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Expose actions you could take to keep the beach clean!

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Full Moon Party, Fullmoon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand

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Full Moon Party, Fullmoon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand details, highlights, schedules, packages, travel infomation and more..

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Full Moon Party, Fullmoon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand

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Full Moon Party, Fullmoon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand details, highlights, schedules, packages, travel infomation and more..

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Find arguments FOR and AGAINST!

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Best of Koh Phangan, Thailand: top places including Thongsala and Haad Rin

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Locals' Actions to tackle the Full Moon Party's Impact on the beach

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Locals' Actions to tackle the Full Moon Party's Impact on the beach

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Trouble in Paradise Documentary- Thailand's Full Moon Party Trash Problem

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TBJ Productions - Video Production Services

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The world famous Full Moon Party held every month on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand is notorious for being one of the largest parties in the world. Dancers rage until the dawn when the morning lights reveals a beach covered in bottles, cans, and straws, and other garbage, much of which becoming swept into the ocean. As travelers who love Thailand, dance music, and the environment, we set out to explore the reasons why this beautiful beach was being trashed. We spoke to local business owners, party goers past and present, and members of the Green Cross Beach Clean who have attempted to clean up after the party.
To learn more about us, to get tips if visiting the full moon party or find ways to help, visit www.troubleinparadisefilm.com

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trouble in paradise thailand full moon party trash documentary

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The world famous Full Moon Party held every month on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand is notorious for being one of the largest parties in the world. Dancers rage until the dawn when the morning lights reveals a beach covered in bottles, cans, and straws, and other garbage, much of which becoming swept into the ocean.

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Onetime bastion of peace and alternative living has degenerated into a modern-day Gomorrah of tawdry overindulgence

Lonely Planet Images / Getty Images

"The skies were star-spangled and blue phosphorescence would spray like diamonds in the sea ... the sand glowed silver and the waves danced alive as they hit the shore." The year is 1988 and the now legendary full-moon party has hit the tropical Thai island of Koh Phangan for the first time, described to TIME by intrepid Scotsman Colin Hinshelwood, who bobbed over on a fishing boat from neighboring Koh Samui. Hippies from across the globe used to quietly gather at this idyllic enclave, drifting in on clouds of marijuana smoke to sit on a beach, strum a battered guitar and simply be. Today, however, the only blue spray you'll see might be the lurid curaçao cocktail expelled from the guts of a retching 20-something. This onetime Eden has degenerated into a modern-day Gomorrah awash in tawdry techno, cheap fast food and wasted millennials.

( WATCH: Thai Buddhist Monks Traveling by Private Jet Cause Uproar)

Every month of the year, thousands of revelers make the pilgrimage to this isle of indulgence. Haad Rin beach, on Koh Phangan's southern tip, is a one-mile strip onto which 30,000 people, mostly young foreigners, will cram themselves on busy nights. The sand fills with makeshift stalls selling buckets - literally the kind of plastic pails children take to the beach - brimming with whiskey, cola and eye-popping local Red Bull, for just a few dollars. Beach bars boasting floor-to-ceiling speakers blast out ear-shattering electronica until the early hours. Narcotics, violent crime and sexual assault are rife. Nevertheless, with the northern summer in full swing, even more young people from across North America and Europe will descend here, joined by young South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders escaping the southern winter. They risk at the very least their dignity, and at most their lives, to fulfill what is now a backpacker rite of passage.

The name "full-moon party" lends a vaguely pagan air to the proceedings, but in truth the gatherings were first held when the moon was at its biggest and brightest for practical reasons. In the 1980s, Koh Phangan was a rough and ready place after dark. Packs of feral dogs roamed, so did muggers. Shootings were a fact of life. However, the brilliant lunar illumination brought relative safety and a brief respite. It was "an evening of getting naked, splashing in the sea, and dancing around imaginary Stonehenges," recalls Hinshelwood, whose memory of the event can be read at length here. At the inception of the full-moon parties, there was no electricity on Haad Rin - aging flower children complained of "colonialism" when it eventually arrived. The festivities centered on tents, campfires and music the partygoers made themselves. All this took place in the incomparable natural setting of the Gulf of Thailand, immortalized through Alex Garland's novel The Beach and its big-screen adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Joe Cummings, whose Lonely Planet Guide to Thailand has sold countless copies since it first appeared in 1982, visited Haad Rin in 1983 and tells TIME that it was "one of the most beautiful beaches I'd ever seen." When he next returned in 1989, the full-moon parties were still intimate affairs, attracting no more than 2,000 people.

