[IMAGE]
GREEN TRAVEL
What is Marcus Endicott, exactly? The name for his vocation has not
yet been invented. He is sort of an editor, sort of a moderator, sort
of an author, sort of a systems operator, and sort of a BBS owner.
Endicott might be considered a new type of celebrity, except that he's
not famous. Endicott is powerful, but inhabits no institution; he's
influential, but does not control the content of his message.
Endicott is the force behind much of the ecologically conscious travel
information that appears online. He is the force, but not the source;
he opens spaces, and primes them with good information to get people
to pay attention, and then helps organize respondents' questions and
contributions. The subjects under his apparently omniscient
surveillance range from consumer evaluations of "green" travel tours
to activists' attempts to halt the sexual exploitation of Third World
children. Geographically, the discussions encompass the globe.
It would be wrong to see Endicott mainly as somebody who passes
information around. By crafting an electronic space for the discussion
of eco-travel, and by coaxing a large, diverse community to
participate, Endicott simultaneously calls into being both the
producers and the consumers of this new sort of commerce.
"Does anyone know about travel packages to Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan?"
inquired Paul Gardner in one of Endicott's widely distributed
conferences. "I work for a non-profit NGO in Washington which is
trying to promote responsible tourism development. We would like to
know what programs are out there." Three hours later, Endicott had
posted a copy of a letter from his files, directing inquiries about
Uzbekistan eco-tourism to Yakov Reznik and his partner, Dr. Alexander
Zhivetin. The two are founders of Uzbekistan's first "green" youth
group, and they also organize a travelers' school for visitors to
their region. Endicott supplied the name of an American company that
organizes tours to Uzbekistan, and the electronic addresses of
individuals who visit Uzbekistan regularly. "Dear Paul," wrote one
reader a couple of weeks later, "(a friend of mine) visits this part
of the world monthly and can answer your questions . . . "
This type of cooperation is not uncommon in the aether, but the
subject of ecologically responsible tourism has some special
challenges. First, the conversation is global. Second, it must reach
into parts of the world that are very sparsely networked: there is no
surfeit of laptops or Internet nodes in Uzbekistan, Morocco, Ghana, or
Indonesia. Third, it must delicately negotiate political conflicts.
Not everybody has the same idea about what constitutes eco-tourism,
and the governments of less-developed countries are often at odds with
local green groups, who may not see eye-to-eye with international
environmental organizations.
In the diverse collection of eco-tourism discussions influenced by
Endicott, nearly all factions can be found. Sometimes moderately warm
flame wars break out, but usually the tone is respectful. Endicott, a
passionate bicyclist and global vagabond who has had a successful
career as a travel writer, puts most of his time into the eco-tourism
groups for free. He acknowledges a little ruefully that his work is
mainly a hobby and a way to make a contribution to the green movement.
However, he has recently produced a thick volume of information on
electronic travel resources, a book that he hopes will transform his
hobby into a profession. For the story of how Endicott crossed the
border of Eastern Europe by bike in the waning days of the Iron
Curtain, discovered mysterious Internet connections via satellite, and
was kicked out of the Soviet Union on the brink of the Gulf War, we
recommend downloading his travel journal from his BBS.
Eco-travel stuff is so widely and variously distributed that we're
tempted to challenge your vagabond instincts by saying, "Hey, find it
yourself, it's not hard." But we won't. Here are some of the best ways
to get hooked in. (While contemplating them, you might take the chance
to admire how Endicott and his volunteer colleagues have vaporized the
barriers between the various technical divisions of the aether. You
will find the same, or nearly the same, material in the UseNet
newsgroups that you will via Gopher, or via Anonymous FTP, or at
Endicott's BBS, or on The WELL, or at EcoNet. Contributors can post
their questions and answers in any of these places, and they will
migrate to all the rest.)
Do you have an account on The WELL? There, the conference co-hosted by
Endicott is called simply "travel." Are you hooked up to EcoNet? Look
for the "green.travel" conference. Are you at a university or other
Internet site where Gopher and FTP are available? If so, you can get
the current and past postings via Gopher at ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu
(under "Green Groups"). Do you lack any bulletin board account at all?
Have you been ejected from your university system? Are you utterly
homeless in the aether? Well, no matter. If you have a computer and a
modem, you can dial up Gaia Passage BBS at [904-241-9397]. Make sure
you try Gaia Passage between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. Eastern time, because
this board is run out of Endicott's home and is not available during
the day. On Gaia Passage, you can search the whole archive by
keyword--no more flipping through the index looking for stuff on
Cameroon. Soon, Endicott promises, you will be able to narrow your
searches with operators like "and" and "or" ("Cameroon AND hotels OR
hostels," for instance).
Gaia Passage offers the complete text of Endicott's book, Vagabond
Globetrotting State of the Art. If you catch the bug bad and want to
read Endicott's huge compilation of electronic travel
resources--called The Electronic Traveler: Directory of Tourism
Information Sources--you can order it on the BBS.
