In just over two months I will be returning to London, England for a short but fun trip.
I was debating over my travel options a few months ago, but I finally made a decision when I realized how to knock another item off my to-do-in-life list. More on that later.
Picture taken during my last trip - on the eve of New Year's Eve 2008
I’ve always loved elephants. Ever since I completed a project on them in elementary school, I’ve been really keen about finding ways to support and protect them.
So I was excited to find out about Elephant Family this month – a small but ambitious charity that’s working to save the Asian elephant from extinction and abuse. While it’s based in London and I haven’t yet decided how I’m going to reach out to them to give my support, I immediately fell in love with their Elephant Parade and wish I could have been there to witness it.
The Elephant Parade, which took place in May, had Britain’s leading artists and designers create brightly coloured elephant statues and strategically place them across London. The goal was to raise awareness and funds, and have people sign their petition to save the Asian elephant. Millions of people would have the seen the elephants, and they ended up raising over £4 million – which is fantastic!
They promoted it using this video as a call to action:
Aren’t these elephants lovely? I would have spent a few hours roaming around trying to find all of them. Here are some photos I found on Flickr (click each to go to the photographer’s page):
Learn more about the cause and see more photos of the parade on the Elephant Family website.
I found out this week that I have more vacation days than I thought and I have to use them by the end of the year. Suddenly, I’m dreaming of all the places in the world that I want to go to and remembering all the wonderful places that I’ve already been (and would like to return to).
I’m leaning towards one or many of the following for this year: New York City, San Francisco, Dallas, Tuscany, London and Nice (really, anywhere in the South of France).
I guess being unsure about where and when to travel is a great problem to have. It could be worse.
Image of Nice, France by NirmalH – (CC: by-nc-nd)