( MORE: Savage Escalation Threatened in Thailand's Southern Insurgency)

These days, however, there can be little doubt of the toll the decades of debauchery have taken on the environment. In addition to the vast quantities of broken glass and plastic strewn across the sand each month, the island is currently in the throes of a freshwater crisis as it seeks to accommodate an unfeasibly large number of visitors. Hard drugs are now part of the scene - as opposed to the relatively benign marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms of yore - with ravers these days seeking out ya ba (the local name for crystal meth) as well as ecstasy and heroin. The difference in atmosphere is profound. Drownings have become an unsurprising annual occurrence, given the number of intoxicated revelers on a beach with no lifeguards on duty. Dozens are ferried to mainland hospitals with a litany of indulgence-induced ailments (often severe burns from inebriated bouts of fire dancing). Rapes are frequent and often unreported. Thai police have a well-documented corruption problem and many visitors get caught in stings arranged with local drug dealers, with steep "fines" demanded to secure their release. A nadir was reached last year, when British tourist Stephen Ashton was killed on New Year's Eve. The 22-year-old was dancing with friends at a waterfront bar when a dispute between two local gangs escalated and someone fired into the crowd. Ashton was hit in the chest and could not be revived. Ekkapan Kaewkla, 26, pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The Tourist Authority of Thailand has attempted to revamp the Koh Phangan's image in recent times, and boutique resorts have opened on the more tranquil western and northern shores. A new airport is due to finally open in the fall, meaning the island will be only an hour away from Bangkok, putting it well within reach of the luxury-weekend crowd. It seems that "Koh Phangan's days as a backpacker place are numbered," says travel writer Andrew Bond, who has written about Thailand for a decade. In other words, as young people begin to arrive in Haad Rin for the next full-moon party on July 24, they will find an event that is not in any immediate danger of extinction, but one that has certainly passed its hedonistic peak. Considering what the full-moon parties used to be, and what they've become, that's no bad thing.

WATCH: Baby Elephant Rescued From a Well in Thailand
SEE ALSO: The Big Surprise of Martin Luther King's Speech

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Thailand's Full-Moon Parties Have Become a Trashy Disgrace

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Onetime bastion of peace and alternative living has degenerated into a modern-day Gomorrah of tawdry overindulgence "The skies were star-spangled and blue phosphorescence would spray like diamonds in the sea ... the sand glowed silver and the waves danced alive as they hit the shore."

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The early '90s saw the first of the infamous Full Moon Parties start to gain popularity on the Thai island of Ko Phangan, a previously quiet and untouched area. It had original attendances in the region of a few thousand, but it now numbers 8,000 to 12,000 in low season; 15,000 to 20,000 in high season and up to 30,000 at New Year. In the wake of its massive popular success, Full Moon Parties are held monthly all over Thailand. On almost every attractive tourist island and beach resort, they are seen as a must-do experience and unmissable event. The direct environmental impact they have is astonishing. For anyone who's ever attended one, you made a mistake. For anyone thinking about going, consider whether it's worth it.

Each year, Thailand sees the arrival of around 13 million tourists and this number is actually growing. Thailand's tourism industry makes up about 6.5 percent of the country's GDP but has counter-productive environmental impact all across the country for two reasons. Firstly, Thailand lacks an infrastructure that is able to deal with waste disposal in any efficient, cyclical way, especially when waste is produced in areas far from organized social centers.

The second is that despite the common knowledge that this kind of tourism causes such massive damage, the natives and the tourists are still putting their personal desires above that of the environment. At well organized events and locations, there is some attempt to mediate impact, but the environmental costs of beach tourism and the Full Moon Parties are obvious.

In terms of the marine environment, it is untreated municipal and industrial waste that is considered to be the most serious problem. The parties on Ko Phangan alone produce around 12 tons of rubbish per day. Most of what is not collected is taken by the sea; the remainder is land filled or tipped. Most ironic is the advice you can find on the websites that advertise the events: "Travelers and tourists who attend the party are urged to help in the fight against pollution." It could be argued that this is best done by not going at all.

