Back to Korea

On Friday (tomorrow) I will be heading off to Korea again, to continue our interpretive planning work for the Baedkudaegan Arboretum. Our team will also be making a presentation at the Baekdudaegan Arboretum Planning Symposium, in Seoul on March 31st. Will post an update later on next week. Hope your upcoming weekend and week is a good one. - jv

Civic Tourism

At the recent Susquehanna River Symposium I had the pleasure to spend time with Dan Shilling, author of the book Civic Tourism. This is an important concept that we have been enploying in our interpretive planning for the Susquehanna Greenway (all 500miles of it). His book focuses on being sure to develop tourism opportunities with community involvement, support and implementation. "Civic Tourism is an extension of and tool for other "place-based" approaches, such as cultural heritage tourism, ecotourism, and geotourism. The mission of Civic Tourism is to "reframe" tourism's purpose – from an end to a means; that is, from an economic goal to a tool that can help the public enhance what they love about their place. I found the several days of chatting with Dan, both formally and informally, beneficial and stimulating, and can certainly recommend his book "Civic Tourism - the Poetry and Policics of Place". You can order it from Dan's web site at: http://civictourism.org/

Susquehanna Greenway Symposium

Hi folks,
In Lewisburg PA this week working on our Greenway Interpretive Plan implementation (driving tour, interpretive panels, and more), and participated today (Thursday) in the Susquehanna Greenway Symposium, giving an update on our interprtive planning media and services development. Back to Michigan tomorrow and I have a week of writing on several projects before leaving for Korea again at the end of the month.
Just a quick pic of one of the greenway river views. Most of the powerpoint presentations from the symposium will be posted at the Greenway web site: http://www.susquehannagreenway.org. More next week.

The Redwood Forest

Today, Friday, was our last day visiting the many different Open Space District preserves. The redwood forests here were wonderful, and lots of spring wildflowers coming out (still 4' of snow on the edges of my driveway in Michigan!). Here are a few pics of todays sites, including the Banana Slug (about 6 inches long), Trillium and a general view of the area the trails go through. I will be spending next week in the office writing up the interpretive systems plan draft for this project.

More Open Space Preserves

Another day out in the field looking at the special stories and experiences the preserves offer. The California Newts were breeding and we saw lots of them, heard Coyotes howling and crossing a road and visited the Open Space Nature Center. Here are some of todays pics.

Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District

Hi folks,

This week I am working with the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, located south of San Francisco, California. We are working on the Interpretive Systems Plan for the District, incorporating about 18 different preserves. It is "spring" here in California, a big change compared to last weeks work in chilly Korea. Today is Monday, and we have 4 more days of site visits and analysis to go. Here are a few pictures from some of todays visits. You can visit the Open Space District web site at: http://www.openspace.org.