“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” — Rachel Carson Growing up, I rode ponies and climbed trees and swam in lakes. These experiences weren’t always comfortable or happy. However, these were the experiences which taught me how to be independent, curious,…
Tag: experiences
Stakeholder Perspectives and Future Directions for Dracula Tourism in Romania
Introduction Literary tourism, a sub-set of heritage tourism, allows tourists to engage with foreign landscapes in a playful and creative way (Squire 1996; Muresan and Smith 1998). Whether travelling to investigate the setting of a novel or the homestead of an author, literary tourists have pre-existing expectations which they integrate into their active, participatory performances…
Future Research Directions for Dark and Heritage Tourism: A Systems Perspective
Introduction Dark tourism, which is the packaging and consumption of sites associated with death and disaster, has been increasing globally for the past two decades (Foley and Lennon 1996; Sharpley and Stone 2009; Lemelin, et al. 2010; Yankholmes and Akyeampong 2010; Biran, et al. 2011; Knudsen 2011; Ria, et al. 2011). Sites frequented by dark…
Birthday Thoughts
Today is my 24th birthday. I’m working – in secret – on a list of things that I want to accomplish in my 24th year. Or thereafter. It doesn’t really matter, since I’ll probably just keep a reflective diary of my progress. I’m thinking almost daily about what’s important to me. Rest assured that if…
A Daily Indulgence
It’s 2:37pm on the day before my thesis defence. I’m nervous, excited, and altogether anxious to get through the proceeding 24 hours. A two-year process full of work, stress, new insights, and rapid learning experiences is about to (symbolically) come to an end. I hesitated to talk about my thesis defence publicly, on a blog…
Living Life Online
Every time I click the little “Publish” button on this WordPress website, my writing zips through cyberspace and lands in various social media feeds – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Linkedin. It’s amazingly interconnected, and a fascinating psychological phenomenon to watch myself eagerly evaluate the stats on website visitation levels, clicks, and page views. I have…
I Dream of Adventures
There is a dangerous thing that can happen to an unsuspecting person when they are out running mundane, everyday errands. ‘It’ happened to me recently. I was out getting an oil change for my car, and to amuse myself while the mechanics were doing their thing, I stopped in at a Canadian Automobile Association (CAA)…
Maria Legault 