The increased interest in such parties and beach tourism has meant unknown acres of valuable coastal woodland having been destroyed and replaced by beach bars, hotels and resorts. According to the World Bank, Thailand's marine and coastal resources are being degraded as the population in the coastal provinces has grown, and economic activities such as tourism and ocean transportation have increased with them. Obviously.

Thailand does have environmental legislation and projects in place, but in all fairness, they are poorly implemented. Though Ko Samet is a national park, visitors just need to wander its coastal road to witness the illegal and preventable mass construction projects, as well as the piles of non-biodegradable rubbish hidden in its unique forests. Ko Samet now holds Full Moon Parties every month.

If you are going to travel, then good for you. It is probably one of the most valuable things you can do as travel gives you perspective and experience, but don't forget the responsibility you have to the world around you. Be wary of unknowingly entering into hypocrisy and try not to get carried away with the novelty of something different like Full Moon Parties. It is up to you to make others aware of these facts, and up to them to justify a few days of drunken idiocy at the cost of the habitat they are so lucky to have at all.

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The Environmental Impact of Thailand's Full Moon Parties

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Thailand's Full Moon Parties have a huge negative environmental impact. Avoid them and make a point of advising others to do the same. Photo: YoTuT The early '90s saw the first of the infamous Full Moon Parties start to gain popularity on the Thai island of Ko Phangan, a previously quiet and untouched area.

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Each Friday, Roads & Kingdoms and Slate publish a new dispatch from around the globe. For more foreign correspondence mixed with food, war, travel, and photography, visit their online magazine or follow @roadskingdoms on Twitter.

KOH PHANGAN, Thailand-"HELLOOO, FULL MOON PARTY!" the touts holler.

Welcome to Koh Phangan ... I guess. The host of tuk-tuk drivers and solicitors who await the tourist ferry-load arriving every hour make no mention of the actual island. It's all about the party. Or rather, part ies. Every night.

The next greeting is a giant billboard that warns, "MARIJUANA AND MAGIC MUSHROOMS ARE ILLEGAL IN THAILAND." Bottom-right is a photograph intended to terrify anyone fresh off the boat: a white-haired foreigner, eyes blacked out, seated before a bunch of cops. Oddly, one policeman flashes a sinister grin.

Minutes later, our minivan filled with backpackers bounces down the 10-kilometer road toward Haad Rin, where the party happens. Most passengers are carrying coffin-sized luggage and look weary. Where's a copy of the Daily Mail with the latest about some dead Brit? These kids surely need to be warned.

Koh Phangan's Full Moon Party long ago lost its original innocence, devolving into a mess of drunken foreigners cramming onto a once-beautiful beach to celebrate nothing more than the party itself. But in recent years, things have gotten much worse. There have been rapes, fatal accidents, suicides, and gang-related murders. "In the nine months I lived there, one guy I admired hung himself, while another died drunk-driving his motorbike," a former expat told me. Meanwhile, the local environment has been decimated. In fact, one's first taste of the island pleasures that await can be found in the water itself, which glistens with oil and plastic.

Yet most visitors are blasé about it. "If you're a girl walking down the beach, you get this all the time," a British voice in the minivan drawls to her Danish companion, making a firm, pinching motion. "My friend gets drunk and throws up ... then she's fine again," another brays cheerfully.

It's nearly 3 o'clock in the afternoon, hours before action time, where I might find, as a disgusted Mail reported, "naked couples bobbing up and down in the water," a "sordid scene ... lit by a beautiful, white full moon," "a sign saying 'F*** me,' " and "[h]ard drugs."

This, supposedly, is the best party in Asia.

It wasn't always like this. The origins of the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan, which is about 90 percent dense jungle with some gorgeous beaches, are unclear. "The Full-Moon Party started in 1987 or 1988, nobody really knows," the island's official guidebook unhelpfully notes, and almost everyone on Koh Phangan has an equally vague explanation for why 30,000 people converge here every month.

The myth is that a farewell party for a dozen tourists somehow mutated into a phenomenon that's now the island's virtual raison d'être. The facts are less tidy, but more interesting. They reach back to the end of the Cold War, where on a remote island, flower-power idealists with Indian monikers muttered about Shiva over some bongos. The waves then were said to sparkle with phosphorescence under a blue moonlight. (Thirty years later, phosphorescence sells for a buck a bottle and no one cares about Vishnu.)

