Another year and another decade have passed, another year and another decade we won’t get back. Despite all the indicators to the contrary (I highly suggest reading Stephen Pinker’s Enlightenment Now) it certainly feels like we’re living in particularly turbulent times. Brexit, Trump, ISIS, Facebook…the 2010’s have repeatedly been called the Decade of Crisis.   It was also a decade that took us into science fiction more than one would think.  Consider arriving in January 1, 2010, and telling a person on the street:

• My iPhone takes better studio portraits than professional studios
• I was hungry but my Uber driver had snacks
• Did you see the drone firework display in Shanghai?
• According to my watch/Fitbit, I took 8,912 steps today
• I’ll pay for that by tapping my phone
• It’s included in the magazine subscriptions on my iPad
• Let’s binge watching Season 22 of the Simpsons
• I feel like instantly listening to every hit from 1992
• I swiped right and now we’re married
• Hey Siri, remind me to take out the trash at 1pm?
• It’s one of the most popular bag designs on Kickstarter
• I’ll get someone to design that on Fiver or Upwork
• I love that influencer’s selfies on insta
• Hey Google, is it a catastrophic fire day in Adelaide?
• It’s fake news
• We’ve got a Whatsapp group, but I’ll Snap you
• Elon Musk reckons his re-usable rockets, Cybertruck and Hyperloop will help us colonize Mars
• Did you see a doctor went to jail for gene editing babies?
• I’ll have a Beyond Burger please, and a pizza with plant-based pepperoni

​What the hell are you talking about?   And this is just a fraction of the global fizzle-pop martini that has shaken and stirred over the past ten years. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Charles Dickens wrote that timeless line in 1859.  There is always political, cultural and economic turbulence, although this decade frequent environmental disasters joined the party.   Unprecedented droughts (South Africa, Argentina, Australia), floods (India, Louisiana, Oklahoma), hurricanes (Bahamas, Puerto Rico), storms (Superstorm Sandy, Tropical Irene), heatwaves, wildfires (Australia, California, BC), the melting Arctic, city-sized icebergs breaking off Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.  And facing this global challenge are a bunch of world leaders not too removed from comic book villains.

​There have always been high season and low season, but overtourism – best represented by  poster children like Barcelona and the Louvre, Venice and Dubrovnik -  proved canaries in the coalmine for the onslaught of travellers benefitting from cheap airfare, growing middle classes and an obsession with social media validation.  I’ve had to question my own role in all of this, as this decade saw me transform from a freelance writer and television host into the bestselling author of a half dozen “bucket list” themed books.  Not to mention a husband and father. What hasn’t changed is the core of what set me off fifteen years ago:  an insatiable curiosity, and the desire to share what I discover with others in the hope that it inspires them as much as it has inspired me.

My latest book is about the joys, trials, hilarity and wonders when travelling with kids across Australia.  Gone are the days of intense budget travel, and I’m a little long in the tooth to be sharing dorms in hostels (plus kids under six are not the best bunk mates).    But they do demand and instigate new adventures all the time.   We’re kicking off 2020 with a true bucket list road trip adventure, visiting three incredible BC ski resorts to learn – as a family – how to embrace the Canadian winter, and make it down a mountain on skis.    Having warmed up for a recent Vancouver Sun story about Whistler, we’re kicking off on the powder of RED Mountain, revving up for Revelstoke, and with any luck we will get a thumbs up from Olympic legend Nancy Greene on the slopes of Sun Peaks.  As usual, I hope to inspire other families to do the same, and at the very least, avoid visits to the hospital (my ER visit in Whistler to saw off my wedding ring was enough, thanks).
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Whatever happens in the year and decade to come, may the weather prove fair and your health fairer.  May our challenges be met and our smiles frequent. I hope we continue to appreciate the incredible benefits of our privilege, and empathize with those who want nothing more than to share a piece of it.   Every year that passes is a year we won’t get back. Regardless of what we might be telling ourselves in 2030, let’s continue to make them count.

