Matador Featured Articles - Travel+Place

Carved into the Landscape: The Dogon of Mali

kayaker — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 10:32:26 -0500

James Dorsey travels among the Dogon, ancient but little-known people whose villages are perfectly camouflaged in the red cliffs of Mali, West Africa.

Climbing Volcano Pacaya

Olivebeard — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:59:13 -0500

An insightful and at times hilarious look at a typical adventure tourism experience in an atypical place in Guatemala, and how, when it comes to people climbing volcanoes, volcanoes will always have the final say.

Out of Bounds: Travels Through Colombia's Red Zone

ricardo_emp — Tue, 6 May 2008 02:16:31 -0500

Kidnapping, surfing, plane accidents, and people fishing for cocaine: pretty much business as usual in Richard McColl's out of bounds adventure along the Pacific Coast of Colombia.

Heroes or Hellions? How Americans are Perceived Abroad

Erin Granat — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:25:58 -0600

Excerpted from her thesis Heroes or Hellions: How Americans are Perceived Abroad, this chapter by Erin Granat examines the dynamics of a "miniature United Nations" that forms when a random group of people travels together in Australia.

Another End of the Road: (Still) Searching for Surf in Centroamerica

Spencer Klein — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:34:48 -0600

Young soul surfer and traveler Spencer Klein takes us to the end of a road where there are people living with monkeys, drunks passed out in the sand, and jacked-up Chevy Blazers used as low-tide beach transport. In other words, on the search for waves in Centroamerica.

Diving with Whale Sharks

The Matador Team — Fri, 9 Nov 2007 01:51:17 -0600

"In front of me, the biggest fish I have ever seen, its massive gaping void of a mouth, was just meters away; with my heart beating furiously and a thrashing of my fins I swam frantically trying to avoid being swallowed whole," writes Mark Steele in his account of diving with whale sharks in La Paz.

Robert Mugabe and the Death of Zimbabwe

deva — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:11:20 -0500

A concise history of Zimbabwe since Mugabe´s rise to power in 1980 with links to various NGOs doing humanitarian work.

Walking the Camino de Santiago

AndreaK — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:20:54 -0500

A medieval European pilgrimage route over a thousand years old, the Camino de Santiago has become a unique long-distance hike for tens of thousands of "pilgrims" each year. Andrea Kirkby reflects on walking the trail, the landscape of rural Spain, and how, once on the pilgrimage, "you start to accept the unusual, the strange, the downright weird, as part of your everyday life."

How to travel to Cuba and why you should do it now

novoarte — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:18:01 -0500

"Some know nothing about Cuba, the Cuban Revolution, or the US embargo against Cuba—they even think Che Guevara was Cuban—but they’re drawn to Cuba because of what they believe to be the forbidden travel experience," writes Julie Schwietert in this how-to guide on traveling to Cuba.

Top Ten Music Festivals Worldwide

eggshapedkath — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:39:20 -0500

From Coachella to Glastonbury to EXIT, Matador presents the best music festivals around the world.

Top Ten Lessons Learned at Burning Man ‘07

Erin Granat — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:44:52 -0500

"Absolutely anything is possible. Two massive semi-trucks twisted up in the air as art? Okay. A “Barbie Death Camp” where you can desecrate and bury those little blond bitches? Sure?” Burning Man first-timer, Erin Granat, tells us what she learned at Black Rock City this year.

When All You Have Is Your Body

novoarte — Thu, 6 Sep 2007 08:45:29 -0500

In the middle of Mexico City, Julie Schwietert Collazo, discovers an unlikely form of protest.

A Weekend on the Route des Vins

Anna Brones — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:23:07 -0500

Two students living in Strasbourg spend a weekend in the Alsace region of France, staying with local families and tasting wine on La Route des Vins.

Summer break with the children of Masaya Market

geotraveler — Sat, 4 Aug 2007 09:58:46 -0500

A photojournalist spends a day at Masaya Market in Nicaragua and finds her assumptions challenged by a group of local kids.

What’s for Dinner? A Menu of Functional Family Dynamics in Ek Balam

Jennifer Anthony — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:06:48 -0500

Jenifer Anthony learns what it's like to share a meal and form part of the simple and yet profound daily life of a family in the rural Maya village of Ek Balam.