Electricity hadn't arrived when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Instead, on idyllic Koh Samui, just 13 kilometers from Koh Phangan, the waxing moon brought respite from the ferocious packs of feral dogs and knife-toting muggers who otherwise roamed the darkness. According to Colin Hinshelwood, a Scot who attended the original gatherings, the arrival of power changed everything. For Samui's foreign collective, electricity was more colonialist expansionism. They looked across the Thai Gulf to a dark, unknown bay where people could continue living unfettered by capitalism: Haad Rin.

Back then, there was "[n]ot much alcohol at all; certainly no buckets," Hinshelwood writes. Instead, hed kee kwai -buffalo-dung mushrooms-were chewed around the bonfire and nights ended with naked dancing and free love. Soon, Swedish organizers were selling acid to the new arrivals and it was just a few more months before "a gang of Phangan locals chased them off the beach with machetes, after stealing their drugs, of course."

Later came Ecstasy and electro, Lonely Planet, and what friends back in England called gap-year "wow-yeahs"-Trustafarian types who couldn't stop muttering about "the experience." Around Haad Rin, though, local fishermen were experiencing getting strong-armed off their land by mafia-backed mainlanders with a nose for exploitation. On an island where nothing much happened for hundreds of years, the culture soon absorbed nearly everything and everyone, celebrating any excuse for a bacchanal-Half Moon Party, Jungle Party, Midnight Party, Waterfall Party, Boat Party, Solstice Party. The economy, meanwhile has become hopelessly corrupt, urging visitors to join the celebration immediately as they dock.

The Thai authorities make periodic attempts to stamp out more unsavory stuff across the country. Recently, in the coastal resort of Pattaya, two hours from Bangkok, the grimmest sois-home to the most "recondite" predilections-have been demolished and the town even touts itself as a family resort, although the sex trade still figures prominently. Moves are also afoot to " make [Koh Phangan] a drugs-free island," as the Bangkok Post declared-in 2009.

Of course, purists say, it's all changed now. Psytrance enthusiasts recall the good times before it went "commercial." And listening to a dub-trip garage remix (or something) by One Direction for the third time, I wonder what exactly I'm doing here. The decision to visit the Full Moon Party with my girlfriend was last-minute: We saw a sign in a travel agency, realized it was a couple of days away, and thought: "Why not?" The only accommodation still available was a grotty, $25-a-night "bungalow" that would suffice as a base of operations. The six-hour catamaran journey from the mainland was a cattle feast.

I spent the previous night researching field reports. Maybe my search terms were gaming the results ("Full Moon Party"... "vomit"), but they made for grim reading: "I ... remember losing my sandals and walking on a lot of glass," read one. "I even saw a guy attempt to rape a girl on the beach. ... The girl was passed out ... all I remember next was me and R looking for N and C, finding N with his shirt off being loud and yelling at strangers ... blood was pumping out of [his nose] like a faucet. ... We hid in the jungle for what must've been at least an hour, R's hand was covered in blood." This woeful account concludes with the author nursing a dying dog.

Others expressed finger-wagging concern about the unbridled hedonism: "Someone had jumped from the second story of a building the previous night and gotten impaled by a metal rod," one blogger wrote. "There's more to life than fist pumping, snorting your brains out, and being an empty carcass the next day or couple of days."

There are basically three types of business in Haad Rin: bars, pharmacies, and hospitals. Emergency medical attention can be found on every corner, often sporting grandiose names (the Stamford Clinic) or claims ("Because we care.") After a few hours, you realize why: Almost everyone wears a bandage, or walks with a hobble. (In Koh Phangan, the island's hilly, ramshackle roads and hairpin corners have bested so many bikes, locals supposedly call their brutal scars "Koh Phangan Tattoos.") It's not uncommon to see someone urgently making their way between bars on a pair of crutches.

Combine alcohol, youth, the ocean, and dangerous roads, and you can understand why death has become so much a part of the Full Moon celebration. (Foreigner fatalities in Thailand are not just reserved for Koh Phangan. A newspaper in Phuket, another seedy tourist spot, described the 35 official expat deaths over one six-month period as "surprisingly low.")

