Dear Globies, travellers and friends,

Spring is upon us and with the sunshine comes some itchy feet, and many of us are busy planning for an adventure filled year ahead. From the Gower to the Galapagos, the Globetrotters Club offers a wealth of information and inspiration for like minded explorers. Here’s a roundup of the latest travel events, news, campaigns, publications, meetings, ticket offers and competitions – don’t forget to check our our newly designed website to find out more.

Happy travels,

The Dragonfly,

The Globetrotters Club

Waterstones are offering their loyalty card holders – free to sign-up for online – 2 for 1 tickets to the Natural History Museum’s latest exhibition Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story.

With tickets usually costing £9 each, the exhibition showcases the dramatic story of prehistoric Britain, its changing landscapes and the people that lived here. With life-size models and rarely seen specimens brought to life using the latest scientific techniques, the exhibition reveals what life was really like one million years ago.

This 2 for 1 deal is on offer until 26 September 2014, for visits from Monday to Friday 10.00 to 17.15 and booking isn’t required. Visit waterstones.co.uk for details.

The Seed Buried Deep offers a unique insight into his incredible expedition. The RRP is £12, and both books are currently available for £10 on amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seed-Buried-Deep-Expedition-Trilogy/dp/0984915516 and you can also check out this short film featuring Jason’s adventure on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21377623

While on holiday in Cape Town, South Africa, Jeanett Andrea Soderstrom was assured by operators of the benefits of taking a township tour. Unable to pin-down specific data, on returning to home she decided to research the claims as part of a Responsible Tourism Management MSc.

Her results are a worry to anyone who considers ethical travel an integral part of holiday planning. Interviewing operators and inhabitants, Soderstrom found that while operators were well meaning, evidence for a positive impact of their tours was difficult to find. Shockingly, none of the inhabitants she interviewed said they benefitted economically from the tours themselves, only receiving occasional donations from tourists themselves.

Soderstrom concluded that in their current form these tours hindered both economic and social empowerment, but believes with better regulation and awareness this could be reversed.

If you are looking to make a difference while on holiday this summer, Uganda Lodge are looking for volunteers to help with various projects, from working with children at the school to aiding in the new medical facility. Such opportunities can be a great way to make friends, get fit, and become immersed in a new culture while seeing a new part of the world and benefiting local communities.

Opportunities last from a few days – great for combining with gorilla trekking, say – to longer term projects, and profits from staying at the lodge are ploughed back into the community projects. For more information visit ugandalodge.com

Inge and Harald are due many congratulations, for their upcoming wedding on July 24th. They’d like to pass on their honeymoon tour plans, as they’ll celebrate the start of wedded life with a continuation of their two greatest passions: travelling and creating art.

Through their unique project, Paint the Planet, they travel the globe and exchange their artworks for a place to stay. They love meeting new people, going on real adventures and sharing their experiences, skills and artistic talent with others along the way.

On 26th July they’ll set off from Amersfoort (Holland) and travel through Germany to Denmark, and on the 28th of July they’ll arrive at Kristiansand in Norway and travel through Sweden. On the 7th of August they’ll arrive at Turku in Finland and on around the 11th of August, they’ll arrive at Tallinn in Estonia. They’re due to enter Latvia (Riga) on the 15th, and then on the 19th of August they’ll arrive at Lithuania. On the 22nd of August they’ll take the boat to Kiel in Germany, and then finally two days later they’ll arrive back at Amersfoort.

Anyone who is based in these countries, or who knows someone who is, or who may be passing through any of the same places on the same dates should definitely get in touch with Harald and Inge! Their email address is Info@painttheplanet.nl and you can also find out more on their website: www.painttheplanet.nl and why not befriend them on  facebook and twitter @PaintthePlanet

In 2014 tour operator Untamed Borders will be running three fixed date trekking trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan, led by Moritz Steinhilber, an old friend of Untamed Borders and a very experienced trekking guide who has reached K2 base camp 11 times on tours.

