From the eccentric to the spiritual to the dangerous, this latest edition of the award winning Perceptive Travel webzine provides armchair traveller with thought provoking travel stories.

Regular contributor Bruce Northam kicks off this edition of Perceptive Travel webzine with A Different State of Mine in Canada’s Yukon Territory, discovering his own inner grown-up in the place full of ‘bearded brew-sippers, sassy female bartenders sporting armpit hair, and at-home First Nations artists’.

In Setting Foot on Celtic Sod, Becky Garrison’s traveler’s pilgrimage to Glendolough takes an unexpected turn when the quiet and deserted ruins she heads off to visit appears, at first glance, to be nothing more than an overcrowded tourist trap.

In No Salad Days at the Buenos Aires Thieves Market, Camille Cusumano has to cross over a river of toxic garbage to experience the world’s largest illegal market.

Editor Tim Leffel covers this month’s world music reviews, looking at some albums from  Brazilian and Central Africa.

And another regular contributor Susan Griffith writes this month’s travel book reviews.

Plus, as usual, there is some free stuff to win. This month’s grab bag will be a pair of

travel chopsticks from Grand Trunk, a set of three Dry Organizer Sacs from Innate, and a Survival Medic kit from Adventure Medical.

Of course, you have to be in to win.

If you’re a subscriber to the monthly Perceptive Travel e-mail, then just follow the instructions in the latest newsletter.

If you’re not on our monthly e-mail newsletter list, sign up by clicking here.

You can also follow Perceptive Travel on Facebook

The Perceptive Travel website, of which this blog is an offshoot, just picked up a Silver for ‘Best Travel Journalism Website’ at the 2011 North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) awards announced earlier this week.

But that’s not all.
Many of the stories published on Perceptive Travel website throughout the year also garnered awards:

* Amy Rosen, “Can a Croissant Change Your Life?” (Gold, Cultural, Educational, Self-Improvement Travel category)

* Tim  Leffel, “Side Saddle Girls at a Mexican Rodeo”   (Gold – Special Focus Travel Articles category)

* Lisa Te Sonne, “Voices & Choices When a Human Flies”  (Sliver, Leisure Activity category)

* Tim Leffel, “The Dreams of Man in Stone and Concrete”  (Bronze, Personality and Profiles category)

* Amy Rosen, “My Life & Times with the CN Tower” (Silver, Historical or Hobby Travel category)

Congratulations to Tim Leffel and all the great PT writers.

Congratulations are also in order for the other two travel websites in the the ‘Best Travel Journalism Website’ – USA Today Travel (Veronica Stoddart) picked up the Gold and Travel with Lisa Online (Lisa Codianne Fowler) picked up the Bronze.

In the Travel Blog Category, our editor Tim Leffel also picked up a Gold for his Cheapest Destinations Blog, with Gary Arndt’s Everything-Everywhere picking up Silver and The Vacation Gals (Jennifer Miner, Beth Blair, and Kara Williams) picking up Bronze.

Welcome to 2012 and a whole new year of great travel articles at Perceptive Travel.

Editor Tim Leffel has a Chiapas Misadventure in the wild adventure capital of Mexico

Jessica Lee travels the countryside of Kenya by bus, learning about the country’s peculiar acronym-laden buffet of Christianity.

Regular contributor Joshua Berman goes on a sunrise photo quest  before dawn in Tikai.

This first issue of the year is rounded of with Graham Reid’s world music reviews and William Caverlee’s travel book reviews.

And on it’s fifth anniversary, Perceptive Travel has some neat stuff to give away: the :P^cubed adventure travel pants from Clothing Arts.They’re tough as nails and water-resistant too. You can check out editor Tim’s l P^cubed pants review here).

What’s more, Clothing Arts is generously offering to ship these worldwide as well, so if you live outside the U.S., this is your month!

To win, you’ll have to watch your inbox for our newsletter or follow us on Facebook. If you’re not on our monthly e-mail newsletter list, sign up  here.