"Death in Paradise" makes for a righteous headline, and in recent years there have been plenty of sensational stories to choose from. In 2009, German tourist Astrid Al-Assad Schachmer, 45, was raped, murdered, and dumped in the shallows after one party. That same year, Becki Beckmann, another German in his mid-40s, faced off against a pair of armed men attempting a home invasion, and a French tourist was found hanging in a police cell under disputed circumstances. Others die en masse, like the 18 who died in 2005 after their taxi-boat sank, or the 10 killed when a tour bus crashed two years ago.

Lately, the casualties all seem to be British, like the 19-year-old who drowned off Haad Rin while drunk, or 22-year-old Stephen Ashton, who caught a stray bullet in the crossfire between rival Thai youths at Zoom Bar. (The party allegedly continued.) A year later, Kevin Liddle lost an encounter with a plate-glass window. Within a couple of months of Liddle's death, 29-year-old Alex Wyithe fell victim to a full-moon riptide. "He had gone to Thailand on a two-week holiday to have a hair transplant," the Daily Mail reported.

One Thai woman who'd agreed to an interview pulled out as soon as Ashton's death was mentioned. (I'd only intended to ask whether the incident had improved safety.) The island's business community is understandably wary, saying the media has focused too heavily on these deaths. On this topic, local police were particularly terse with me: "No comment. Where are you staying?"

Thai men are hard at work throwing up makeshift sound systems along the 1-kilometer beach as we arrive at 4 p.m.; otherwise there is little indication of the crowd to come.

By 10 p.m. the beach is thrumming, but the party's only getting started. We take a long trawl. Each stage attracts a slightly different crowd. The wall of "bucket bars"-wooden stands called "Dave," "Batman," or "Michael," selling colorful pails containing a half-bottle of spirits, juice, and Krating Daeng, a truckers' favorite that makes Red Bull look soporific-is monolithic.

For all the dire warnings, alcohol, not drugs, is the main reason people fall off stages, step on glass, tumble down cliffs, or otherwise do violence to themselves on Phangan. In response to the Ashton shooting, representatives of the Royal Thai Police have cooperated with British consular officials to offer a uniformed presence, via a tented command center in the middle of the beach. The boys in blue exude cool reassurance rather than buzzkill. The cops are smiley, happy to pose for pictures even if your pockets are laden with weed. Just another part of the tourist industry.

On top of the police presence, there are persistent rumors of entrapment operations run by narcs to trick dopey drunks. As I stroll the beach, I'm repeatedly offered to buy "something." I politely decline.

Meanwhile, the gasoline-fueled fire shows are kicking off, featuring dancers, burning ropes, and baton-twirling displays of acrobatic skill. Despite the proficiency of the teen performers, the Full Moon mob rewards mistakes over merit, chuckling at every dropped ball and roaring with approval after one giant, flaming cotton bud nearly sets a tree alight. (There's also a high incident rate at the bottom of the makeshift flaming luge, which ejects passengers into the paths of startled passersby.)

As the night wears on-and boy, does it wear-partygoers can find help at the many local pharmacies, which offer a full panel of prescription drugs, no questions asked. Codeine, Xanax, Valium, Ritalin. On the beach, however, open use of drugs like marijuana is not tolerated.

The party continues until dawn-thousands of people, drinking, dancing, and passing out. Haad Rin doesn't have phosphorescence-not these days, at least-but whoever makes the town's supply of glow paint is doing well; everyone is wearing the stuff.

Dawn is the ideal selfie time, and revelers line up to take their shots. It's also the time to take stock of the rejected paraphernalia: thousands of plastic straws, bags, blinking Minnie Mouse ears, bracelets, and empty cups. This is the reality of the Full Moon Party.

"Unfortunately there is no way to measure the impact of a single Full Moon Party on the ecosystem," says Benjamin Jones, whose recent documentary Trouble in Paradise records the damage. "Hundreds of bottles, cigarette butts, and plastic straws end up in the ocean [every time]."

A small group of dogged scrap-pickers arrives, sent by the Haad Rin Business Association. Formed in 2008, two years later the guild began charging entrance-an administration fee that supposedly includes a cleaning patrol that shows up sometime around 9 or 10 a.m. "Unfortunately by that time, a lot of garbage has already drifted out into the ocean," Jones says.

