Around the World in Eighty Documentaries: An Armchair Traveller's Guide to Eco Friendly Travel

205 Pages·2014·2.015 MB·English

by  Christopher Winnan

CONTENTS
Introduction
Appetizers
Europe
North America
South America
The Middle East and Central Asia
Africa
Australasia
Southeast Asia
The Far East

Part Two
The Rising Financial Costs of World Travel
The Educational Value of Armchair Travel
The Unbeatable Benefits of Armchair Tourism
The Destructive Nature of Global Tourism
Ethical and Sustainable Travel Suggestions
Copyrights and Wrongs: Maintaining the Moral High Ground of Sharing
Global Digital Hunter Gatherers
Ten To Avoid
My Most Wanted List
Overall Top Ten
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Introduction
W
hile Phileas Fogg was in a desperate race against time to circumnavigate the globe, with the contents of this book
I encourage you to take your time and explore the world in a much more relaxed manner. This is, after all, an
armchair traveller's guide. There was a time in history, before modern transportation, when the average human
being travelled less than (cid:976)ifteen miles from their place of birth throughout their entire lives. These days we can (cid:976)ly to
the other side of the world in less than twenty-four hours, but is the most rewarding travel really experienced at six
hundred miles per hour?
It was not so long ago that travellers were limited to only a handful of travel guidebooks. Stalwarts like Fodors’ and
Michelin catered mainly to high-end business travellers. With the rise of budget travel came an explosion of travel
guides until Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and Let's Go covered enough countries to last us a lifetime. But now travel
guide books are dying. Budget guides especially are facing the brunt of the crisis. Not only are numbers down due to
the (cid:976)inancial crisis, but more and more people are skipping the guidebooks completely and doing their research
online. The good news is that we are quickly entering into a golden age of documentaries. Once restricted to
broadcasters and libraries, travel documentaries are suddenly now more easily available to the masses than ever
before.
Some shows are still just predictable advertorials, but this book will help you weed out the junk and focus on the
quality. It was written as a beginners’ geographical guide to the world that we all live in. It provides a virtual journey
across the seven continents to discover what life is really like beyond our own small patch of existence. It showcases
some of the most densely populated places on the planet as well as some of the most remote. It draws from the
enormous output of many different countries, not just the very largest public and commercial broadcasters like the
BBC, Discovery, and National Geographic, but shows from every distant corner of the planet. There are programs
included here from countries as diverse as Iran, Korea, Venezuela, Japan, New Zealand, and France.
In the last two or three decades, more and more of us have been able to choose what we watch, and the
documentary has (cid:976)lourished. With the advent of the Internet, far fewer people are now restricted to watching the
mindless dross that is broadcast by corporate networks and the unending propaganda of state-run television
stations. By the time most children reach eighteen years of age, they already have spent more time in front of the
television set than they have spent in school, and far more than they have spent talking with their teachers, their
friends, or even their parents. Just a few years ago, the average teenager was subjected to many thousands of adverts
per year, but those dark days are now long passed. Before the invention of videos, DVDs, and Internet downloads,
most viewers were restricted to banal game shows and mindless soaps. Thanks to advances in content distribution,
the discerning viewer now has access to a treasure trove of factual documentaries and educational programming.
This book is one of the very (cid:976)irst books to help viewers navigate through this vast online repository of newly
available content. Streaming sites such as YouTube are an interesting innovation, but serious viewers need better
tools to help them (cid:976)ind their way through the 99 percent of TV junk and to locate the real quality that is currently
available.
In the modern world, where we meet so many different cultures and nationalities on a daily basis, a well-rounded
knowledge of the world's countries is absolutely essential. I (cid:976)ind it easy to make interesting conversation with people
from almost anywhere in the world, because I have at least a little understanding of the wide range of places from
which they originate. What is even more rewarding is being able to share this information. Sadly, we all know at least
one person whose knowledge of other countries and current affairs is far less than their knowledge of TV advertising
or the latest soap operas.
