Armed with a bag of Sunkist candy and a wallet full of bribe money, author Chuck Thompson waded through one of the most feared destinations of earth for his latest book, To Hellholes and Back.
But another destination offers an equal amount of fear, though not for one’s personal safety — Disney World.
His mission was simple: travel to some of the darkest, dirtiest and most dangerous locations on the planet including the Congo, Mexico City, India and the aforementioned Happiest Place on Earth and make a vacation of it.
Book Excerpt: To Hellholes and Back
“Essentially, the theme of the book is dealing with places and locations that have acquired very negative reputations by a large number of travellers, with myself included,” Thompson explains. “I’ve been in travel writing a long time, but I’ve never really seen a good treatment on the topic of fear and paranoia in travel.”
For Thompson, “extreme tourism” is a fluid term that means different things to different people, but the common denominator is getting people out of their comfort zones.
“Comfort is the enemy of creativity,” says Thompson. “It is usually good to break out of your normal environs … why not?”
Take the Congo, for example. Thompson went to a country best known as the scary place in the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness expecting little more than an AIDS-riddled, wartorn country with parasitic creatures that like to burrow in human orifices to lay eggs.
And he found, well, all that, but also that there was much more.
“There was a bucketful of problems, for sure, but the people were really friendly and fun, and there was a lot of humour and a lot of life,” Thompson explains. “And it is beautiful.”
And Mexico City offered even more. Thompson says that although the city is usually thought of as a kidnapping-in-waiting-style vacation retreat, he enjoyed himself so much that he went again on his own dime and is planning another trip this spring.
“The biggest danger down there is gaining 10 pounds from all the taco snarfing,” says Thompson.
Thompson, who lives in Portland, Oregon, got his start travel writing for an American Airlines’ inflight magazine before graduating to publications such as Maxim, Outside and Men’s Journal. He was also the first editor-in-chief of Travelocity magazine. His last book, Smile When You’re Lying, was a 35-country romp disguised as a critique of trashy travel writing.
Thompson reads from Hellholes at Harbourfront Centre on Feb. 17 (www.readings.org).