The trips on offer are to some of Steinhilber’s favourite places and offer a route into some of the world’s most incredible scenery and experiences, taking groups to the remote Wakhan corridor in north-eastern Afghanistan; K2 base camp, Concordia and the 62km Baltoro glacier; and Shimshal Pamir, a rarely visited region of Pakistan’s Karakorum mountains.

Much more information is available from untamedborders.com

Author David Fletcher is addicted to visiting the world’s greatest locations including Africa, India, the Middle East – all places of astonishing natural beauty and remarkable culture. So what is the biggest cause of environmental and cultural problems that he sees when travelling to these places? David says it’s the people who travel. People just like him. In their thousands. All “off the beaten track”. The Brian’s World series of books (the fifth book on Namibia and Botswana, published on 27th January) takes a sidelong glance at sightseers and their attitudes. Part travel journal, full of amazing locations and information, and part humorous fictional narrative of a grumpy, misanthropic Brit, the popular Brian’s World books are both a celebration of the wonderful world that we live in and a challenge to us, the people who are slowly destroying it.

Strip Pan Wrinkle is the latest hilarious adventure of Brian, the sightseer who hates sightseers. Available from amazon for around £8: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strip-Pan-Wrinkle-Namibia-Botswana/dp/1783060379

This summer, tour operator First Choice will switch all its holidays to all-inclusive. Thomas Cook is reportedly increasing the number of all inclusives holidays it offers by 10 per cent. But what does the resurgence of the all-inclusive model, where tourists are invited to ‘leave their wallets at home’, mean for the destinations we visit? The implications for employees, other local businesses, the destination economy, and the tourist experience in terms of meaningful cultural exchange, throws up some serious questions about the sustainability and ethics of this tourism model.

Tourism Concern has researched into labour conditions in mainstream all-inclusive hotels that are used by all the mainstream tour operators in five popular destinations. The results include failure to recognise workers’ rights to join a trade union; lack of training; being pressurised into working a considerable amount of unpaid overtime; and not earning a living wage.

All forms of tourism can be made more socially, economically and environmentally responsible. But these efforts need to start with the rights of workers and communities in destinations. The current mainstream all-inclusive model is perpetuating social and economic exclusion and inequality, while threatening the very character of the destination that tourists pay to see. This does not make for sustainable tourism.

To find out more, check out the Tourism Concern website http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/all-inclusive-holidays—excluding-local-people.html and why not add your thoughts in their short survey and contribute to their research.

Watch out for Tourism Concern’s forthcoming briefing on all-inclusives in the coming weeks.

More than 850 British nationals are currently locked up in prisons across the globe for drug-related offences, often detained for months without trial and facing distressing living conditions. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), in conjunction with the charity Prisoners Abroad, is launching a campaign to highlight the consequences of the use, possession and smuggling of drugs in countries around the world.

The zero-tolerance approach of some countries often results in strict penalties which can come as a shock to British travellers. Offences that may carry cautions in the UK are often penalised with long prison sentences when overseas, and in 33 countries or territories some drug offences carry the death sentence.

Terry Daniels and Billy Burton are two British nationals that have seen valuable years of their life spent in prisons overseas. Both want to see the number of Britons involved in drugs in other countries reduced and have described their experiences in a video to warn others not to make their mistakes: 

In the United Arab Emirates, sentences for drug trafficking for possession of even the smallest amount of illegal drugs can lead to a minimum 4-year jail sentence. The Emirati authorities count the presence of drugs in the blood stream as possession. And in Indonesia, possession, trafficking and manufacture of any illegal drugs are serious offences. The Indonesian authorities have a zero-tolerance policy and those caught face lengthy prison sentences or the death penalty, usually after a protracted and expensive legal process.

If you have any enquiries for FCO consular staff before you go or while abroad you can now ask questions via the FCO’s new Twitter service @FCOtravel. This service adds to the ways that British people travelling or living overseas can already get in touch with the FCO: by emailing the travel advice team or contacting local consular staff.

You can also keep up-to-date with the latest FCO travel advice by signing up to the FCO’s Facebook and Twitter feeds: www.facebook.com/fcotravel or twitter.com/fcotravel