We are repeatedly told that we live in a global village, and yet at the same time we live in a time when we must
seriously consider the harmful environmental impact that we will have on exploring the world. This book is written
for the twenty-(cid:976)irst century adventurer who wishes to see the world and learn about different cultures and
ecosystems without helping destroying them in the process. When I started writing this book, I wanted to provide an
environmentally-friendly way to see the highlights of the planet, but as I have progressed I have learned that
understanding the world around us is key to solving the most serious problems of our time. How can we do anything
to solve environmental and cultural issues of which we are completely unaware? Without knowledge and
understanding, then we are only paying lip service to ideas such as cultural diversity and species protection.
I have endeavoured to make this much more than just a book (cid:976)illed with travel documentary reviews. In the same
way that a well-constructed travel guide book is much more than just a collection of hotel reviews, I have written this
book to be a round-the-world ticket for a new kind of virtual globetrotter. It reveals not only people and places, but
culture, nature, architecture, and history. It is not just about tourism, but also looks at travel in its many and varied
forms, from mercantile trading voyages to the most arduous journeys of spiritual pilgrimage. The very (cid:976)irst stage of
becoming a world-class virtual traveller means doing a little background viewing on the subject of travel as a whole.
The (cid:976)irst chapter is therefore dedicated to documentaries that look at the art of travel, rather than speci(cid:976)ic
destinations. These are shows that will help to increase your travel-related general knowledge and improve you
understanding of the industry, its history, and how we have arrived at the situation we are in today. It will introduce
you to some of the more controversial aspects of the subject and hopefully whet your appetites for the destination-
specific shows that will follow.
Appetizers
The Art of Travel
Attack of the Tripadvisors
Airships
Hold Fast
Voyages of Discovery
Tales from the National Parks
Holiday Showdown - Thailand Versus Bristol
The Way We Travelled
Baraka
Extreme Airports

The Art of Travel (2005)

T
his is not a guide on how to travel, but an exploration of why we travel. World-renowned “philosopher of everyday
life” Alain De Botton launches an inquiry into the reasons behind travel. What are we looking for on our travels? How
do the dreams match up to the realities? Does travel really offer us an escape from our troubles and anxieties at
home? Unlike existing commentaries on travel, it dares to ask what the point of travel might be, and modestly
suggests how we could learn to be less silently and guiltily miserable on our journeys.
Alain de Botton’s approach to travel is similar to that of his books. He has a comfortable egg-head authority,
remaining detached yet not unapproachable, making subtle observations and backing them up with interesting and
original references.
Even so, I have to admit that the show nearly lost me as soon as it started. In an attempt to grasp the underlying
issues behind travel, his first jaunt was a Mediterranean cruise aboard the QE2 and I immediately began to worry that
this was going to be just another celeb taking yet another jolly at the expense of TV viewers. These gas guzzling
goliaths are slowly being banned around the world for their detrimental impacts on local environments and yet their
offensive levels of pro(cid:976)ligacy and pollution were never raised. His interview style was weak and, although he met
some interesting characters, none were investigated in the detail that I would have liked. A chat with permanent QE2
resident Beatrice Muller, for example, was less than enlightening. Although she passed away in 2013 at the age of
ninety-four, she lived for nine years on the QE2, before the liner was retired in 2008. Reporting that it cost about
100,000 a year for a basic cabin and the cheapest restaurant option, she wrote a book about her experiences entitled
Queen Elizabeth 2: My Home in Paradise. All we learned from her in this show was that she no longer bothered to even
leave the ship, preferring to watch the ports of arrival from a TV monitor. His chats with the staff were similarly
uninspiring, even though the vessel's crew is rather tellingly made up solely of British of(cid:976)icers, while most of the
other one thousand staff members are Filipino. Even his conversation with one of the “Gentleman Hosts” is
completely uninteresting and pales next to other documentaries such as The Great Happiness Space which is in
comparison a fascinating insight of the Japanese male host phenomena. His interviews could have been so much
more interesting if he had asked some probing questions to the staff and guests. Why, for example, have the number
of overboard passengers nearly doubled since the early 2000s? Why is it that male cruisers are much more likely to
go overboard than female guests? Although it was clear why the incidence of fatal strokes aboard cruise ships is (cid:976)ive
times the national average (de Botton was a good thirty years younger and forty kilos lighter than nearly every other
passenger on board) there was no mention of all the unsolved disappearances that take place on cruises or even the
growing number of suicides, the tragic result of massive emotional icebergs. In Las Vegas, very few of the hotels have
balconies in order to prevent visitors with serious gambling losses from (cid:976)inding a quick solution. In the so-called
adult Disneyland of Pattaya in Thailand, shooting ranges will not accept single male customers, as too many have
used the venues to blow their own brains out. Cruise ships are often a last hooray where people can end their lives
without their family members having to discover their remains, but none of this controversial stuff is even touched
upon.