It’s been a tumultuous month in the world of bucket list experiences.   The New York Times art critic ran a story about the sheer and utter disappointment of seeing the Mona Lisa, glassed away from the masses of crowds expecting something more...transcendent.  Asked on national radio about my own experience with Leonardo’s masterpiece, I recalled seeing it many years ago, and feeling distinctly underwhelmed:  “I thought there would be God rays and confetti, and angels would be singing with harps.”   If I didn’t know it was regarded as the pinnacle of artistic expression, I would have walked past it, marvelling at plenty other works in the Louvre that would better match that description.   The subject moved onto travel experiences that are disappointing.   Each to their own, but there’s really only a few factors that will make an activity or destination disappointing:

1. There are too many people and the crowd overwhelms the experience.
2. It is too expensive and you feel jilted by the cost.
3. The wildlife didn’t turn up because, you know, wildlife.
4. The weather sucked, so you’re too busy focusing on how great it would be if the weather didn’t suck.
5. You were robbed, fell ill, got hit by a bus, or were press-ganged into slavery aboard a Thai tuna fishing vessel. 

All this to say:  The experience did not live up to your expectations.   The higher your expectations, the higher the chance that the destination or activity will disappoint you.   Reality simply can’t compete with your imagination.  And I can’t blame anyone for having an imagination stoked by the most perfect of all scenarios.  On television shows, in travel articles, in books (ahem), you rarely see or hear about crowds, costs, and crap weather.  The sky is mostly blue, and the animals always show up.   It is very rare that everything comes together exactly as it does in the brochures, and yet the marketing of peak experience does no favours to your expectations.  You’re being set up for disappointment, so better to have no or limited expectations to begin with. 

One of the tools proposed to combat the scourge of overtourism is Responsible Marketing.  This would require tour operators and destination marketing organizations to use real people in real situations, not models beneath a Photoshop sky.   Imagine if casinos were restricted to responsible marketing?   Instead of hot couples smiling as they win at the roulette table, you’d see leathered alcoholics flushing away next month’s rent. Any activity that depends on good weather is particularly vulnerable to unmet expectations.   Nobody wants to visit a beach in a hailstorm, ski on a mountain without snow, or get rained on during a parade.  My biggest disappointment is the northern lights – a dreamy bucket list experience that is particularly weather dependent.  Ten times I should have seen a magical natural fireworks display in the sky, and ten times the sky was overcast, or the solar ions weren't firing, or the sky lit up the day before I arrived, and the day after I left.  Ten times in the freezing northern winter, including trips to Whitehorse and Yellowknife during peak aurora-watching season.    Eventually I did see the northern lights,  but compared to all the alluring photographs and stories, witnessing a slight pulsating green fog in the frigid, early morning sky (few people know that the best time to see the lights is well after midnight) was a let down. At least I hadn’t flown in all the way from Japan, unlike the disappointed aurora-watchers around me. 

​The global bucket list took another hit this month with the chaos surrounding One Ocean Expeditions.  I’ve worked with this Squamish-based company for several years, having visited Antarctica, crossed the Northwest Passage in the high Arctic and more recently taken my mom and daughter to remote islands in the Atlantic on their wonderful boats, guided by their wonderful crew.  I’ve recommended the company at dozens of talks and in my books, and was shocked to hear they’ve been shipwrecked with financial difficulties.  Passengers were left stranded shortly before an Antarctica sailing, most support staff have left the company, and information from the permanently closed head office to hundreds of out of pocket clients has been cryptic and scarce.   The source of the issue appears to have been the damage that occurred to one of their Russian leased vessels in August 2018.    There are competing claims as to who was responsible and should foot the bill, and as a result the Russians withdrew their ships from One Ocean’s service.  This sent the company scampering to fill exist bookings on their single remaining ship, and in all likelihood broke the sea camel’s back.   The company’s mysterious restructuring has been devastating for their amazing staff and crew, many of whom are owed tens of thousands of dollars in wages.  It has been devastating for passengers around the world who have footed up to $14,000 per ticket, and have no travel insurance recourse to get their money back.  It has been devastating for the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, who benefitted from One Ocean as a major sponsor, and it has been devastating for polar tourism.  One Ocean did vital, generous and important work for the Arctic and Antarctica, supporting scientists, educators, communicators and students.  I remember telling passengers that One Ocean did not just help us tick Antarctica off our bucket list, the company had helped us become ambassadors for a truly incredible, vulnerable and oft-misunderstood eco-system.  Despite hope that a new financial partner will save the day, the damage to the brand and betrayal of trust of both clients and crew is, in all probability, fatal.  Despite some wild rumours swirling around, I do believe One Ocean had a wonderful heart. Operating at the mercy of the roughest of natural elements, it just needed a better business brain.  Here's hoping for smooth waters and easy sailing ahead for passengers, crew, company and the polar region itself.