for getting started in travel writing - Lonely Planet
So you say you want to be a travel writer? You want to wander the world, sending back tantalising tales of far-flung adventures to magazines, newspapers and websites. And get paid handsomely for it. Is that too much to ask? Woman with a laptop on Campos do Jordao, Sao Paulo. Image by Superstudio / Taxi / Getty Images. Well, surveying the scene of travel publishing right now is a little like trying to describe a landscape that’s in the middle of a prolonged earthquake.
#lpmemories: Some Personal Reminiscences And Reflections
Shortly after the announcement and its aftermath, LP's new owners, NC2, which had purchased the publisher from BBC Worldwide in March, released a statement saying "At the end of last week, Lonely Planet began engaging with its global workforce regarding its plan for the future, which includes a restructure of the business. Since that process began, reports have emerged in the media that Lonely Planet has plans to exit the content business.
#lpmemories: Some Personal Reminiscences And Reflections
Shortly after the announcement and its aftermath, LP's new owners, NC2, which had purchased the publisher from BBC Worldwide in March, released a statement saying "At the end of last week, Lonely Planet began engaging with its global workforce regarding its plan for the future, which includes a restructure of the business. Since that process began, reports have emerged in the media that Lonely Planet has plans to exit the content business.
Don George Embraces the New El Salvador
AFAR chose a destination at random—by literally spinning a globe—and sent writer Don George on a journey to El Salvador with 24 hours’ notice. El Salvador. This was embarrassing. Despite 25 years as a travel writer and editor, I was barely sure the country was in Central America. Yet in 24 hours I would be headed there for AFAR. My ignorance, it turned out, was shared by all my supposedly worldly, well-traveled friends. None had any information for me. Except one.
Spin the Globe: Don George Embraces the New El Salvador
El Salvador. This was embarrassing. Despite 25 years as a travel writer and editor, I was barely sure the country was in Central America. Yet in 24 hours I would be headed there for AFAR. My ignorance, it turned out, was shared by all my supposedly worldly, well-traveled friends. None had any information for me. Except one. “Don!” wrote an executive consultant who works in San Francisco. “That is my country! My sister still lives there.
Commencement Address: Five Lessons From The Road
It was in making that uncharted leap, when most of my friends were taking the well-mapped paths to graduate school, business school, law school and banking, that I really started my own life journey. That was my true Commencement. And that was when so many lessons began to coalesce. Here are five that stand out for me now.1. Pursue your passion: If I have one mantra that I've followed throughout my life, it's this one.
Commencement Address: Five Lessons From The Road
It was in making that uncharted leap, when most of my friends were taking the well-mapped paths to graduate school, business school, law school and banking, that I really started my own life journey. That was my true Commencement. And that was when so many lessons began to coalesce. Here are five that stand out for me now.1. Pursue your passion: If I have one mantra that I've followed throughout my life, it's this one.
Five Scenes From A Spring Sojourn In Kyoto
I learned a new word today: sakura-hubuki. Literally this means "a rainfall of cherry blossoms." My tour group experienced this pink-petaled rainfall as we walked along the Philosopher's Path in Kyoto past a sparkling stream. Cherry trees line the path and at one point the breeze swelled and suddenly we were surrounded in swirling soft-scented petals, landing gently on our shoulders and gathering in our hair like snowflakes.
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