Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott are the husband-and-wife storytelling and photography team behind Uncornered Market. They travel deep and off-beat, aiming to connect the world through people, food and adventure. Six years and 75 countries later, they are still going...and still married. Read more…
How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
Author: Franklin Foer
Who knew you could learn so much about globalization, economics and politics from soccer? Great read.
Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Author: Julia Cameron
One possible path to re-discovering the creativity you never knew you had.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, New Edition
Author: Jared Diamond
An admirable crack at explaining why the world is the way it is by way of an anthropological macro-history. This book probably comes up the most in conversation as we travel.
The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back
Author: Bill Shore
Inspiring profiles of social entrepreneurs and projects we all can learn from and hopefully replicate to give back to community.
Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
Author: John Carlin
Although the storyline is built around the South African rugby team and the 1995 World Cup, this book is more about Nelson Mandela and how he was able to unite a divided country. Inspiring.
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown
Author: Paul Theroux
The author re-visits Africa and re-assesses the place he once knew... and judges it once and for all. Well written, poignant observations of the thumbprints left by career politicians, aid workers, and everyday people.
Outliers: The Story of Success
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
A look at the internal and external factors of how extraordinary people got to be, well, extraordinary. One of those books that challenges assumptions and makes you think differently.
Shantaram: A Novel
Author: Gregory David Roberts
Administering first aid in a Bombay slum, selling fake passports and running guns to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Technically a novel, but closely linked to the Author's own experiences. Fantastic read.
Whales with legs? In the desert?
That’s what you’ll find in the Valley of the Whales (Wadi El-Hitan) in Fayoum, Egypt. More accurately, you’ll find the over 35 million year-old fossilized remains of whales with short legs, appendages marking their evolution from land mammals to sea mammals. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Egypt, Middle East, Panorama by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
10 Comments | 29 April 2012
Do you remember learning about ancient Egypt in elementary school?
I do. I recall images of Cleopatra, mummies, hieroglyphics, and women with black bobbed hair and men dressed in kilts, all strutting. I remember pyramids that seemed too big to be real, as if aliens must have been the ones to deposit them in the middle of the desert.
And I remember an episode of Asterix and Obelix, a favorite childhood comic book of mine, where Obelix climbs onto the Sphinx, hangs on the nose and breaks it off. In response, all the vendors chip the noses off their ceramic Sphinx replicas to be sure they’d match.
Then I had the chance to see it all – the pyramids and the Sphinx after the nose job — in real life. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Egypt, Middle East, Travel by: Audrey Scott
25 Comments | 24 April 2012
Although the Saladin Citadel in Cairo was built in the 12th century to help protect the city from the Crusaders, the Muhammad Ali Mosque came much later, in the 19th century. Built in the architectural style of the Ottomans, the mosque has a feeling of wide open grandeur punctuated by chandeliers and cupolas.
Sit on the carpet in middle for as long as you need. Look up, look around and enjoy the peacefulness of the place. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Egypt, Panorama by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
11 Comments | 22 April 2012
We’re headed again to Egypt, this time to experience a taste of what it can offer in the way of adventure and adrenaline travel.
We will also present at the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Travel and Media conference. There, we will tie a real-time case study of this Egypt experience together with some of our prior travel experience to demonstrate the value to destinations of digital storytelling and engaging travel bloggers during challenging news cycles.
Filed Under: Egypt, Middle East, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
27 Comments | 19 April 2012
This is a story about a baby turtle and how we helped to set him free. It’s also a tale of working together and conservation gone right.
Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Mexico, North America, Sustainable Tourism, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
25 Comments | 16 April 2012
Tucked into the folds of the jungle in Mexico’s Chiapas region stands the mostly buried and only very partially exposed Mayan ruins of Palenque. If you haven’t already experienced this place or you’ve come to feel ruin fatigue in this part of the world, consider a visit. For us, it’s become one of our favorites. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Mexico, North America by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
10 Comments | 15 April 2012
Have you ever experienced something exceptional you’d hoped to capture and share, but you were forbidden to photograph or record it? That was the Easter celebration in the village of San Juan Chamula in the Chiapas region of Mexico.
This was no ordinary Catholic church, nor was this an Easter celebration like any we’d ever seen.
The last photo we were allowed to take.
Filed Under: Mexico, North America, Travel by: Daniel Noll
20 Comments | 13 April 2012
When you imagine your ideal beach, what do you see?
Ours might feature an open stretch of coast, no crowds and a few small establishments — the type of place where if you wake up early you may even have the entire beach to yourself.
And this is what we found in the laid back town of Mazunte along Mexico’s Pacific Coast last week. Open the panorama to see for yourself. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Mexico, Panorama by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
13 Comments | 6 April 2012
Travel holds tremendous potential. For the traveler, it offers a path to experience, education and personal transformation. For local host communities, it provides a means to economic benefit and cultural exchange. It’s this magic “travel equation” that among other things first inspired us to quit our jobs for the road over five years ago, and to this day encourages us to continue traveling, exploring, learning, and sharing.
Learning new skills from the women of the Zikra Initiative in Jordan.
However, developments across the tourism industry are not always rosy. Over the years, we’ve seen our share of rapacious tourism development and the cumulative effects of thoughtless individual actions conspiring to harm local cultures, economies and the environment.
So what can a traveler do? The cynic says nothing, the hopeful say plenty. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Sustainable Tourism, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
39 Comments | 4 April 2012
We’d like to think that we live our lives and travel according to a set of values, key among them respect — respect for other cultures, respect for the environment and respect for the complexities and nuances of the economic realities that face a growing planet. Until now, we just never labeled those values or the behaviors attached to them as “sustainable.”
So why are you telling us this now?
We are pleased to announce that we have been retained by the United Nations Foundation’s Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) to develop and execute their social media strategy. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Sustainable Tourism by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
25 Comments | 2 April 2012