Fortunately, there is a turn around when he arrives in Barcelona during the cruise as he decides not to bother
visiting the city and rather stays on board, citing a philosopher Xavier de Maistre, author of Journey around my Room,
who similarly preferred to keep an idealised image in his head of places, rather than have that image spoilt by reality.
At the “dredged bays and destroyed coastlines” of Torremelinos, he begins to relate other interesting insights,
explaining that along with his cases, he had inadvertently brought along all his accumulated psychological baggage,
explaining that unless we leave ourselves behind along with our strictly material understanding of happiness, few
dreams can ever be realised.
The second section begins with a weekend city break to Amsterdam, where he cycles around the city with two
Dutch girls discussing our perceptions of exotica. He views the Red Light District and probably frequents a couple of
“coughy” shops in order to partake in a little deep philosophical discussion, although he is shown on camera in a
gallery viewing some of his favourite Renaissance artists of the low countries. He travels with a couple who seek out
WWII bunkers and rails against travel guide books, calling then pernicious, prescriptive, and enthusiasm-destroying.
I began to fear that he had only ever experienced Lonely Planet publications, as my own editors always encouraged
me to inspire exploration and curiosity in my write ups. Although I think his appraisal of guide books is slightly
unfair, I also question the “guide book” mentality, the adherence to rules telling us what we should and should not
see, leading to the consequent inevitable failure to really connect in any meaningful way with foreign places.
For his next vacation, he decides on a (cid:976)ly-drive holiday to the former East Germany. He begins with the dubious
claim that airports have a poetic charm as he admires the elegance of the autobahn from his soft-top Volkswagen
Beetle. He espouses on the art of Edward Hopper and the glamour of travelling alone, of the liberating effect of being
a stranger among strangers. As if to emphasise this point, he stops off at the Ollywood Swingers Hotel in Dresden.
The residents he greets here look like the cast of a 1960s naturist documentary, while the owner gives him a guided
tour of the kinky facilities. The whole episode felt rather gratuitously sensational and would have been much better
replaced with some discussion of the 3.5 million German men who travel to Asia each year on sex tour holidays.
Later, he explains that whenever a plane lands, half of the passengers are excited to be arriving at an exotic new
destination, while the other half are dreading the fact they are returning to the dull and dreary homes. This is a
sentiment that I understand well and one that has mirrored my own travel experiences. When I (cid:976)irst lived in China, it
was in the dirty commercial cities of the east coast: Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. While they were important
centres of business, the endless monotony of going back and forth to work meant that nearly everybody led a
miserable workaholic existence. When I later relocated to the Himalayan tourist towns such as Shangri La and
Lijiang, the atmosphere was always very different. After all, thousands of excited new visitors arrived every day, all
overjoyed to be on their holidays in such a charming and spectacular location. While the Chinese have a well-
deserved reputation for being rude and unfriendly, this can at least be compensated for by basing oneself in a popular
holiday spot rather than a city of sweatshops and strip malls.
To gain the experience of an outsider, de Botton joins an all-Japanese coach tour of the Cotswolds, introducing the
snap-happy vacationers to the great John Ruskin. By con(cid:976)iscating their cameras and video recorders and asking them
instead to sketch what they see, he teaches them the important difference between noticing and seeing. What he fails
to mention is the natural magnetism of charcoal, that it is an infallible way to make new friends in almost any
location. Even the most severe and unapproachable looking people will have strangers gravitate towards them to join
them in an act of heightened appreciation if they are holding a sketch pad.
