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“Inspiring Places” Pilot Video Released

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[Above: A Sierra Gorda panorama. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot]

Featuring Sierra Gorda, Querétaro, Mexico

We chose the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve as the international pilot for this series because of one organization’s well-established success in their approach to conservation: Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda. In the videos, our two millennial hosts enjoy exploring the region as they discover how Grupo Ecológico has achieved its success.

Video hosts Ian and Christian at Cuatro Palos, Sierra Gorda. Photo: Hassen Salum

By working closely both with the local rural population, many of whom live at subsistence level, and with a succession of state and local governments, Grupo Ecológico has helped protect a wide variety of natural habitats while gradually making northeastern Querétaro into a scenic paradise for international travelers seeking an authentic Mexican experience.

You can now see and link to the Sierra Gorda videos on our YouTube channel, World’s Inspiring Places.  There are three versions:

Subscribe to the channel to see additional videos about Sierra Gorda and shooting World’s Inspiring Places pilot.

The World’s Inspiring Places is a short-form online travel series created by Erika Gilsdorf, owner and producer of South Shore Productions, and Jonathan Tourtellot, director of the Destination Stewardship Center, both based in the United States. The series aims to showcase stewardship success stories around the world where people are working to help conserve or preserve the cultural and natural heritage of a destination, or creating a unique travel experience the supports and builds on that heritage.

Destinations do not pay for the videos; we look instead for external support free from local conflict of interest. In the case of Sierra Gorda, we are grateful for generous support from Freightliner.

The mission of World’s Inspiring Places is to encourage travelers to visit, enjoy, and appreciate authentic destinations that protect their nature, culture, and sense of place; to help individuals, businesses, and governments care for these places and the people who live there; and to inform and inspire leaders to secure a solid economic future through wise destination stewardship.

For two reasons, we encourage you to enjoy the Sierra Gorda videos and link to them through your own social media, blogs, or websites. First, Grupo Ecológico’s work is truly a model for the rest of the world, worthy of dissemination. Second, we seek new topics for World’s Inspiring Places and, of course, ongoing sponsorship support for a series that will, we hope, showcase the world’s best examples of great stewardship and rewarding travel.

Our thanks to Grupo Ecológico for their help with our six-day shoot this past August, and with my own visit in October. Our appreciation also to Freightliner for their financial support and to Antonio del Rosal of Experiencias Genuinas  for his assistance in serving as our Mexican liaison.

If you have a proposal for the next World’s Inspiring Places, please see our page on how to apply, or contact us to begin a conversation.

Contact us, too, if you would like to download your own copy of a video, including a high-resolution version for audience presentations and the like.

Sierra Gorda To Lead New Video Series

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[Above: Video hosts Ian and Christian at Cuatro Palos, Sierra Gorda. Photo: Hassen Salum]

Our First “World’s Inspiring Places,” a Short-Form Travel Documentary

I can’t wait to show everyone this amazing place I’ve fallen in love with and tell the story of what makes it truly inspiring. Mexico’s Sierra Gorda is the star of our new online travel pilot, The World’s Inspiring Places, a video that we are releasing Sunday January 28, 2018. It prelaunched on 15 January 2018 with a one-minute version at the Awards Forum of the United Nations World Tourism Organization in Madrid, Spain. Check out the trailer!

For me, the concept behind The World’s Inspiring Places probably started the day I found myself yelling at a tourist to stop standing on the coral while they cleared their goggles. I’d had enough of overcrowded destinations making a buck at the expense of nature. It was time for me to focus on places in the world that were doing something right to protect where people loved to travel.

My passion led me to some of my first stories in Central America around reforestation, coral reef protection, overfishing and sustainable tourism.

My son got to tag along with me on shoots and grew up seeing sometimes the not-so-great underbelly from the impacts of such things as overdevelopment, logging, and poverty. While friends were boasting about their recent cruise or resort vacation, my son had been learning how local villagers were replanting sides of mountains, or he’d be on a boat with biologists counting boat propeller cuts on whale shark backs. It wasn’t always pretty. But it was definitely inspiring. Despite what often seemed like insurmountable challenges, these regular people, often with fewer means than most, were doing extraordinary things to protect their own places.

For me it’s fun that my son, Christian—he’s the one with the man bun in the videos—agreed to be one of the hosts, along with his college friend Ian. They further agreed to meet our very tight budget by hosting, well, for the fun of the trip. So we were off for an incredible 6-day filming project with a small, never-tiring, amazing crew from Mexico.

We set the bar high choosing the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve as the pilot for this series. Grupo Ecológico is a small organization that has had incredible success recognized globally in their approach to conservation, all while making an adventurer’s paradise. We appreciate Freightliner‘s support in covering the costs of video production and thereby supporting the work of Grupo Ecológico.

I’ve found my career’s passion in producing The World’s Inspiring Places, and it’s happened by partnering with Jonathan Tourtellot and the Destination Stewardship Center. A venture like this can’t be done alone, and it’s been fun joining forces to tell stewardship success stories from the traveler’s point of view—stories of truly inspiring people and places.

Join us as next week as we travel through the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve. Find out for yourself why this place is one of the best.

Tell us what you think! And if you have a proposal for the next “World’s Inspiring Places,” see our page on how to apply, or contact us to begin a conversation.