The Globes Bloggers are the essential bloggers when it comes to sustainable tourism. When I launched Ethik Hotels, I immediately started to follow Laura and Sébastien's adventures with attention. They started sharing their travel discoveries 8 years ago, when they went to discover Latin America for 10 months. Since then, they make me dream with their escapades! So it was only natural that I asked them to participate in our "5 questions to" series. Discover now their answers.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us what travel means to you?
We are Laura and Sébastien from the travel blog Les Globe Blogueurs. For us travel is mainly two strong dimensions:
- The first is the search for permanent wonder that nature offers us.
- Secondly, it is the possibility of meeting others, of confronting other realities, ways of thinking or ways of living, whether it is a stone's throw from home or at the other end of the world.
And what we prefer above all is to understand the link between Man and his environment and how we can reconnect with nature.
What is the trip that made the biggest impression on you? Why did it happen?
This is always a complicated, if not impossible, question because each trip is very different and resonates specifically with who you were at the time.
But I will say that it is surely our 10 month trip to Latin America. The fact of traveling with time, in the same geographical area, taught us a lot about ourselves and about the world. And above all, we left as two and came back as three since our son who is now 7 years old is "made in Peru" we could say. He traveled with us in utero the last months. It is necessarily the most beautiful memory of trip.
This trip was also intense because in the same period we lost close relatives even though we were at the other end of the world. It was therefore tinged with great moments of distress. We were able to count on the empathy and benevolence of strangers we met along the way. To live in one's flesh these moments of deep humanity, it inevitably marks and reminds us that beyond the differences we always have something to share with the others.
How do you see post-Covid tourism?
I think that many people have become aware of many issues and especially have been able to experience other ways of traveling and realize that it was also rewarding.
However, I think that the desire to travel elsewhere will not disappear overnight. Maybe we will be more reasonable about our travel desires and we will think about them differently in terms of temporality and distance. Short escapades close to home and distant trips over a longer period.
At least that's how I imagine it for me. I haven't given up on traveling to the other side of the world. But I prefer to wait until I have time to devote to them. Just as I left for 10 months in Latin America and 6 months in Asia, I plan to do other projects over several months when it will be possible. On the one hand, this allows me to share the possible transportation by plane. On the other hand, the experience of a trip over a long period of time seems to me more enriching. By having time, we allow ourselves to go off the beaten track, to understand what is going on around us, to meet new people.
What is your next vacation destination?
As I write, I have a week of vacation coming up that will be totally improvised in the South East of France, somewhere between Grenoble and Marseille, Montpellier and Nice. No preparation, we'll let ourselves be carried by the events and places that we've been eyeing for a while. In our work as travel bloggers, our stays are often well planned so for the vacations I let the chance happen and I love it.
A book to advise us that we could slip into our suitcase?
I rarely put a book in my suitcase. Even in transportation, I watch the landscape go by. When I travel, I tend to want to feel the atmosphere and live the moment.
But if you want to travel just by reading, I recommend the books of Alain Mabanckou who takes you to picturesque Congolese atmospheres. In general, I like to read authors of African origin. I find that they are not valued enough for my taste, even though they offer different perspectives. Among those I like are Calixte Beyala, Chimamanda Ngozi, Fatou Diome, Ahmadou Kourouma, Amadou Hampâté Ba...
For the practical aspect, my must-have are the Tao guides which allow me to find addresses and initiatives in France and around the world.