Anything that Alain de Botton does is well worth a watch in my book. This particular documentary is obviously not
as weighty as his book of the same name, but it’s nice to watch a TV program that has not been created to appeal to
idiots for a change. The only trouble is that he clearly does not have the same enthusiasm for travel that he does for
classical philosophy. In How Proust Can Change Your Life, for example, he fondly pulls apart the life and work of Proust
as if he were a close childhood friend. His breadth of education is amazing, his knowledge of the classics masterful,
and yet this program feels as though it was put together at the request of a producer. He clearly does not have the
same passion for travel as he does for Proust. Even so, with all its references to Victorian thinkers and his
refreshingly self-deprecating humour, it does raise interesting questions, such as the dullness of most must-see
sights and our acquisitive reaction to exotic splendours. Travel is now the world's largest industry. According to the
World Trade Organisation, it beats arms and pharmaceuticals both in turnover and in numbers of people employed.
Although travel agents are quick to tell us where to go, the questions of how and why are rarely discussed, which is
why this show is so useful. His prescriptions are unarguable: remain curious, remain aware, and that nature and the
sublime can help correct our psychological imbalances. I am pleased that at least someone is discussing how travel
offers us time to think about who we are and our place in the world, putting our lives into perspective and at least
temporarily learning something about how other people live. I was also very happy to learn what the word “sublime”
actually meant.
I was very happy to hear such a well-known and respected (cid:976)igure agree that a fundamental aspect of successful
travel is attentiveness. Hakim Bey points out that in English we pay attention while in Arabic one gives attention,
suggesting that attention is as scarce a currency as paper money. How would our traveling experience change if we
treated our perceptions as gifts rather than payments, and liberally gave our attention away instead of paying for it?
Perhaps it is this state of mind that allows us to ascend from mere tourists to adepts of Zen travel? “Our third-rate
stay-at-home consciousness seems safe and cozy compared to the dangers and discomforts of the Road with its
eternal novelty, its constant demands on our attention. «Fear of freedom» poisons our unconscious, despite our
conscious desire for freedom in travel. The art we're seeking seldom occurs as a natural talent. It must be cultivated -
practised - perfected.”
There are sadly no subtitles for this program, a serious (cid:976)law when so many obscure quotes and references made to
works that are hidden deep in the archives. Perhaps this is also a blessing in disguise as it encourages more people to
read the accompanying book which is far superior to the documentary. In print, de Botton can really (cid:976)lex his cerebral
muscle. From Flaubert's yearning for the East to the great post-Enlightenment traveller Alexander von Humboldt,
and even Wordsworth to improve our appreciation of landscape. This is by no means an anti-travel work, but it does
encourage us to contemplate that the inner journey might be even more important than the external one, and that if
we can view our own environment with the fresh eyes of a traveller, then our lives would be greatly enriched and
happier.

Attack of the TripAdvisors (2011)
TripAdvisor, by far the world’s largest travel website, now receives nearly (cid:976)ifty million visitors a month and rakes
in about $250 million in advertising. It has already put nearly every travel guide book publisher out of business and
so a documentary on the phenomenon was long overdue. I suspect that this particular UK Channel Four show was
meant to be an entertaining exposé of the negative effects that bad reviews are having on some businesses. The
result was more like a sensationalist tabloid press story, where the owners and reviewers had obviously been urged
and coaxed down the path of dramatic confrontation. Despite the heavily edited content, it does at least cast some
light of the devastating impact that the site is having on the hospitality industry as a whole.
The show's producers managed to dig up a selection of the most petty, vindictive, and bitter extreme individuals.
