By Marcela Torres
The long awaited day has come! MyNatour announced today the three winners of its Ecotourism Blog Contest. “The decision was very tough,” says MyNatour founder Davide Valin, “because we received hundreds of amazing entries from freezing Alaska to the Australian desert and everything in between. All of them had some interesting stories; falling in love on the road, biking as a kamikaze, crossing the cold dry deserts, fishing, sailing, surfing, farming, trekking, volunteering on the reef, getting lost in a metropolitan jungle or in the depth of the rain forest.”
After a period of public voting, the judging panel met up during the World Travel Market (WTM) trade show in London to assess make the final decision based on criteria such as creativity, originality, quality of writing, photography, ability to engage an audience (number of supporters) and, most importantly, the talent to inspire others to conserve nature and promote intercultural understanding.
And so, the final winners are:
I° A Garden Lady in India's Cold Mountain Desert (by Shivya)
“Because of the simple yet profound way the author combines several important aspects of what made this trip such a memorable experience: local encounters, education, and of course the natural beauty of the place.” - Ayako Ezaki
II° Reef to Rainforest (by Hobbers)
“How carefully they made a choice of the ecotourism experience they wanted to live through, and whether or not the experience was as rich an ecotourism experience as they thought it would be!” - Ethan Gelber
III° My Trip to Mali: Halt in Terya Bugu (by mariodifra)
“One of the most important things that we need to do when we go to some places is to get to know the place, learn about the place, learn about how they live, what is their culture, their logic and just follow the local logic.” - Aivar Runkel
The 3 winners will be able to choose out of 6 amazing ecotourism holidays for 2 people, courtesy of WHL.travel. Congratulations to all of them!
