Adventure Expo In Travel 1/12-13/08

This weekend, National Geographic Adventure is hosting the annual Adventure Expo In Travel (ATE), a travel fair in New York showcasing the best destinations, outfitters and gear available in the hemisphere. What's noteworthy is the first ever Philippine participation to this 2-day event. Since I started going to these travel shows - there's another one in March sponsored by The New York Times - I've always been looking forward to the Philippines having its own booth where it can get some attention. For a long time now, the Philippines lacked this kind of exposure in New York. Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have always been more aggressive selling themselves in travel shows and spending good bucks on glossy brochures and catchy TV ads. Hopefully, the Philippine Department of Tourism will invest in more opportunities to entice visitors to visit these gorgeous string of 7,100 islands in the Far East.

While going around the many booths - arranged according to geographic location (i.e. Asia-Pacific, Caribbean, South America, Africa) - the wanderlust in me was tickled once more. I'm due for another vacation this coming spring and I was wondering where I might go this time? Somewhere warm perhaps? Somewhere remote?

Maybe here to the land of Bollywood and Tata Nano:

Or here to check out on the drug lords:

Or here to see Oprah's exclusive girl's school:

Or here to zipline through the rainforest:

Or here to the land of my birth:Or maybe I should consult my previous outfitter again. They've got loads of destinations, even to space if I can afford it:
Part of the reason I also attend travel shows is the opportunity to see and hear personalities in adventure travel speak about their experiences behind the podium. Today, I was happy to sit and listen to two individuals, each with an impressive resume up their sleeves. Gordon Wiltsie, a renowned photographer and author of the book "To The Ends Of The Earth: Adventures Of An Expedition Photographer", talked passionately about his more than three decades of hard-core adventure in remote areas of the planet. His slideshow of selected photos, shot from the early 70's and 80's, were truly captivating as he fill us up with anecdotes of his time in the outdoors when Gore-Tex wasn't even invented yet.

Much younger and newer to the adventure scene, 26-year-old Andrew Skurka made the extraordinary venture that only he has done so far: hiking the 6875-mile Great Western Loop in the American West. That's something others will only be able to do in segments but this guy did it by walking an average of 33 miles a day for 208 straight days, finishing it last November 2007. The Great Western Loop actually links many of the well-known hiking trails in the West. For this feat, National Geographic made him the 2007 Adventurer of the Year.