And those were just the guest house owners. The host and chef at The Olde Forge in Norfolk appeared to have
modelled himself on Basil Fawlty, and even did an impression for the camera. Mark, the proprietor of the Eltermere
Inn, was an equally eccentric character whose establishment featured stuffed animal heads and some interesting
erotic art, which admittedly might not be everyone's cup of tea. But Colin and Mark were paragons of mental health
when compared with the TripAdvisors themselves, who seemed to have dedicated their lives to dishing out vitriol in
order to develop a buzz that they were “important.” Sean and John were a pair of raving drama queens who insisted
on comparing a simple B&B to the Dorchester. They had a multi-page check list on items to look at before they even
started unpacking, which included assessing the cleanliness of the toilet brush and the amount of water that has been
left standing in the kettle. I can only guess that they have been seriously discriminated against in the past for being
such a pair of blatant homosexuals and are now trying to get their own back. But even this pair paled in comparison
to Ricky, who put tiny dots on the corners of the sheets in ballpoint pen to check if they had been changed. His utter
delight upon discovering that they had not was clearly visible, explaining that "they should have known to check with
me that I had (cid:976)laky skin and would need the sheets changed daily." Ricky's regular travelling companion was his gran,
who summed up the situation perfectly when she said that Ricky had been bullied a lot at school.
The programme makers were clearly trying to make the owners take some of blame. They were not given the
opportunity to recognise that the feedback received, no matter how negative, presented them with an opportunity to
improve. I sympathised with Colin, who was clearly becoming more and more wound up with the complaints. As a
writer, I understand how anonymous casual criticism can be devastating when you have put so much effort into
something that you really enjoyed. So what if he was a character? Bev and her family at the Hollies in St. Ives came
over slightly better and it was sad to see that she has decided to put her guest house up for sale. Will the advent of
TripAdvisor mean that in the future all hotels and restaurants will be completely sterile environments, devoid of
personality and run by subservient faceless clones, or even replaced completely by iPads?
Despite its entertainment value, this show clearly needs to be taken with a very liberal pinch of salt. A quick glance
at the TripAdvisor site shows that Old Forge has almost entirely excellent reviews except for the one in question,
which has a very high number of “found usefuls.” This suggests that the reviewer, her friends, and the review itself
were a plant to make the programme more exciting. It is true that Colin is a rare British eccentric who obviously
struggled with the cameras around, but it does look as though it was being set up. This, of course, also puts Bev's
teary on-camera breakdown into question, though it did exemplify how some people are actively trying to ruin the
lives and health of others for no reasons other than their ability to stay anonymous and their warped desire to bully.
But is this really the whole truth to the story, or are these just the most grotesque individuals that the producers
could lay their hands on at such short notice? Is it really the fault of a few exceptional individuals, or is it the entire
TripAdvisor system that is changing the tourism industry for the worse? It is doubtful that the producers would have
dared follow this line of reasoning for fear of an enormous lawsuit, but the reality is that TripAdviser is changing the
playing (cid:976)ield just as the arrival of the printed guide book did a couple of decades before. Business owners soon
learned that a positive mention in the Lonely Planet was a ticket to retirement. TripAdvisor is very unfairly balanced
towards multi-national chains and expensive resort hotels, both of which attract a clientèle of wealthy digerati and
can afford large marketing campaigns. Five-star reviews on TripAdvisor are available on the Internet for as little as a
few dollars a pop, but the management does very little to ensure that reviews are genuine. Even then, why shouldn’t
reviews be paid for? We all accept that Michael Jordan is paid millions of dollars to positively endorse Nike and yet
paid hotel reviews are somehow wrong? Attack of the TripAdvisors is an interesting show that raises some
important issues about the negative impact that TripAdvisor is having on the hospitality industry as a whole, but
unfortunately it barely scratches the surface and I for one am looking forward to much more well thought out
investigations in the future.

The Airships (2008)
This is a fascinating three-part series revealing a largely forgotten chapter in aviation history which existed long
before the (cid:976)irmly entrenched jet industry of today. It explores the largest (cid:976)lying machines ever built and their dynamic
role in global history, and the technologies, people, and political landscapes involved with them.
