Since I've been a travel writer for three decades, people often ask me if I don't get tired of all the traveling and writing. After all, when you do anything for 30 years, it must get boring, right?
Wrong! I guess that's one of the gifts of this line of work. Every trip, every place, offers something new, even if I've been there a dozen times before. This year I took four big trips -- to British Columbia, London, France, and Oahu -- and each one reaffirmed this truth with multiple unexpected treasures. Here are the top treats from each.
1) OAHU: MA'O Organic Farms
My wife and I didn't know what to expect as we drove on a sunswept October morning to this outpost on the little-visited Leeward Coast of Oahu. When we turned off the Farrington Highway at the Wai'anae exit as instructed, we found ourselves in a nondescript residential area of one-story stucco homes. We wound though the streets deeper and deeper into the interior until we reached the end of the road - and found the smiling face of Kamuela Enos, the Education Resource Specialist at this singular place.
MA'O's mission, Enos told us, is social entrepreneurship through farming, cultivating organic food and young leaders for a sustainable Hawaii. MA'O stands for mala 'ai 'opio, which translates as "the youth food garden." Basically, MA'O takes youngsters from the Wai'anae community - a traditionally neglected settlement of mostly native Hawaiians, beset by severe social, economic and nutritional challenges - and puts them to work on the 16-acre farm, where they learn all the aspects of running a farm, from working the fields to managing the distribution of the produce to maintaining smooth relationships with clients and consumers. MA'O also runs a variety of in-school programs at the Wai'anae intermediate school and high school and at nearby Leeward Community College.Continue reading Four top treats from my 2011 travelsFour top treats from my 2011 travels originally appeared on Gadling on Sat, 31 Dec 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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