This is the time of year when most writers would rather not be writing — and so there are a host of “best of” “worst of” and “insert-superlative-here” year in review lists appearing in blogs, magazines, newspapers.

I’ve read a bunch of them and believe this summary applies universally: 2011 was great, it sucked, but keep reading me/us anyway because basically I/we deserve congratulations for existing. Optional post-filler: here are the things I/we plan to do in 2012, it will be a heckuva year!

It’s all rather tiring.

But hey. I’m as averse to working in the last week of the year as any writer, so rather than trying to come up with some sort of a clever concept for repackaging old stories, I decided to enlist my favorite force in all the world: randomness.

Using a random number generator, I shall now pick a post by each Perceptive Travel blogger. First, I’ll randomly select a week of the year, from 1-52.  Since most of us only contribute once weekly, that should be criteria enough. If there happens to be more than one post from a blogger in that week, I’ll flip a coin.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you please: The Random Guide to Perceptive Travel blog’s 2011:

• Alison: Life Lessons from a Submarine in Groton, Connecticut.
• Brian: BKK Must Eats: Salmon Mania Roll at Zen Cucina in Bangkok, Thailand.
• Kerry: Singing Canada’s History: Maria Dunn in Alberta and other parts of Canada.
• Liz: Spotlight on New Zealand: Karangahake Gorge in New Zealand.
• Sheila: Dear Ms. Phone: Where the Heck Am I? somewhere in the world.

I should add that our Dear Leader (Tim) also contributes here –  however, since he lacks his own category in our navigation (right)  I’m afraid I’m way too lazy on a holiday week to try to figure out how to fit his posts into my randomness scheme.

But perhaps he will be mollified by my random selection of a piece from the webzine.  (Method: I randomly chose a month from 1-12, landing on November. Then counted the articles in the issue — 5 — and randomly selected a number from 1-5.)

The big random winner:

Goldi-Lox and the Three Bears in Western Canada, by David Lee Drotar.

And with that, let’s all move on to 2012. I’m sure it will be one heckuva year.

It’s an issue of superlatives this month with Perceptive Travel webzine featuring three entertaining travel stories from around the world.

Laura Gough ponders happiness in Bhutan while trekking the ancient Druk Path through alpine wilderness and discovers a country that takes nice to a whole new level.

(flickr photo by domenicomarchi)

On the other side of the world, in Brazil, Bruce Northam wanders away from the beach resorts into Rio’s maze of favelas to discover  an unexpected world record holder in Rio.

And further south, Shelley Seale heads for the world’s highest and driest place on earth and discovers life in the past tense in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

Laurence Mitchell”s world music reviews covers everything from a Yiddish witch drama, a funky Belgian outfit, and music from the historic crossroads of Europe and Asia.

Sarah Griffith’s travel book reviews covers reluctant backpacking in Central America and historic travel in Paris.

And given it’s the festive season, Perceptive Travel has two prizes to giveaway this month.

Guerrilla Packs is kicking in two bags to go out to two lucky travelers: a large Voltij backpack for long journeys or an Airporter backpack (pictured) that’s small enough to be a carry-on for U.S. flights.

To win, you’ll have to watch your inbox for our newsletter or follow us on Facebook. If you’re not on our monthly e-mail newsletter list, click here to sign up .

And don’t forget about the annual Passports with Purpose fundraising drive now on. It’s a great way to do some real good in the world and actually get far more than your donation back in prize value, thanks to some great sponsors.

Check out this recent perceptive travel blog post to learn more about Passports with Purpose – how it works and this year’s goals. This year, we have joined with Hyatt Hotels, who sponsored the prize of  a two-night stay at the lovely Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa in Bastrop (near Austin.)

That’s just one of the many great prizes that travel bloggers from around the world have organized. You can  see the full run of prizes (many of them in international locations) on the donate page . And it all starts with just $10 from you…

So far the response has been tremendous – $5,000 raised in the first few hours after it’s launch.

But don’t wait to donate  - it all ends in two weeks!