How do you choose where to go? Ethical Traveler might help.

It's all a big search for updates, I guess.

My computer wanted Windows 8.1, so that's what I gave it. Now it can barely find the internet. What use is a computer without the internet? Even freecell needs it nowadays.

I tried to connect to my old hub. I had some suggestions, thought I'd troubleshot some shit, but I'm still dealing with the old version I guess, software out of date, the new stuff unknowable and incompatible. I'm behind the times.

But I have an event tonight, and the borrowed snazzy jacket to prove it. (Apparently people don't say “sportscoat” anymore?) I'm hoping the agenda includes my future; think that's too much to ask? But there is comfort in the tangible and external. This island will last me until tomorrow. Maybe I should stop renting rooms in Atlantis.

So there's an update. It'll do for today.

Do you daydream about your next trip? Wonder where you should go? Postcard images from all over the world pass through your mind like a screensaver. You can see Victoria Falls, or Windhoek, or lie on the beach in _____! You can almost hear the samba, gnawa, or gamelan. You drool over the enjera, ceviche, and monkey brain options. Well, maybe not the monkey brain.

Or Ais kacang, the Malaysian shaved ice dessert with
beans, corn, and gummy candies.

How do you choose?

I have a suggestion. Someone's troubleshot this one for you.

Every year EthicalTraveler.org publishes a list of The World's Ten Best Ethical Destinations. These are the ten developing countries who are making the best gains in criteria you agree with, like human rights, environmental preservation, and not being total ass*****.

Last summer I went to Myanmar. I never would have gone a couple years ago, in the days of “Don't let your tourist dollars pay for SPDC's bullets” fliers. Aun San Suu Kyi made that one easy, but how can you tell if Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Palau, and Namibia are making similar gains or not? (Yes, no, yes, no.) All that depressing research?

Maybe I'll just go back to Cancun...

Is that a welcoming smile, or fear?

This is the answer you're looking for. Instead of randomly picking a place or going with the easy option, you can go somewhere and feel good about supporting it. You can contribute to an international awareness, on the part of both governments and individuals, that there is a cost and reward basis for behavior. Accountability on an international scale, and you still get to lie on the beach.

The link above takes you to the 2013 rankings. The new ones come out at an event tonight. An event like that merits a snazzy jacket.