World Nomad Language Guides

Ever wonder how to ask for "wine from the barrel" in Greek? Get the awesome language guide podcasts from World Nomads and listen to the Aussie, Scott as he befriends locals in different countries and learns their language.  Download them for free on their site or on iTunes by searching "World Nomads."  They've recently released five more guides, including Nepali and Greek, bringing their total to twenty.

I’m planning a trip to Brazil…

Hi, I'm planning a two week trip to Brazil in August with two other friends. If time allows we would like to take a short trip to one of its neighboring countries as well... Any suggestions? Travel tips? Thank you in advance! Hi Miko! We definitely suggest you do two things: One, visit Chapadas dos Veadeiros in the center of the country, about two hours from Brasilia – its full of high waterfalls and beautiful rivers. If you hook up with Ion from Travessia, he can organize a fabulous three or four day canyoning adventure, where you stay at little inns, make your way down ...

Rwanda Ecotourism: Balancing Tourism and Sustainability

This video comes from the Green Living Project. They visit with Rosette, the head of Rwandas national parks and tourism. (ORTPN) where she explains how Rwanda balances tourism and protecting their national treasures.

OTR’s Founder Christina Heyniger Recently Featured on GeckoGo.com

Christina Heyniger, Off the Radar's founder was recently intereviewed by GeckoGo, a collaborative travel planning resource for independent travelers. In it, Heyniger describes what prompted her to start Off the Radar and how she highlights sustainable independent tour operators from around the world. Read the interview.

Wend Magazine

The word “wend,” is Old English for “going along;” to “Wend ones way home,” for example. Wend Magazine is about activism, inspiration and adventure – so we figured our readers would be interested! Written by folks who believe that “part of going off the beaten path means insuring that the path doesn’t get beaten,” the articles cover a broad range of interesting topics we don’t see in many other places. This is one of the most responsible publications we’ve come across, the print copies come on entirely FSC certified paper ...

News from CompetiTOURS

Article about CompetiTOURS, which we just wrote a Try This about,  in the  we just wrote about in the Chicago Times...read it here

Unemployed and Unattached : Try Volunteering Abroad

Back in May, 2007, Jean-François Gagnon's ticket to self-discovery came in the form of a pink slip.At 27, he'd just been laid off from his communications job at College Boreal, a francophone school with an office in Toronto, Canada...more

New Attraction: Walruses in the Canadian High Artic

BOARD THE AKADEMIK IOFFE IN THE CANADIAN HIGH ARCTIC - He was a cooperative walrus, but a strange one, lolling in the September sunshine on an ice floe in Croker Bay, somewhere around the 75th parallel ... more

Living with African Tribes?

Dear Off the Radar, I'm interested in a trip where I could live for a short time with African tribe members.  Any suggestions?" -- Tad Hi Tad, thanks for writing.  Check out our December 2008 issue where we featured a trip: Living with Namibian Bushmen. 

PEPY in the news

We're really excited to have the funding to do this."After the schools are completed, PEPY will initiate a follow-up program, which involves training teachers, sending in evaluators and strengthening the parent-teacher associations. ... more

Competitours

Adventure travelers have a reputation for fearlessness and at times, let's be honest, a competitive nature.  That's why when we heard about CompetiTOURS new trip/race we thought the Off the Radar community would want to know about it. So assemble your team, pay your trip fee, and ship out for Europe as you compete for points in a series of challenges that take you through a mix of Eurail-connected cities and out of the way villages. Trip departures and duration vary and include unusual challenges such as visiting the Torture Museum in Prague, to shoot a video "explaining how an instrument ...

How do I get on Off the Radar?

What is the best way for a tour operator to share the adventures they offer with Off the Radar? The best way to let us know about trips, if you would like considered for editorial coverage, is to pitch us at editor@travelofftheradar.com.   If the team decides to pull you into the editorial calendar they'll contact you for more information in order to write the story...!

Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean

A Guide to Fifty Extraordinary Adventures for the Seasoned Traveler One of the best travel books to cross our desk in 2008," according to the Wall Street Journal, this book was co-authored by Off the Radar friend and colleague Shannon Stowell of the Adventure Travel Trade Association and Don Mankin. The collection of travel stories also includes chapters on Bhutan and India written by Off the Radar's Christina Heyniger.  The form followed in ...

Volunteer Card

The benefits of volunteering are vast: developing interpersonal skills and job skills, becoming part of a community, creating new experiences, and learning about your own passions.  Businesses worldwide recognize this commitment, and many have  joined together under the International Volunteer Card  to support your service.  For $25 per year, the Volunteer Card provides travel insurance through the highly reputable TravelGuard, 5% off United airlines flights, 10% off at Target online, and 25% off at the Lonely Planet online, to name just a few. You can even have your vaccination fees waived through Passport ...

Trekking through Sinai

Trekking through Sinai: Roads Less Traveled by Emily Eros Each year, over 3 million travelers take refuge from the cold in the Land of the Pharaohs, soaking up the sun along Egypt’s Red Sea coast. A night-long excursion to Mount Sinai is part of many organized tours based in Sharm El Sheikh and other coastal resorts. In the darkness of twilight, a fleet of Pullman buses arrives at the base of Mount Sinai, carrying between 300 and 1500 tourists on any given night. The groups spill out of the buses, rub sleep from their ...

Forced Evacuations in Phnom Penh

We got this message from Daniela Papi about forced evacuations in Phnom Penh: Anyone who has been on a PEPY Tour where we visited CLA musicians in their homes, where the instrument maker lived, has been to Dey Krahorm community which is written about here in this BBC article.  All of the homes have been destroyed and families forcefully removed.  The 50 families who had remained in this community had resisted as they were the ones who had legal titles to the land they lived on.  They were offered minimal compensation, but did not accept it and now that their homes ...

Sustainable Travel International

Get to know Sustainable Travel International; we encourage you to sign up for their newsletter – Responsible Travel Report to learn about how all our travels can be conducted more responsibly. STI’s mission statement says they’re dedicated to “promoting sustainable development and responsible travel with programs that allow consumers, businesses and travel-related organizations to contribute to the environmental, socio-cultural and economic values of the places they visit, and the planet at large.” For travelers, what this means is they offer a great range of resources from green travel directories to information and research on everything from carbon neutral travel to ...

PEPY Experiential Ride

One of our favorite adventure companies, PEPY, is leading an "Experiential Tour" March 22nd to 28th. Rural Cambodia is beautiful by day, but by staying over at the PEPY school in Chanleas Dai, you’ll notice it’s even more striking by night. Get a real sense of what most Cambodians experience on a daily basis: pump and filter your own water, listen to the scuffles of roosters and pigs outside your door, sleep under mosquito nets without fans or air-conditioning, and witness an unpolluted view of thousands ...

Alfonso Velez

Listen and download for free this awesome song by my friend, Alfonso Velez. Check out his MySpace page for music and upcoming shows. Some of the Off the Radar crew will be at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 25th for his show - hope to see you there! – Natasha A featured artist on National Public Radio, he recorded his latest album, The Weather, live in three days with drummer Jerry Busher (Fugazi, John Frusciante), keyboard wunderkind Will Rast (Ramp, Maya) and bassist Jeff Ratner, for DJ Boy Records. The Weather was mixed by Tom Schick (Norah ...