World Traveler Visits Carlsbad City Library

Karin Muller is the most interesting person I have ever met. A Swiss-born author, filmmaker, photographer and adventurer, Muller’s life goal is to travel the world’s highways. An expert lecturer on Japan for the National Geographic Society, she has been featured on National Public Radio and her writing appears in National Geographic and Traveler magazines.

On Saturday, Jan. 14 at 2 p.m., Muller will be visiting the library to give a multimedia performance with film clips from her documentaries as well as photos of her journeys. The locations she will be highlighting include Peru and Ecuador, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Tanzania, Sudan and Cuba.

When I asked Muller what audiences can expect, she replied, “We’re going to talk about travel. Not the sitting-on-a-cruise-ship-sipping-a-cocktail-while-watching-the-surfskiers-skitter-around kind of travel, but rather the waking up one morning and saying to yourself, ‘I think I’m going to go live with the Maasai for six months’  kind of travel. I know you all want to do this, and that you’ve been dreaming about it for a long time. I know you can clearly see yourself sitting in a hut in the middle of the Serengeti, and listening to Ndutu say, ‘and after the hyena took off, you would not believe what Nangakua did with the stick…’

There’s only one thing stopping you – you haven’t quite figured out how to go from being a tourist fresh off the plane to becoming a member of a Maasai village who can tell each and every cow apart by the shape of its tail.

I can help you with that.  I can show you how to become a part of a culture – the tricks of the trade and a way to come up with even more tools of your own. I can get you into a mindset that will almost guarantee that you will be welcomed everywhere – from a Quechua hut high in the Andes to a Hmong village on the border of China or even a Libyan rebel camp. And in case I’m wrong, I’m going to give you one secret that will get you out of just about any jam, no matter how many weapons are pointed in your direction.

I’ll let my Maasai chief know you’re coming.”

Join Carlsbad City Library for Solo Adventure Travels with Karin Muller at the library’s Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium, 1775 Dove Lane. The event is free, thanks to the Carlsbad Library and Arts Foundation’s Robert H. Gartner Cultural Endowment Fund. Seating is limited and first come, first served. For more information, call 760-602-2012.