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What is The Planetary Travel Challenge ?
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Launch yourself on a supreme travel adventure.
Experience the Planet as few others have done:
get to know all its physical facets, cultural
dimensions and natural challenges, for this is
not a journey for the faint hearted.

The Planetary Travel Challenge is a way for you
of getting to know Planet Earth first hand. It's a
means of encouraging geographic coverage of
the Planet as you travel far and wide. And it
should stir and embolden the traveler to
experience all the Earth's physical aspects, as
well as its cultural and human dimensions.

This system of planetary coverage goes beyond visiting only politically defined entities and destinations (countries, states, territories). Adventure travelers who adopt as their goal this systematic guide for navigating the Home Planet will come to appreciate and comprehend the full extent of Earth's physical, natural and cultural diversity. Here's a way for you to really get to know your Planet.

I have envisioned two kinds of systematic travel goals---The Planetary Travel Challenge, and (see other web page) The 18-Latitude Travel Challenge.

Here's how the method works:

Get a good world map (or globe) which has north-south lines marking every tenth meridian (every 10 degrees of longitude). It should also have east-west lines marking every tenth parallel (every 10 degrees of latitude). This website's globe logo at the top of each page shows the Earth divided in this way (ignore the grid formed by the criss-crossing of latitude and longitude lines). The longitude lines are spaced 10 degrees apart, so they divide the world into 36 equal "slices," each slice 10 degrees wide. Similarly, the latitude lines spaced 10 degrees apart divide the Planet into 18 east-west bands, each band also 10 degrees wide.

These ten-degree-wide "slices" are a geographic guide toward the goal of visiting the entire Planet---i.e. all 54 distinctive slices (36 longitude + 18 latitude).

I call the 10-degree-wide longitudinal divisions of our planet slices because they resemble slices of a watermelon (or cheese wedges, if you like). The globe at right shows one such slice of longitude, 10 degrees wide. It happens to be the slice sandwiched between 40 deg. West and 50 deg. West (Slice 40-50W, for short, always putting the lower number first). If you visit the South Orkney Islands; or Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia or Belem; or Qaqortoq in southern Greenland, you will have experienced this slice. But what a huge variation in culture, climate and landscape exists within this single slice! That's where latitude slices can enrich a traveler's appreciation of Earth (see the next globe, below).

The slice immediately west of the example shown, is the slice 50-60W. And, to the east of the example, the adjacent slice is 30-40W. So, as you circle the globe (360 degrees), you will have 36 of these back-to-back longitudinal slices. Note that all longitude slices are widest at the equator and converge to a single point at the North and South Poles. Every one of these 36 slices contains land with a human population. Visiting all of the slices is a way of sampling at least 36 different human settlements and cultures, although each of the 36 slices has more than one distinct society, way of life, and culture to be appreciated, studied and enjoyed.

Now, let's deal with the 18 latitude bands (to be consistent, I'll stay with the term "slices"). In going from South Pole (90S) to North Pole (90N), you cover 180 degrees of latitude, so there are 18 of these 10-degree-wide latitude slices on our planet's surface: 80-90S, 70-80S, 60-70S---and so forth, past the equator (0 degrees latitude)---until you reach 60-70N, 70-80N and 80-90N.

The globe at left shows one such slice of latitude. It is the slice sandwiched between 10 deg. South and 20 deg. South (Slice 10-20S, for short). Visit anywhere around the world, within this slice, and you could find yourself in Bom Jesus da Lapa, Poopo, Pisco, Fakarava, Anaa, Erromango, Borroloola, Baa, Analalava, Moroni, Zomba, Xangongo, or St. Helena. Are many of these towns or populated places included in your priority destination plans? No? You need to travel more!

Lying within the same, narrow latitude slice, the societies and cultures in these places are shaped by their natural environment---predominantly the tropical humid climate type, with rainforest or savanna, or humid subtropical lands and vegetation. And they offer the visitor a fascinating diversity of cultural development and ways of living, given the environment within this 10-degree-wide latitude band. The wildlife and vegetation, too, will be those best adapted to such an environment.

Contrast this slice with Slice 60-70S. Here, the Planet can show you a different face: no political borders; no local currency; no native people; no cultural heritage; no hotels, casinos, shopping malls or night clubs; no commercial airports; no public transport; no cities, towns or villages; not even a single permanent human settlement. In a landscape where trees do not exist, this slice has nice ice! Magnificent ice, in astonishing shapes, sizes, and tints of blue. And thrown in with the ice, are glaciers spilling from snow-capped mountains, exposed rock towering to the sky, and wildlife species which have made this land of ice a kingdom of their very own. You, the visitor, are clearly the intruder in their realm.

Experiencing the 18 latitude slices gives you a deeper appreciation of the only planet you will ever explore. By sampling these slices, you expose yourself and your camera's image sensor to the Earth's variations in climate, geology, landscape, and wildlife---independent of any human presence and history.

So, get to know at least one location within each of the 36 longitudinal slices. Stay a little while; experience some of the daily life there; interact with the people who live there; savor the nature, landscape, climate, culture, and language at that location. To me, each longitudinal slice represents a different sampling of the Planet's human civilization and culture. This is the cultural aspect experienced by Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, as they went around the world in 80 days, in Jules Verne's classic novel.

As for the 18 latitude slices, remember that each 10-degree slice offers the traveler a unique aspect of the physical Earth---geologically, climatically, and in its distinct flora and fauna. This is something Phileas Fogg and Passepartout largely missed in their travels.

If you visit and (better still) stay a little while somewhere within each latitude slice, Earth will get really physical and show you everything it has:

From bitter cold, to sweltering heat; withering dryness, to oppressive humidity. From utter silence, to the deafening loudness of waterfalls, waves, wind, and calving glaciers; from the gentlest of breezes, to the shredding fury of a blizzard; from barren landscapes resembling the surface of Mars---and Dry Valleys that have seen no rain for at least two million years, to mountain forests so dense you cannot see the sky; from islands permanently clad in snow and ice, to islands permanently verdant with lush, tropical vegetation.

And, naturally, in each of these environments, Earth will offer you its denizens---the wildlife and plant life which make that latitude their home.

By experiencing each of the 36 longitude and 18 latitude
slices, you can develop lasting impressions of a planet,
unmatched throughout the solar system in its astonishing
diversity---physical, biological, political, and cultural.

I write these lines with the hindsight granted by experience.
I set out to cut up the Planet into 54 slices but, long before
I devised The Planetary Travel Challenge idea, I had already
made first-time visits to several of these slices. It has taken
me a lifetime to cover 53 of them.

So, “The Challenge” continues to entice me. But there is no
rush; let it take more of my lifetime to get to Slice No. 54.

Accepting The Planetary Travel Challenge forced me to see
travel in a different way and to understand what it meant to
know the world. I did this by pushing my travel boundaries
well beyond the must-see, popular (and heavily populated)
destinations.

Am I Within the Slice
Where I Want to Be?

As long as adventure travel remains fun for you, you can get to experience all 54 slices and realize a remarkable lifetime achievement: knowing Planet Earth intimately. That's a goal for your travels and a legacy for you to leave behind.

In all likelihood, you have already visited many of the 54 slices. The order in which you tackle the remaining ones should be decided by your travel interests and priorities.

Do remember that Earth has a lot to offer the visitor beneath the waves. If a specific slice can be visited within diving depth---a coral reef, an underwater park, a marine reserve, a submerged geologic feature---enjoy the spectacle, wildlife, and experience of that submerged slice.