{"id":21880,"date":"2016-11-11T00:56:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T08:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=21880"},"modified":"2016-11-11T10:24:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T18:24:28","slug":"what-made-your-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/11\/11\/what-made-your-list\/","title":{"rendered":"What made your list?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robin Esrock contemplating ancient wonders in Turkey. (photo by Paul Vance\/EWM)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Read about Robin Esrock\u2019s visit to a fountain of youth in Colombia, his rail journey across Siberia, his diving lessons in Papua New Guinea. Esrock has traveled to more than 100 countries and, as he writes in the introduction to The Great Global Bucket List<\/em>, the hybrid guidebook and essay collection \u201cdraws together the best of these adventures.\u201d What\u2019s more, Esrock hopes that you won\u2019t just read about his exploits, but make plans for your own.<\/p>\n

\"bookEsrock is one of the many writers participating in this year\u2019s Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Nov. 27-Dec. 1. The local author and journalist has not only been featured in the Jewish Independent<\/em> before \u2013 for The Great Canadian Bucket List<\/em>, among other things \u2013 but has written for the paper as well, so it was nice to catch up with him in anticipation of his Nov. 27, 5 p.m., presentation at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, appropriately called Travel Dreams.<\/p>\n

While his career as an intrepid traveler only started after a bike accident \u2013 from which he received a broken kneecap and, eventually, a $20,000 insurance settlement that was \u201cjust enough,\u201d he writes, \u201cif used sparingly, to book a solo one-year adventure around the world\u201d \u2013 he had traveled before.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first trip overseas was to Israel when I was 11, on a discovery tour, with my family and grandparents,\u201d he told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt was a hop-on, hop-off bus trip to tick off Israel\u2019s greatest hits. I did a European bus tour after high school, memorable in that I can\u2019t remember much of it, a two-month stint to a kibbutz, and then backpacked up East Africa to Zanzibar. I didn\u2019t get malaria, but I did get the travel bug. I lived in London for a couple years and used that as a base to visit various odd spots in Europe, but the idea of traveling around the world always seemed like an impossible dream. Once it finally manifested, the result of a modest insurance settlement for my accident, I couldn\u2019t believe I\u2019d waited so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The accident occurred as Esrock was approaching his 30th birthday. On that first yearlong trip, he visited 24 countries and was \u201cpublished in newspapers on five continents.\u201d<\/p>\n

He writes, \u201cA year later, my Hail-Mary pitch for a TV show landed on the right desk at the right time and, seven months later, I found myself as a co-host, writer and producer for a 40-part adventure series filmed in 36 countries. Funded by television networks, I was tasked with seeking out experiences that conformed to my bucket list criteria: Is this destination or activity unique? Is it something I will never forget? Will it make a great story? Is it something everyone can actually do?<\/p>\n

\u201cTick off all those subjective items, and the journey began.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were the same criteria Esrock used to compile his shortlist for The Great Global Bucket List<\/em>. Then, he said, \u201cI had to cut 27 chapters for size in my book, but, fortunately, I have a Bucket List blog (globalbucketlist.com<\/a>) to find them a home, and add new experiences. In my book, you\u2019ll find far-flung adventures (Antarctica! the Galapagos! the Azores! the Amazon!) but you won\u2019t find the Eiffel Tower or Tower of Pisa. This is a book of inspiring stories and photographs, not a guide to popular tourist traps.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to experiencing many a far-flung adventure over the last decade or so, Esrock has also found the time to start a family. How has that changed his travel plans?<\/p>\n

\"photo
Robin Esrock camping in Antarctica. (photo by Jeff Topham)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere seems to be a subtle flow in the career of travel writers: you start with hardcore budget travel, transition into hard adventure, then soft adventure, romance, family, cruise, food, wine, spa, and end up in golf!\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t take the risks I once did, or have the energy to sleep in roach hotels. People have become more important than ever and, since I\u2019ve managed to tick off so much, I\u2019m very drawn to unique experiences. My kids are a little young (3 and 3 months) to start ticking off a family bucket list, but I\u2019d love to take them to countries like India, Cambodia, Israel and Turkey, where locals embrace children. Disneyland can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

And his own bucket list?<\/p>\n

\u201cWrite a novel that explains, in an entertaining way, everything I have learned on my journey. Raise my kids to be curious and up for anything, so they can join me on future adventures. And I\u2019d love to get to the five \u2019Stans on the Silk Road in Central Asia, which has a rich history, few tourists, and is undergoing a fascinating modern transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Esrock added, \u201cThere\u2019s too much bad news out there. The 24\/7 news cycle dictates that bad news must be happening somewhere, all the time. The goal with my bucket lists, and with my career in general, is to provide some much-needed good news. In all my journeys, I\u2019ve never been robbed, attacked, violently ill or had my organs harvested (at least to my knowledge!). The world is far more welcoming, reasonable, peaceful and beautiful than you\u2019d imagine.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people see bucket lists as a silly, ultimately harmful pastime that creates unrealistic goals. I see them as a mechanism for positive inspiration. You don\u2019t have to go sandboarding on a volcano in Nicaragua or cage swim with crocodiles. You just have to do that thing you\u2019ve always wanted to do, even if it\u2019s just fixing the garden. We don\u2019t have nearly as much time as we think we do. Every chapter in my book concludes with \u2018Start Here,\u2019 and an online link to practical info for readers to follow in my footsteps. More important, I think, is to start now<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the full book festival schedule and tickets, visit jccgv.com\/content\/jewish-book-fest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The idea behind a bucket list is that life is finite and, if there are things we would like to do, we should do them while we can. The Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival opens the night of Nov. 27 with San Francisco-based writer and psychiatrist Dr. Irvin D. Yalom in conversation with Vancouver psychotherapist Larry Green. The title of Yalom\u2019s most recent book, <\/em>Creatures of a Day, comes from Marcus Aurelius\u2019 <\/em>The Meditations, to which Yalom refers more than once in his writings, and from which he quotes at the beginning of his latest book: \u201cAll of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike. All is ephemeral \u2013 both memory and the object of memory. The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere<\/em>.\u201d Creatures of a Day is a collection of 10 stories based on his patients\u2019 experiences with loss and illness, and their \u2013 and Yalom\u2019s \u2013 efforts to live a life of both meaning and pleasure.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robin Esrock contemplating ancient wonders in Turkey. (photo by Paul Vance\/EWM) Read about Robin Esrock\u2019s visit to a fountain of youth in Colombia, his rail journey across Siberia, his diving lessons in Papua New Guinea. Esrock has traveled to more than 100 countries and, as he writes in the introduction to The Great Global Bucket […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[6522,72,4503,2084],"class_list":["post-21880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-bucket-list","tag-jewish-book-festival","tag-mortality","tag-travel-2"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}