Mango Village and the House of OZ

Tim Patterson — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:58:59 -0500

On an extremely remote island off the coast of Cambodia, a pair of young adventurers' notions of isolation, danger, and escape from the familiar, are challenged by the discovery of a modern vacation home.

Huayhuash: A Convergence of Change and Resilience

Adam French — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:50:07 -0500

Winner of the Spring 2007 Traverse Award, this story follows a group of mountaineers through the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes where one climber gains a new perspective on the resilience of the local community.

On Surviving and cyclos in new Saigon

joshywashington — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:52:01 -0500

A young traveler in Saigon gets an unexpected glimpse through time and history and the horrors of war all through a brief interaction with a local cyclo rider.

My Chinese Clown

KateMonster — Wed, 9 May 2007 19:48:52 -0500

An honorable mention in the 2007 Traverse contest: an American woman living in Beijing begins dating a Chinese clown who arrives at every date with his make-up still on. She must figure out how to see him as he really is, and in doing so, figure out if their relationship is real.

The Way to the North Sea: Teuri Island, Hokkaido, Japan

Tim Patterson — Fri, 4 May 2007 18:53:23 -0500

"Of course, Kerouac never actually crossed the Pacific to see Hokkaido for himself, and if he had, he would have found the sort of place he loved - frontier country, split by open highways and empty rails, with brown bears in the mountains and salmon rushing up the river-mouths," Tim Patterson writes in this colorful guide to Teuri Island, Hokkaido, Japan.

In Search of My Father’s War: Magnetic Island, Australia

Lisa Harris — Tue, 1 May 2007 21:59:07 -0500

Lisa Harris visits Magnetic Island, Australia, a place first visited by her father 62 years earlier as a young pilot during WWII.

Snowbound April Fools: Hokkaido Mountain Huts

Tim Patterson — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 12:15:34 -0500

Tim Patterson and Ryan Libre spend a snowbound night in hut buried up to its stovepipe in the mountains of Hokkaido, Japan.

Journey to Leh

sottovoce — Tue, 3 Apr 2007 22:00:07 -0500

A young traveler takes the road to Leh, India, over one of the highest drivable passes in the world.

Venice in Bamboo

Kun Tze — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:01:22 -0500

"The popularity of boat engines has eradicated the colorful sails that once dotted the seascape," writes photojournalist Carl Kuntze about Sitangkai, a little-known part of the Tawi-Tawi group in the Philippines.

Travels with Papa: Spain

Evan Thoreau — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:43:45 -0500

The train out of Barcelona leaves at a quarter to noon. On the wall of the station, the iron clock reads 11:23. I turn to the line of dusty travelers in front of me. This is going to be close.

I reach the window and the attendant feigns not to speak Spanish, let alone English. He regards me instead...

Travelling Riverside Blues

Elseman — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:03:28 -0500

A chapter from Postcards From Elsewhere, Graham Reid's award-winning collection of travel stories (Random House), "Traveling Riverside Blues" takes us through Clarksdale, Mississippi, fabled site of bluesman Robert Johnson's Crossroads.

In Search of Screams in Monteverde, Costa Rica

mortaine — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:49:46 -0600

Monteverde, Costa Rica. It's a beautiful place, particularly if you're a fan of fog, mist, rain, or whatever term you like to use for damp-wind-in-your-face weather. It's also world-renown for its nature preserves, spanning thousands of square miles of primary and secondary rainforest, uncountable...

Travels in a Warming Alaska

E. Linhart Money — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:13:13 -0600

Bellingham is barely out of view when I realize Global Warming has arrived in Alaska. “Our first winter was cold, but I knew it was not that cold,” the young man in a frayed baseball cap says. He, his wife and six-year-old son had been living in a remote village on the Bering Sea, just south of the...

Travels with Papa: Key West

Evan Thoreau — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:42:44 -0600

I leave out of Miami just after dawn. Outside, the air is fresh and warm and the driving is easy: windows down, shades on, the sun rising steadily over my left shoulder.

An hour passes before I pull into Homestead. My empty belly tells me to grab some breakfast. The town’s generic name is apropos...

Notes on Los Pitayeros: Surf, camping and hallucinogenic cacti on the Pacific coast of Baja

David Miller — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600

1. Like anyone truly grounded in his or her place, Pablo (not his real name) never spoke about himself, never talked about Los Cerritos. Conversations were always about the waves that day, parties from the night before, or people—new surfers or women—who’d set up camp. He never let on to his own...