Vickie Kelber, our Untourist of the week has to be, pound for pound, one of the top contenders for the best photographer/writer we have among our many, many talented Untourists. She does both of them fabulously. We’re all the more lucky, then, that she takes lots of pictures and usually writes a blog that she…
This December 21st, about 15 million people will join in singing “Ise Oluwa” or “One Song”. This lovely African song is a call to leaders around the world to end violence against the earth. Organized by the Good Earth Singers, we learned of this project through our friends at Intertribal COUP. Why do we care…
Italian coffee rules. We don’t need to tell you that. We’ve gotten much more sophisticated as a coffee-drinking people ourselves. Surely most of us know our cappuccino from our macchiato well before we set foot on a plane. (We may have even gotten a twenty ounce latte at the drive-thru coffee shop on the way…
Glen and his wife, Marshall, have been on 5 UnTours, travelling with us first in 1999: Tuscany (1999,2005), Umbria (2006), Venice-Umbria (2007), Tuscany- Umbria (2011). Tell us a little bit about your most recent Untour. We spent one week in Tuscany and one week in Umbria. I am a professional photographer and I love to photograph…
I recently stumbled upon Greensgrow: a lush and bustling urban garden that lives in a large city block in Philadelphia. It jumps out of its block. It’s somehow four-dimensional. The normal strips of grass by the curbs are instead planted with herbs, flowers, and more. I do believe that even non-gardeners would have to stop…
A festival at one of UnTours’ home villages, Murlo is one way that you can see the strong bonds of community that are typical in an Italian community; it’s one hallmark of the Italian culture. In an attempt to better understand Italy, today’s culture clue is an overview of some of Italian culture’s more famous…
Rose & Ted McKenna are our Untourists of the Week this week. They’ve been on 19 UnTours (!) and have taken one cruise with us. Take a look at what these wonderful Untourists have to say about their UnTours experiences. To Rose & Ted, thanks for sharing! 1. Tell us a little bit about your…
The foundation receives many accolades, both public and private. One accolade this week caught us by surprise. In with her regular loan repayment check, Brenda Davis, the “Iron Woman” of Ironman, Inc., included a donation to the foundation. Of course, I called her to ask the story behind the gift. She said that she’s looked…
Of all the variables you might find on the “cultural dashboard”, there is none more likely to spark a clash faster than the varying definitions of “clean” across cultures. The paradox is nearly every culture has strict rules about what is “clean” but in the complicated dance that is cross-cultural understanding, of course, the rules…
Tell us a little bit about your most recent Untour. We combined a Viking River Cruise (from Amsterdam to Basel) with a one week Untour on the Rhine, in St. Goar. It really was a great combination. Our Viking Cruise was enjoyable, the times were well-organized and the excursions off the boat were interesting and…