This is a marvellous insight into what our travel industry might have looked like today if our society was based on
rational thinking instead of media sensationalism. Rather than being crammed uncomfortably into metal cigar tubes,
we could have been enjoying a global network of luxurious (cid:976)loating hotels, each one making silent overnight trips
from one major capital to the next. If we had invested in comfort rather than breakneck speeds then we could have
had (cid:976)leets of solar-powered, environmentally-friendly, lighter-than-air passenger cruisers gliding effortlessly around
the world.
The (cid:976)irst episode begins with Count Zeppelin's launch of the ZR-1 in 1900 and the early pioneers who sought to
navigate the skies in search of fame and fortune. Central to this extraordinary story is archive (cid:976)ilm from libraries
around the globe, much of it rarely seen. Paintings, still photographs, and segments from feature (cid:976)ilms are all
seamlessly blended with contemporary footage to create a rich visual tapestry. Despite being a decorated veteran
and visionary, Zeppelin was derided by the military. The generals refused to fund his airships and he had to rely on a
state-sponsored lottery to build his (cid:976)irst prototypes. When these were destroyed by bad weather, the public's
imagination was so captivated that Zeppelin was able to continue his work solely on donations. Two world wars saw
everything connected with Germany demonized, and the resulting effect on airship technology was a major setback.
During World War II, they were referred to in British propaganda as “baby killers” and all remaining vehicles were
destroyed at war's end.
The second episode in the series features the fabulous 1920s, just before the Great Depression. Airships were
quickly reaching their zenith with polar expeditions followed by the (cid:976)irst intercontinental voyage followed by the (cid:976)irst
round-the-world voyage. In one story, the passengers talked about how they balanced a pencil on its end on one of
the dining room tables and then took bets on when it would fall over. The ride was so unbelievably smooth that
everybody had fallen asleep long before the pencil toppled over. A range of special visual effects breathe new life into
the story of these giant, majestic (cid:976)lying machines. Large scale, radio-controlled (cid:976)lying replicas of key airships were
(cid:976)ilmed to provide the base material for computer-enhanced scenes designed to meld with actuality footage and still
photographs. Twenty passengers and fourteen crew members circumnavigated the world in just twelve days, a trip
that had taken Magellan three years and still took more than a month even by the faster steamer. One especially
interesting section suggests that Hugo Eckner could have become leader of Germany if the British Ruling classes had
not been so strong in their support of Hitler and so keen to sabotage any legitimate German opposition.
In the third and (cid:976)inal part, which examines the demise of the Hindenburg in 1937 and the disassembly of the 2
Graff Zeppelin in 1940, marks the end of the Rigid Airship era. More importantly, the episode showcases some of the
more current development, including working tourist airships and proposed heavy cargo lifters. This series is one of
the best on this subject, although I wish there would had been more on current Zeppelins.
There are a number of one-off shows that will also appeal to the airship enthusiast. The Modern Marvels series
features an episode devoted to the subject and the series Lost Worlds has a very interesting episode (S02E15) titled
“The Age of Airships.” Perhaps my favourite, though, is Farewell, a (cid:976)ilm composed entirely of archival footage, with
narration based on the writings of Hearst reporter Lady Drummond Hay, the only female passenger on the Graf
Zeppelin’s Round-the-World (cid:976)light of 1929. Landing in New York she was welcomed like a cinema star. In 1929 people
were convinced that the journey marked a splendid turning point in history. A few weeks later, Wall Street crashed
and, instead, a dark period in history began. While the (cid:976)ilmmakers call the production a documentary, it is actually a
mixture of fact and (cid:976)iction “inspired” by a true story. The coloured section about the geishas in Japan is particularly
riveting.

Hold Fast (2007)
Hold Fast is a punk-rock sailing documentary that tells the story of the Anarchist Yacht Club. Actually, rather than a
traditional documentary, it is more of a "video zine," a photo montage travelogue intercut with camcorder footage to
show that long seas voyages can be made with little or no money. If you have ever dreamed of (cid:976)ixing up an old boat,
and then sailing it off into the sunset, then this is a (cid:976)ilm for you. It may not win any awards for technical excellence or
artistic cinematography, but the content more than makes up for these lapses. It is the story of four friends who
migrate to South Florida one winter, (cid:976)ind a derelict sailboat, bring it back to life, and then sail off into the Caribbean.