Endicott's Gaia Passage BBS is free.
_________________________________________________________________
[Top] [Linear Tour] [PC Tour] [Random Tour]
** End of text from cdp:infotec.travel **
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Response 1 of 3
** Written 3:06 PM Sep 13, 1995 by mendicott in cdp:infotec.travel **
/* Written 4:20 AM Sep 7, 1995 by mendicott in igc:green.travel */
From: Shay Mitchell <jsm8f@ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 15:54:02 -0400 (EDT)
> > gopher://ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu/11/communication/travelarc
>
Hi! The above address will not work to access the Green Travel
archives. You should use:
gopher://ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu/11/communication
and then choose Green Travel. The name of the travelarc directory changes each
time a number letter is added as part of our automatic archiving
program. For example, the directory will be called
travelarc95-09-06-01-01 and then when a new letter comes in it will be
travelarc95-09-06-01-04.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused users of the
archives.
Shay Mitchell
Office of Recycling and Environmental Information
jsm8f@ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu
** End of text from cdp:infotec.travel **
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Response 2 of 3
** Written 5:18 AM Oct 30, 1995 by mendicott in cdp:infotec.travel **
/* Written 5:17 AM Oct 30, 1995 by mendicott in igc:green.travel */
GREEN TRAVEL MAILING LIST ANALYSIS
Version: 95.10.30
Copyright 1995 M.L. Endicott <mendicott@igc.apc.org>
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
TOTAL addresses: 376
.EDU addresses: 129 (-23 in 2 international domains)
.COM addresses: 83 ( -4 in 1 international domains)
.ORG addresses: 22
.NET addresses: 17 ( -3 in 3 international domains)
.GOV addresses: 9 ( -4 in 3 international domains)
.MIL addresses: 1
TOTAL addresses in 32 international domains: 149
.CA addresses: 35 (Canada)
.AU addresses: 29 (Australia)
.NL addresses: 12 (Netherlands)
.UK addresses: 6 (United Kingdom)
.NZ addresses: 6 (New Zealand)
.FI addresses: 6 (Finland)
.AR addresses: 5 (Argentina)
.US addresses: 5 (United States)
.SE addresses: 5 (Sweden)
.IT addresses: 4 (Italy)
.BR addresses: 3 (Brazil)
.DE addresses: 3 (Germany)
.CR addresses: 3 (Costa Rica)
.ZA addresses: 3 (South Africa)
.NO addresses: 3 (Norway)
.IN addresses: 2 (India)
.HU addresses: 2 (Hungary)
.DK addresses: 2 (Denmark)
.JP addresses: 2 (Japan)
.KR addresses: 1 (Korea)
.IS addresses: 1 (Iceland)
.IL addresses: 1 (Israel)
.CH addresses: 1 (Switzerland)
.PH addresses: 1 (Philippines)
.PT addresses: 1 (Portugal)
.IE addresses: 1 (Ireland)
.SU addresses: 1 (Russia)
.TH addresses: 1 (Thailand)
.ES addresses: 1 (Spain)
.EG addresses: 1 (Egypt)
.VE addresses: 1 (Venezuela)
.EE addresses: 1 (Estonia)
=======================================================================
Green-Travel
Contact: mendicott@igc.apc.org (Marcus L. Endicott)
Purpose: A moderated internetwork electronic mailing list dedicated
to the sharing of information about culturally and environmentally
responsible, or sustainable, travel and tourism worldwide.
To subscribe, send email to
majordomo@igc.apc.org
and in the body of the message put
subscribe green-travel
Last change: Sep 95
=======================================================================
** End of text from cdp:infotec.travel **
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Response 3 of 3
** Written 8:15 AM Nov 10, 1995 by mendicott in cdp:infotec.travel **
/* Written 8:13 AM Nov 10, 1995 by mendicott in igc:green.travel */
GREEN TRAVEL MAILING LIST HISTORY
1991
November - The first message was posted to Green Travel at IGC.
1992
April - The first message was posted to Green Travel from
another system in the worldwide APC network.
1993
March - The first message was posted to Green Travel from the
Internet.
1994
February - Green Travel became moderated.
September - The Green Travel manually maintained mailing list was
replaced with automated mailing list software
(Majordomo).
= = =
Between November 1991 and November 1995, there have been a total of 1849
messages posted to Green Travel in 571 topics; this averages to about 1.3
messages per day over the past four years.
=======================================================================
Green-Travel
Contact: mendicott@igc.apc.org (Marcus L. Endicott)
Purpose: A moderated internetwork electronic mailing list dedicated
to the sharing of information about culturally and environmentally
responsible, or sustainable, travel and tourism worldwide.
To subscribe, send email to
majordomo@igc.apc.org
and in the body of the message put
subscribe green-travel
Last change: Sep 95
=======================================================================
** End of text from cdp:infotec.travel **