Previously, the ocean was actually part of the cleanup plan: Up until 2005, "people [were] actually sweeping the trash into it." One volunteer described the washing-up of a dead dolphin, its stomach stuffed with trash, as a call to arms of sorts. It was only in 2011 that bins were even installed on the beach ("ludicrous," says Jones), and soon even these receptacles overflow with debris.

The next day, Haad Rin is silent. Its streets are deserted, the masses from the night before sleeping off hangovers or battling harsh comedowns. The nearest public "bathroom," a darkened entrance where drunks were gouged 10 baht to enter the night before, is now an unmarked cave.

I sit in a British pub eating bangers and mash (because this is Thailand) and reflect on what I've seen. With the deaths, environmental damage, fighting, and general debauchery, you would think that a party that draws tens of thousands of people, month after month, would at least be ... fun. It's not. Not even remotely. And for all Koh Phangan's "vices," I was never shocked or appalled. I was disappointed and bored, and for a party that calls itself the greatest in Asia, that's surely the worst sin of all.

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Thailand's Full Moon Party Is Debauched and Depraved. If Only It Were Fun.

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Each Friday, Roads & Kingdoms and Slate publish a new dispatch from around the globe. For more foreign correspondence mixed with food, war, travel, and photography, visit their online magazine or follow @roadskingdoms on Twitter. KOH PHANGAN, Thailand-"HELLOOO, FULL MOON PARTY!" the touts holler. Welcome to Koh Phangan ... I guess.

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On this site you will find information on how to get involved in beach cleans and other ways to help keep Koh Phangan beautiful - so we can all continue to enjoy it for many more years to come.

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JUST as destinations can rise and fall in popularity, so can the activities and tours you take while on holiday.

A decade or so ago, bungy jumps and skydives were the activity to take while on a trip, the adrenalin-packed punch that was the crowning glory of your overseas adventure, while also making you the envy of friends and family when you got home.

Nowadays, people are more surprised if you haven't jumped out of a plane or off a bridge upon your return home.
And the same goes for tours too.

Swimming with the dolphins or sharks, wilderness hikes and authentic indigenous village visits are all still popular and enjoyable options but in the Ive got to be the first to try this so I can boast about it to other travellers climate, they're all a little passe now.

So if you're looking for something a little different when it comes to a tour, you could try one of the off-beat trips I've unearthed here.

While there's little chance any of them will ever make it into mainstream tourism, I'm willing to bet they'll give you the best travel story most people will have heard in a while.

Protest tourism, USA

The closest most tourists usually get to protests is not being able to get where they're going due to transport strikes. And while sitting stranded in an airport isn't the best way to empathise with protesting workers, there are a growing number of travellers who are making a beeline to the 'Occupy' sites in the US to channel their inner socialist for a few hours. New York's Occupy Wall Street is the most popular site, with a wealth of information online about where to go and how to get involved. One of the latest tactics employed by protesters is Sidewalk Sleepovers, where some hardy souls sleep in the belly of the beast on the sidewalks around Wall Street.

Who will do it?

Socially conscious travellers, or if you're doing the sleepover, those looking to save money on expensive NYC hotels.

Scare tourism, USA & Canada

One of my previous blogs took a look at a couple of scary tours you can take - a haunted house where you can be water boarded and a bespoke kidnapping service in Paris - but it seems some travellers need to take things further. On first look, a cruise based around the movie franchise Saw might be enough to soil even the hardiest horror fans pants, with visions of power-tool wielding maniacs at the captains table or dismembering over shuffleboard becoming a reality. However, the tour - setting sail this August from New York - merely has cast members from the movie on board and the chance to have your picture taken with a wooden doll, as well as taking in stops in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. One journalist wrote: "I was expecting a thrilling, horror-filled adventure. Not taking pictures with a puppet. And going to Canada." Then again, maybe the real horror is in the threat that they'll leave you in Canada.

Who will do it?

Horror movie fans. Canada fans. Pinocchio fans.

