My 7 Links

Thanks to Marsha's kind nomination on Single Occupancy Blog, Diary of a Wandering Student is back in action after a much-too-long hiatus (due to a combination of end-of-semester insanity and extreme post-finals laziness) with my post for Tripbase.com's My 7 Links Project. The project asks nominated bloggers to take a look back at old posts and highlight seven in various categories.

I was expecting this to be difficult since, with a blog less than a year old, I thought I wouldn't have much to choose from for some of the categories, but it turned out that choosing between some of my favorite posts that I'd forgotten about was harder! At any rate, here goes...

My most beautiful post | Profiles in Transit: Antonio

I was torn between three posts in this category, the other two because they feature what I consider to be some of my best photography, but my heart was wrapped up in this post long before I wrote it and I'm proud of how I was able to capture the beauty of a few moments with a stranger in words, not images. This is one post I was completely satisfied with when I re-read it after posting, which was a relief, since I was incredibly nervous about finding the right words to express a beautiful experience.

My most popular post | A Bug Called Bilingualism

In terms of actual hits, my post about Antonio is my most popular, since it was re-tweeted by Lonely Planet (that was a great feeling!), among others, but this one was a big success for a three-weeks-live blog and got me really excited about how many people out there are as interested as I am in the crazy experience that is immersing yourself in a foreign language and the culture that goes with it.

My most controversial post | Americans in Florence: Obnoxious vs. Incognito

I haven't written any posts that have turned out to be what I'd call controversial - not surprising, since I'm a pretty can't-we-all-get-along type - but I was worried that this one might be. I was concerned that some might read it as bashing my fellow Americans travelers, when it was intended instead to highlight how radically different travelers from the same country can be and how it can impact their experiences abroad. Fortunately, no one I heard from took it the wrong way and the general opinion seemed to be that we all have compatriots who fit certain unflattering travel stereotypes that make us cringe.

My most helpful post | A Table for One?

Apparently I need to write more posts aimed at being helpful, because this was a tough one to figure out! I hope my post about my first solo travel experience encouraged a few people to take the leap and give solo travel a try, or at least start thinking about it, because the fact that not having any friends or relatives who want to take a particular trip with me doesn't mean I can't travel has been one of the best discoveries of my life.

A post whose success surprised me | Getting Hustled in NYC

This post was intended to highlight an (I'd like to think) rare moment of out-of-town stupidity and the importance of paying attention to your instincts, but the comments really took off and I was pleasantly surprised by how many new faces chimed in supportively. It just goes to show that unpleasant people like the hustler featured in the post are the exception and kind, friendly ones are the norm!

A post I feel didn't get the attention it deserved | Why travel?

This post had a higher than usual ratio of comments to page hits, but I felt like it never really got the exposure it should have, maybe because it was posted shortly before Christmas and New Year's. It's a post I love, because I feel like I was really able to capture what travel means to me: the okay-this-is-a-little-scary moments, the thrill of stepping into the unknown and, above all else, the sheer joy of exploring somewhere new.

The post I'm most proud of | A Whirlwind Romance in Cambodia

This isn't my best-written post, my funniest, my most touching or my most popular, but it is one that I'm very proud of. Why? Because, if I'd visited Cambodia even just five years ago, I would never have written it. Five years ago, I was barely beginning to scratch the surface of solo travel and, while I might have taken a solo trip to Southeast Asia if the opportunity had presented itself, I would have been much too busy worrying about everything that could go wrong to let myself see or fully appreciate the beauty the region has to offer. Before I left in April, I knew I would be comfortable traveling through Thailand and Cambodia by myself, but I didn't expect to view my time in Cambodia as much more than an interesting learning experience. The fact that I've become comfortable enough as a traveler, solo or not, to relax and let myself fall in love with a country so radically different from my own is something that makes me incredibly happy. Which is why the fact that I was able to write this post makes me proud.

Sharing the My 7 Links love. Wow, travel blog community, you've been busy. My 7 Links has spread like wildfire around the blogosphere! Only two bloggers I know haven't been nominated yet, so their links - a wonderful soon-to-be-expat blog by my friend Alyssa and a mouth-watering foodie blog by my friend Leran - are below, so take a look! If you haven't yet been nominated and want to be, shoot me a tweet - I have three nominations left!

From Freeways to Fjords

Foodventures!