The decrepit Pearson 30 was languishing in a Fort Lauderdale canal, and this (cid:976)ilm explains how the friends made it
ocean ready with limited resources, but plenty of resourcefulness. The rejuvenated wreck is christened the Pestilence
and they sailed it throughout the Bahamas and onto the Dominican Republic.
The (cid:976)ilm begins with a short history, showing how (cid:976)iberglass suddenly took sailing out of the realms of the super
rich and made both the sport and the lifestyle accessible to those that had previously been deemed unworthy. Mike
(aka Moxie Marlinspike) and his all-girl crew of post-punk anarchists aspire to be “sailing maniacs,” in the mould of
“sailing mystic” Bernard Moitessier who single-handedly sailed his 39′ steel-hulled ketch around the world 1968
Sunday Time Golden Globe Race. And who wrote:
I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never
cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of
wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea.”
Moxie’s documentary highlights the fact that because of (cid:976)ibreglass construction, and the continued churning out of
new boats rather than refurbishing old ones, there are thousands and thousands of perfectly good ship hulls lying in
marinas and back yards, available for almost nothing. Ninety-five percent of the smaller yachts in Florida are either in
a backyard, in a high and dry, or sitting unused in a slip. Moxie buys a shell of a boat from a wealthy local, who then
encourages them to step the mast with the dinghy davit of an untended super yacht. I mention this as many people
see Moxie and his friends as some kind of anti-capitalist mis(cid:976)its (his dreads and general appearance certainly do not
help), but note that it is one of the rich locals that suggests that they break the law in this case. I personally was
surprised at the responsible sailors they turned out to be. Their critics describe them as “hippy boat bums,” but I was
impressed by the way in which they treated the environment. I agree that boaters need to be respectful of other
sailors and their equipment, but this must be very dif(cid:976)icult when nearly everybody else on the water are pro(cid:976)ligate
baby boomers in gas-guzzling super cruisers. The contrarian crew of Pestilence seems to view cruising under sail
almost as a political act, making a statement against our disposable consumer culture. What they teach us is that only
by stepping outside this culture can we truly experience life. If you think that hitchhiking and squatting are cheap and
reprehensible, then you will not agree with the general philosophy of this video. Sailing is unfortunately full of
unpleasant snobbery, and no matter how quixotic or eloquent, the makers of this irreverent (cid:976)ilm are going to ruf(cid:976)le an
awful lot of feathers. When they arrive at Nassau, the facts are made clear. The whole place is described as arti(cid:976)icial
and tasteless, a stop off for an endless chain of heavily polluting cruise ships and so they quickly move on to more
attractive locations.
Much of this (cid:976)ilm is a crash course in budget boating from faring surprise storms and dropping their anchors
(sometimes just a bag of bricks when nothing else is available) manually by swimming them out. I do not think that it
takes the mystique out of sailing but it does bring it up to date and into an accessible contemporary setting which is
essential in inspiring others to set sail for French Polynesia. Even so, I am not sure that this is the whole story. As it
stands, it is maybe a little oversimpli(cid:976)ied in places, but it is still very cool nonetheless. Some things are glossed over
and it is also worth noting that they were the bene(cid:976)iciaries of massive amounts of luck and the kindness of strangers.
Of course, when you have nothing, every small gesture is seen as a huge act of generosity. When you have nothing in
your pockets, you do not automatically assume that everybody else is out to rob you and rip you off. I suspect that
they were on a first-name basis with every marine salvage company in South Florida. Where did the mast come from?
What about the cabling, rails, capstans, winch handles, and other nautical goodies? What about passports and other
documents required aboard when entering/leaving territorial waters? Did they ever get boarded by the authorities?
It probably is not such a big deal in the Bahamas, but the Florida coastline is not known for its easygoing law
enforcement.