Crossword tourism, The Caribbean

Now this is more like a horror cruise - being stuck on a boat with hundreds of crossword enthusiasts attending seminars such as 'Puzzles 101' and 'Tackling the Toughies'. Hosted by acclaimed American crossword guru Stan Newman and dubbed 'Crossword University', the 10-day Caribbean cruise is hog heaven for the puzzle fan. Not only will travellers look to improve their crossword skills and learn techniques to boost their brain power, but they will also create their own crossword that will be published in Newsday. One happy customer even went so far as to say the cruise is especially fun for singles but I think she was probably talking about a three letter word beginning with s and ending with x.

Who will do it?

Definitely one for the skinny jean, horn-rimmed glasses, hipster crowd. Or retirees looking for some action.

Homeless tourism, London

It's one thing to see the glossy, romantic side of a city, but quite another to see it through the eyes of those the city has cast aside. Launched as part of last year's London Fringe Festival, volunteer group Sock Mob offer travellers the chance to see another side of London on a walking tour with a homeless guide. Discovering famous areas such as London Bridge, Covent Garden and Mayfair, tales of the city are intertwined with anecdotes of the guides own experiences of living on the streets. Not only will the tour open your eyes to another side of life in one of the worlds most famous cities, but youll be helping the guides make a living, as they share in the revenue of ticket sales. For more info, head to http://sockmobevents.org.uk

Who will do it?

People who want to do more than just scratch the surface of a place they visit

Illegal immigrant tourism, Mexico

If you've ever been planning a trip and thought to yourself, "I wonder what it would be like to illegally cross the border from Mexico to the US?", then I've got the trip for you. Situated in Parque EcoAlberto, three hours north-west of Mexico City, the 'caminata nocturna' - or night time hike - gives participants a Mexican border-hopping experience, complete with chasing border patrol officers and fellow refugees to help you find your way. While all the running away from fake cops may sound a bit contrived, there's also a serious message. "Being an immigrant isn't a source of pride," said one guide. "We abandon the family, the language, the earth. The idea here is to raise peoples consciousness about what immigrants go through."

Who will do it?

Anyone planning on overstaying their visa.

Grave site tourism

Travellers have been going to the grave sites of famous people for years, and for historical and pop culture icons such as JFK, Martin Luther King, Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison, their final resting places have become shrines for the visiting masses. However, the good (OK, maybe that's not the right word) part of grave site tourism is that there's a never-ending supply of new people to visit - Whitney Houston, Etta James and that young-faced looking one from The Monkees have all died this year and it's only May! Michael Jackson's grave at the Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills - also known as The Country Club for the Dead - is the latest site to be mobbed by fans, leaving tributes, flowers and silver gloves in their hundreds.

Who will do it?

Travellers who want to pay their respects. And the odd nutty fan

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JUST as destinations can rise and fall in popularity, so can the activities and tours you take while on holiday. A decade or so ago, bungy jumps and skydives were the activity to take while on a trip, the adrenalin-packed punch that was the crowning glory of your overseas adventure, while also making you the envy of friends and family when you got home.

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Explore this website.
1) What is it?
2) What are the objectives?
3) Give examples of projects carried out.
4) Is the organisation trustworthy and efficient? Explain

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We are the next step in independent volunteering, tours and adventure travel. We're dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what responsible tourism is all about. Since 2002, we have placed more than 24.000 people in communuity projects abroad.

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Persent the article and give your opinion.

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Dark tourism: why murder sites and disaster zones are proving popular with travellers

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When it comes to holiday jaunts, the site of a nuclear disaster zone, the home of a serial killer or the execution chamber of a former state prison don't scream "wish you were here". But while it might not be everyone's idea of fun, demand for macabre attractions and disturbing experiences that recreate horrific moments in history is growing - dark tourism is on the rise.

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Describe the document and explain the objective. Who do you think is the target?

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Look at the picture and answer the following question: What marketing strategy does Air New Zealand use?

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Star Wars The Force Awakens Exclusive: Behind the Scenes with JJ Abrams in Ireland

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Present the document and give your opinion.

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Tourism Ireland launches Skellig Micheal video to entice Star Wars fans (VIDEO)

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"I can't believe they let us shoot there, it was so beautiful," said Star Wars' director J.J. Abrams.

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Read the article and answer the following questions:
1) Why is James Bond associated with Britain?
2) What are the Great Britain Tourism Board's intentions?

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Though he may roam the globe, James Bond will always be a British gentleman. But is his intrinsic tie to the Union Jack marketing gold? Great Britain's tourism board is betting roughly $1 million that it is.