Blog Action Day 2010: Blogging for Clean Water

Most travelers are used to conducting at least some parts of their lives non-traditionally. In exchange for giving up a permanent place of residence, taking a career break, living out of a suitcase or a backpack and being disoriented by rapid shifts in culture, we see things that other people don't. We interact with people whose lifestyles are 180 degrees from what our native cultures think of as "comfortable." And, depending on where we travel, we can bear witness to the devastation brought to a society by the lack of what most of the Western world considers basic necessities: education, transportation, plentiful food, adequate healthcare and ready access to clean water. It's the last of those that is often the most heartbreaking.

I don't know about you, but the first thing I reach for in the morning is water. If I'm on the road and don't know when I'm next going to have a chance to eat, I might get cranky, but it's not that big a deal. If I'm running low on drinking water and don't know where I'm going to be able to stock up, however, I get worried. But my worries pale in the face of global water statistics:

• 109 million. That's the total number of hours walked by women and children in Africa every day in search of water to use for cooking, cleaning, washing and drinking. If they can find the water they need, it's often from muddy ponds or watering holes, polluted by animal and human waste. So in addition to keeping children out of school and women from working to establish a business, the perpetual search for water leads them to sources that often make them ill.
• 42,000. That's the number of people who die each week from water-borne diseases or lack of access to water worldwide. That adds up to more in a year than all violent deaths worldwide combined, including those caused by war. And the worst part? 90% of those deaths, weekly, are children under the age of five.
• $12.8 billion. That's the amount (USD) polluted coastal waters and the health problems they cause cost the global economy every year.
• 1 in 8. That's the number of people, worldwide, who don't have access to clean water.

Water - access to clean sources, preservation, conservation and awareness of the issue - is a global problem, and it's going to take a global solution to set it right. The travel community, made up of people who have lived in the Western world, where water is taken for granted, many of whom have also lived in or visited parts of the world where water is scarce, can offer a unique perspective. Today, I challenge you use it. Here's what I hope we, as travelers - from round-the-world nomads to casual vactioners - can do:

1. Raise awareness. Visiting a community that has to go to extreme lengths to get water, clean or otherwise? Take photos and share them with the people you know. Staying at a resort or couchsurfing at a home that has a unique way of conserving water? Blog about it. If you have a permanent place of residence, talk to your city council, homeowners' association or building management to see if any of the solutions you've seen are feasible for your area.
2. Lend a hand. Helping local cultures directly can be tricky, especially for transitory visitors. What's easy is bringing the plight of a place you've been to the attention of people whose business it is to help. Groups like charity: water, Ryan's Well Foundation and Water.org work tirelessly to find clean water solutions for communities around the world, but they can't help if they don't know where there's a problem. A simple email could be the catalyst for setting a clean water project in motion for a community you've visited - so send it! And if you have a little cash you can spare, make a donation.
3. Monitor your usage. Most long-term travelers are conservationists by nature of the way they live: they don't buy a lot of products that take exorbitant amounts of water to produce or run (clothing, electronics, kitchen appliances) and they're conscious of their water usage for bathing, washing clothes, etc. because they're usually sharing facilities with others. But the more traditional travel industry (chain hotels, luxury resorts, cruiseships, etc.) uses exorbitant amounts of water every day. Talk to your concierge to find out if it's possible to have your linens changed every three or four (or five...) days if you're going to be in the same place for a while, rather than every day. If you're visiting a place where the water is safe to drink, bring a reusable bottle with you for water, or buy a large bottle your first day and reuse it for several days.

Most of us take water for granted, even if we occasionally have to do without for longer than we'd like during our travels, or buy bottled water to do simple things like brush our teeth. Imagine living every day weighing how much water you have or can find against all of the things you need to do with it. Imagine cooking your dinner in a pot filled with brown water that you know is likely to make you sick. Imagine not being able to reach for a drink of water when you're thirsty. Imagine that, and join me in doing what you can to raise awareness and bring clean water to the people who need it most.

This post was written as part of Change.org's Blog Action Day 2010. There are more than 4,690 blogs in 135 countries participating right now - to add yours, click here. Blog Action Day 2010 is also taking place on Twitter, using hashtag #BAD10. To read a post about the water crisis geared more toward a U.S.-based audience than the travel community, visit There Is No Spoon.