Here at Perceptive Travel, we believe that good travel stories are a lot more compelling than yet another “Top 10 Beaches of Some Place Warm”….not that we don’t occasionally dip into such territory, but our lists are more like, Five Travel Books to Take on a World Cruise.

Our parent publication, the Perceptive Travel webzine, specializes in wonderful travel stories that you can’t find in very many places these days, online or in print.

The latest issue for June 2010 just came out, and here’s what is in store for readers:

** On a simple trip to write about Ireland, Rachel Dickinson becomes part of the lead story on every newscast: all the planes grounded in northern Europe because of a giant eruption in Iceland and the resulting gift from Eyjafjallajökull. Find out more in Trapped Beneath the Volcanic Ash Cloud.

**  When a guidebook writer gets the enviable job of covering the island of Kauai, she finds the locals are not too keen on another writeup encouraging stupid tourists to do stupid things on their sacred land. Trouble in paradise for Michele Bigley? Read Kauai Footprints: the Dark Side of “Hidden Hawaii.”

**  The land that was the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of coffee gave rise to the world’s original travelers. Where? Ethiopia: Birthplace of the Traveler—and Then Some by Bruce Northam.

This month, as every month, there are reviews of terrific world music offerings, and also each month is a chance to win travel-related goodies, but you need to do one of two things:

• subscribe to the (free) Perceptive Travel newsletter OR
• tell us that you Like our brand-new Perceptive Travel Facebook Page.

This month we’re giving away a sweet prize – whoever emerges victorious will receive a $200 gift pack from Tilley Endurables. They make awesome travel hats, quick-dry travel underwear and more.

Go! Read! Enjoy!

Having braved the tunnels in Darwin, in Bali (the second port of call for the Dawn Princess World Cruise) I soon moved on to a new challenge – riding an elephant.

I discovered that one of the shore excursions offered in Bali was an hour and a half bus tour inland from the Benoa Harbor (the second port of call for the Dawn Princess World Cruise) to the Elephant Safari Park where visitors are able to take an elephant ride. So, of course, I jumped at the chance, despite the fact that I’m really not all that good at heights – having to go more than two steps up a ladder causes me to break out in a cold sweat.

The Elephant Safari Park, founded by Australian Nigel Mason, is home to more that two dozen Sumatran elephants made homeless following massive deforestation in their home country of Sumatra.

Mason, working with the World Zoo Association, initially rescued only nine of these elephants but over the years, the number of elephants rescued and relocated to this elephant sanctuary rose to 27.

And as elephant sanctuaries go, this one appears first class. The elephants are cared for by individual mahouts, most of whom have been with the same elephants for years. Sitting casually on the elephant, these mahouts expertly guide their elephant around the jungle sanctuary while nervous visitors such as myself are perched on the custom fitted teak saddle seats.

Turns out stepping off the ledge onto the elephant’s back was easy. But when the elephant started moving, it soon became apparent that I was way past the third step of the ladder.

The fear, however, soon dissipated as the mahout slowly guided the elephant along the trail and I got an amazing  bird’s eye view of surrounding native vegetation.

As well as elephant rides, the Elephant Safari Park puts on a delicious buffet lunch, and for those who want to stay more than just one day, the newly opened Elephant Safari Park Lodge provides the ideal place to spend a night or two with these gentle giants.

A couple of weeks ago, I paid a visit to a place originally called Ocean View Avenue, in Monterey, California.

In the early 1900s, this street was locally known as “Cannery Row”, due to the number of sardine canneries lining the street. But of course, it only really achieved notoriety as the thinly-veiled inspiration for author John Steinbeck.  In 1958, fourteen years after the  novel Cannery Row was published, the name of the street was officially changed to its longtime nickname in honor of the book and its author.

Now, I read Cannery Row when I was a teenager but I remembered nothing about it, so when I got home, I pulled my yellowed copy off my bookshelf. I just finished re-reading. From the perspective of destination marketing, I’m a bit surprised that the city of Monterey wanted to honor the novel — if you also don’t remember the book very well, allow me to remind you: it’s grim, people.

Monterey is portrayed as a nasty place, a place that will suck the life right out of you.

Besides the two suicides that happen before the book is half done, men live in large industrial pipes, prostitutes shriek, planned parties go wrong, backs are broken, and cons and swindles are a part of daily life. The only real hero is a man named Doc whose business is basically providing corpses of all sorts of creatures, from jellyfish to cats.

Anything lovely that happens in the book gets messed up in some essential way. To cite just one example, one day, Doc goes gathering octopi and sea cradles. “..he looked under stones, leaned down and peered into tide pools with their brilliant mosaics and their scuttling, bubbling life…”  And in the midst of this rapturous communion with aquatic nature, Doc pushed aside some seaweed and finds the dead body of a young girl.

We never find who she is and why she died, and through this omission we’re made to understand that this is how life works. The moment you truly lose yourself to bliss, you’re likely to turn up evidence of evil, decay.

Things like this happen all the time on Steinbeck’s Cannnery Row, so it made sense when I learned that Steinbeck had mixed feelings about Monterey when he wrote the novel.  According to The Steinbeck Center, in 1944, the author:

… bought a house in Monterey but was unwelcome; no one would rent him an office for writing. He was harassed when trying to get fuel and wood from a local wartime rations board.

Steinbeck wrote that his old friends did not want him, partly because of his works and partly because he was so successful: “This isn’t my country anymore. And it won’t be until I am dead. It makes me very sad.” He left Monterey the next year and moved to New York.”  [The year Cannery Row was published.]

Steinbeck died in New York in 1968, and of course the Cannery Row of today is nothing like the Cannery Row he once knew. There aren’t any canneries on Cannery Row any more, because the sardines were depleted through overfishing — although there is a new InterContinental, and several wine tasting rooms, mixed in with a certain amount of near-schlocky tourist bait.

The big draw on today’s Cannery Row is the terrific Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is an impressive center of activism on behalf of the earth’s oceans.The aquarium is located on the site of the former Hovden Cannery — which closed in the 1970s, the last cannery to shut down on the street. I can’t help but feel optimistic about that fact –the aquarium is a good that came out of something rather tragic.

I also can’t help but observe that such a happy ending would never have happened on Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.