To coincide with 007's 50 th birthday this Friday (the 50 th anniversary of the release of the first Bond film, "Dr. No," not the first Ian Fleming novel), VisitBritain will launch its largest ever film tourism campaign centered on the latest Bond iteration, "Skyfall," due to hit theaters worldwide this fall.

Here's what VisitBritain wants you to know: "Bond is Great Britain." That's the slogan of the tourism board's campaign, which hopes to season Britain's turgid image with the adventure and intrigue of 007 (a la current James Bond Daniel Craig and the queen's " parachuting" stunt at the Olympics).

Karen Clarkson, VP of VisitBritain North America, said the tourism board is the only official destination partner on the film and, thus, was given special permission to use "Skyfall" imagery, the logo and Daniel Craig's likeness in its promotional material.

Twenty-one countries -- including key markets like Australia, Brazil, Germany and the U.S. -- will be treated to a string of cinema, press and outdoor advertising campaigns developed around the idea that Bond is not just the creation of an English author, he is Great Britain. Furthermore, the tourism board will launch an interactive online experience called " Agent UK," designed to engage prospective travelers with social media. Those that accept their mission will take part in five online tasks set across the country that will help them to identify the hidden location of a rogue agent. The prize: One lucky winner will be flown to the UK courtesy of British Airways to "Live Like Bond," an adventure that entails taking a master class on how to make the perfect martini (shaken, not stirred), driving an Aston Martin, scoring some Globe-Trotter luggage and staying in the Radisson Blu.

Just as Scotland did with "Braveheart" and New Zealand is doing with the coming "Hobbit" trilogy, Britain hopes to transform filmgoers into travelers.

"It's what we like to call vacation on location, and it's something Britain excels at," Clarkson said. "We've worked with several films over the year like 'The Da Vinci Code,' 'Robin Hood' and 'Bridget Jones,' but we've been a little more low key."

Why this Bond film and why this year? Clarkson said the 50 th anniversary combined with the success of the Bond/Queen bit at the London Olympics made it the perfect time to leverage the franchise.

VisitBritain claims that, on average, 120 million people worldwide will see a blockbuster film in the first three weeks of its opening and that research shows that film locations can be a major draw for overseas tourists. Moreover, it claims that almost half of potential visitors to Britain say they want to visit places they've seen featured in films or TV.

For example, VisitBritain research suggests that following the release of "Robin Hood," visitors to Nottingham rose 5.5 percent, while Alnwick Castle, the location used for Hogwarts School in "Harry Potter," experienced a 230 percent increase in visitors and £9 million ($14.5 million) in spending due to the "Potter effect."

While "Skyfall" locations like the already popular National Gallery, Whitehall and Greenwich are unlikely to see such dramatic bursts in visitor numbers, as the longest-running film franchise of all time, Bond's overall appeal spans destinations and demographics.

"He represents the quintessential British gentleman," Clarkson asserted. "A lot of men aspire to be him and a lot of women aspire to be on his arm."

There's a certain timelessness to Bond, she added. He's got one foot in the past and one foot planted firmly in the future.

With each film partnership, VisitBritain believes it can offer a view of the nation through a different lens. With "Harry Potter" and "Robin Hood," it was swords and surrealism. In its biggest push to date, VisitBritain hopes "Skyfall" will be a windfall, attracting Bond wannabes from around the world.

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Introducing Great Britain's $1M Tourism Ambassador: James Bond

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Though he may roam the globe, James Bond will always be a British gentleman. But is his intrinsic tie to the Union Jack marketing gold? Great Britain's tourism board is betting roughly $1 million that it is.

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Another video about forms of tourism. Make a list of all new vocabulary.

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Different market segments have different requirements. Where do you fit in? http://www.deanlewis.biz Not that long ago, when there was a discussion of types of tourism, it was either domestic or international. Today's tourism industry is more complex with dozens of sub-categories and niche markets.

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Listen to the recording and answer the questions.

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Going further
Tourism or Voyeurism?

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Watch the video and list the forms of tourism mentioned. Give your opinion about at least 10 of them.

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25 Bizarre Types Of Tourism You Might Want To Try (Except For #1)

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Study the documents carefully and answer the questions.