Despite these omissions, Moxie makes for a natural narrator, even if he is a little too colourful at times with his
choice of language. When he is not sailing he is widely acknowledged as a computer genius, a white hat hacker that
develops encryption software for iPhones and the like to keep them “private.” With the recent revelations regarding
the NSA, it is hardly surprising that he is on a federal watch list that prohibits him from (cid:976)lying freely. The last time he
tried to board an aircraft, he was detained for (cid:976)ive hours and all his electronics, including his laptop and cell phone,
were seized. From this perspective the kind of freedom that we as travelers all yearn for seems to be an increasingly
rare commodity.

Voyages of Discovery (2006)
Without discovery there could be no travel, and in this series, explorer Paul Rose takes us on a journey through
some of the pioneering names and events in the (cid:976)ield. Highly quali(cid:976)ied to present these shows, Paul is vice president
of the Royal Geographical Society and Chair of the Expeditions and Fieldwork Division. As an Antarctic specialist and
Base Commander of Rothera Research Station for ten years, he was awarded HM the Queen's Polar Medal. For his
work with NASA and the Mars Lander project on Mt. Erebus, Antarctica, he was awarded the US Polar Medal and he
even has a mountain named after him on the vast freezing expanse.

Episode 1: Circumnavigation
Five hundred years ago, a stricken ship limped into the port of Seville. Its crew were half dead from starvation and
disease, having just completed a voyage that would change the course of history and profoundly shape the way we
live today. It was 1522, and the Victoria had just become the (cid:976)irst ship to circumnavigate the globe. This voyage
opened up the last great unknown ocean and proved, once and for all, that the world is round. It was a triumph of the
human spirit, an epic tale of courage and endurance, starvation and mutiny, heroism and death. And it turned
Ferdinand Magellan into one of the most celebrated explorers in the history of the world. But behind the legend of
one of the greatest-ever Voyages of Discovery lies another story.
Paul Rose sets sail on a replica of the Victoria and shows how the real hero was not, in fact, Magellan, but a member
of his crew. Ferdinand Magellan set out (cid:976)ive hundred years ago to (cid:976)ind a westward route to the riches of the Spice
Islands. But, contrary to popular perception, he never reached them. Rose explains the dramatic sequence of events
that led his scurvy-riddled crew to continue around the world without him. The incredible expedition was laced with
bloody mutiny and murder, but its achievement was to fundamentally change the lives of the generations that
followed, influencing life even today.

Episode 2: The Making of Captain Cook
The story of one of the greatest ever sea adventures, which transformed Captain James Cook into a national hero
and dramatically changed the course of history. Two and a half centuries later, Captain Cook is still a household name,
but his achievements are often misunderstood; contrary to popular perception, he did not discover New Zealand or
Australia. In 1768, Cook set sail to observe the Transit of Venus, at least, that's what the Portuguese were told.
Instead, his real mission was to discover the vast southern continent that, it was believed, "balanced the Earth". After
battling the elements, Cook found Tahiti. Once there, he was kept busy trying to stop his sailors from selling even the
nails that held their ship together, in return for sex with the locals. There was also the small matter of light-(cid:976)ingered
locals who were attracted to the gleaming metal measuring devices, devices that would help Cook establish the
distance between the planets and unlock the secrets of the Cosmos.

Episode 3: The Ice King
I have to admit that until watching this episode, I had never shared Paul Rose's fascination with polar exploration, but this story
certainly changed my mind. Previously, I have never even heard of Fridjtof Nansen who, in 1892, announced a daring plan to
be first man to conquer the North Pole. Nansen's radical idea was considered so off-the-wall that no scientist would volunteer
to join him on a venture they believed was nothing short of suicide. He purposely allowed his ship to become stuck in the
crushing pack ice, hoping it would drift to the Pole. Nansen became the forefather of polar exploration, inventing many
practical techniques that today allow people to survive, travel, and work in the most hostile and forbidding places on our
planet. His inventiveness and skill for designing radical new devices was impressive, as was his willingness to adopt other
peoples' prototypes. These included the cross country ski, the Primus stove, and layered clothing. The story is full of surprises,
such as the fact that his entire expedition was sponsored by Cadbury chocolate, that he celebrated his third Christmas in the