Better things to see in Alaska . . .

You just have to shake your head at some of the macabre reasons people find to travel - at what draws them to obscure destinations like a rusting bus in the Alaskan interior where young idealist Christopher McCandless, now the subject of the hit movie “Into the Wild”, was found dead in September 1992.

Granted - the highly romanticized account of the young man’s escape to the wild is a fascinating one .

In 1990 he turned his back on the materialism of his upper middle-class background and started the life of a “super-tramp” pitting himself against the forces of nature and living off the land whenever and wherever he could.

Two years later he headed for Alaska and ended up not far from Fairbanks on a trail near Denali National Park where he found an abandoned bus that became his last home and where, after less than 5 months of struggling against the elements, he finally starved to death.

I can understand why the biography by Jon Krakauer was a success, and I can understand why the film and all its lavish scenery was so popularly received (I mean there are bears there - what more needs to be said...) but how did the scene of the young man’s death become such a mecca for tourists to Alaska?

What is this morbid fascination for scenes of the crime, burial plots ... ?

Alaska is all about life and the beauty and strength of mother nature – bears (of course, the bears), bald eagles, moose, wolves, living forests, rivers teeming with salmon, seas of whales and shores of seals. Why not concentrate on that if you’re headed to Alaska?

What can be so fascinating about a rusting bus where an unprepared and misguided young man met his end too soon?

Check out Travel Tidings Alaska for some of the better things to see in Alaska.

Eat Chocolate - See the World!

"Eat Chocolate - See the World!" Now there's a motto I can identify with. So too the people at The Chocolate Lovers Travel Club all men and women, and bears too presumably (we want to be politically correct here) who love chocolate and travel. By rail or by sea, they're on the noble quest for all the world's best fine chocolates, coffee and specialty teas.

Visiting the world’s top gourmet chocolate, coffee and specialty tea destinations, they're seriously dedicated to experiencing the world’s best caffeinated kicks.

You can sign up with the folks at The Chocolate Lovers Club and find out more about eating chocolate and seeing the world...

Now that is seriously kewl.

Send choklit!