A Traveler’s Library has the great good fortune to talk to Peter West Carey who writes The Carey Adventures, about his People, Places, and Patterns Project. He will be traveling to Africa (including Spain and  Morocco; and then Kenya and Tanzania) and Nepal, photographing and learning about cultures along the way. And how can YOU be involved? Here goes:

Me: I  read your interview at The Mother of All Trips about PPP Project, and you talked about travel with your daughter. How old is your daughter and how will she be involved in this trip?

Peter West Carey: My daughter Sabrina, who is 8, will be joining me on the Africa leg of the trips.  Taking her to Africa was really the origin on this trip.  While the trip has some certain idyllic aspects (riding camels, going on safari) I also want to expose her to vastly different lifestyles, while showing her some of the commonality we all share.  And she finally had enough frequent flyer miles to make the trip less expensive. [Ed. Note: That is one Well-traveled little girl!]
Just tonight I started talking to her about doing the presentation at her school.  Her eyes lit up.   She sounded rather excited about being able to tell all the other kids about what she saw–even before she sees it!  While she won’t be with me for the 50 school, 10 library and 20 community group presentations I have planned before the end of 2010, I’d love to have her share the experience from her perspective as well.

PWK: It’s actually three locations but two trips.  Africa will be one trip, combining Spain (still not part of Africa, but close) and Morocco as one section and Kenya and Tanzania as the other.  Nepal is a separate trip about a month after getting back from Africa.   I had previously been to Nepal and the offer to climb a 20,000′ peak was intriguing.

After making these general plans… I knew I was going to take my camera gear…  But then the question came: why?  Sure, I have plans to sell some photos and write some stories to help pay the rent. I don’t believe all travel needs to have lofty reason (I very much enjoy sitting on a beach for a week at a time) but I wanted this trip to have a bit more life to it. That’s when I came up with the concept of a slideshow/presentation.

I had previously noted on my blog that I’d be concentrating on people photography in future travels.  So that was one.  Places seemed obvious as I wanted to give [conext to their lives].  And patterns have been a facination of mine for the past year, but I’ve never concentrated on them in a meaningful way.  Natural, man-made, symmetric…they all catch my eye…  Combining all three, I’d like to show how life, .. is the same in these distant locations  as well as how it differs from life back home.  I hope exposure to those threads and how they weave through vastly different cultures can bring about some understanding and tolerance in the view. [and some curiosity leading to travel].

Me: At A Traveler’s Library, we always would like to know–are there good travel books (or movies) that inspired you to travel?

PWK: I loved [amazonify]1570610835::text::::Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River[/amazonify].  It hit close to home and has put “Kayak the Columbia River” on my list of life goals.

[also loved] [amazonify]078670621::text::::Endurance,Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage[/amazonify] defines how you lead, take risks and bring all your men home safely.

Right now I’m reading [amazonify]0217718817::text::::Farthest North[/amazonify] (the version edited by John Krakauer) about Nansen’s attempt to reach the North Pole.  Those types of books show me a lot of what it takes to really preserver in difficult situations and what type of character is needed for certain types of travel.  While I don’t plan on going on …a multi-year sledging trip to either pole, they do inspire me to learn more about those cold, distant, and often forgotten places on Earth.

PWK: There are three things I need help with for this trip:

1. Make a pledge to the People, Places and Patterns Project. The funding for this project[through kickstarter.com] works on the principle that a project must receive pledges for the entire goal or no funds are dispersed.  [Peter is over 27% of the way to his goal of raising $10,000 by February 16.] Any help is appreciated and pledges start as low as $1.

2. [Suggest]… connections at schools and community groups, starting in my local Puget Sound region and then expanding out from there.  I already have invites from schools in Utah, Oregon and California and I’d love to make the presentations as widely available as possible.

3. Spread the word!  This project is backed by no large corporation or media outlet (yet!) so word of mouth is key to its success.  As the date gets closer I’ve had some amazing response from complete strangers offering to help… It’s a wonderful use of the internet and interviews like this are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks so much for dropping by, Peter. We’ll try out your books, and perhaps you will come back with more complete reviews of a favorite of yours once this project is complete. And readers, do take a look at Peter’s web site and consider supporting his trip in one of the three ways he suggests. After all, we can’t have too much mutual understanding in this world. [If you make a purchase at Amazon by following the link from one of the books suggested here, I'll donate the income to Peter.]

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1. Australia

2. France (not building houses in Province, please. I’ll read Monet’s Gardens, but it is mostly pictures.)

3. Sweden (Plays I have aplenty–Ibsen and Strindberg, but what about other literature?)

4. Scotland (Shakespeare’s Macbeth? Braveheart the movie.)

5. Costa Rica (I’m a total blank)

6. Canada (Someone specifically asked about Montreal)

7. Morocco (Paul Bowles? The biography of Paul Bowles by Allen Hibbard?

8. Switzerland(I love Mistress to an Age, which covers Switzerland and France during Napoleonic times, but that is not really about the country of Switzerland.)

9. Vietnam (I once read a nice novel/memoir? about a young man traveling Vietnam by bicycle. Do you know the name?)

10. Oregon (I have my great great grandfather’s account of crossing America on the Oregon trail, but that does not count as literature, nor does it tell us much about Oregon.)

What say you?

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.