How can a tiny lodge get a nation's prime minister to rethink resort tourism and support creation of a new national park? Just win a World Legacy Award for sustainable tourism, reports National Geographic Traveler geotourism editor Jonathan Tourtellot.

Norwegian polar explorer Børge Ousland strives to leave his mark on history, much as his renowned countrymen Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen did a century ago. National Geographic News recently spoke with Ousland about life spent alone on the ice.

You don't get much local flavor in the all-inclusive resorts strung along Jamaica's north coast. For authenticity you need community tourism, according to National Geographic Traveler geotourism editor Jonathan Tourtellot. Plus, Buddhist-friendly angling in Mongolia.

Fifty years ago, researchers in Japan gave local macaques food handouts. Freed from the daily grind of foraging for food, the monkeys invented "cultural activities" to fill their newly-acquired leisure time: stone-play, wheat-washings, and hot-tubbing. This story airs Sunday, February 8, on our U.S. cable television program Be the Creature.

Africa's mountain gorillas were decimated by civil unrest, poaching, and habitat destruction during the 1960s and '70s. Now, despite the effect of war and genocide, a new census reveals that the population of those great apes in the Virunga mountains has increased by 17 percent. A related story about the mountain gorillas airs on our U.S. cable television program National Geographic On Assignment tonight.

Upon rediscovering a classic 19th-century tale of survival in the Sahara, author Dean King embarked on his own arduous crossing of Morocco. National Geographic Adventure recently spoke with King about his epic trek and the shipwrecked American sea captain who inspired it.

The latest digital cameras have made vacation photography a snap. Read what National Geographic Traveler editors have to say about finding the right digital camera, buying memory cards, and the advantages of digital over analog photography.

Mike Heithaus is used to the public image of sharks as mindless killing machines. But one thing he's learned from using Crittercam is that "sharks are a lot more boring than you'd expect."

Too few international tourists are worse than too many, says National Geographic Traveler geotourism editor Jonathan B. Tourtellot—especially when it comes to smashing stereotypes. Also, why planned development maps are raising eyebrows in Massachusetts, and top farm-stays in Poland.

Shark Bay by its name alone may not sound like the most welcoming of habitats, but dugongs would beg to differ. Located on the western coast of Australia, Shark Bay contains vast seagrass meadows within its warm, shallow waters—just the right habitat for a myriad of marine animals, including the distinctive "sea cow," or dugong.

Each year, some of the world's most daring rescues at sea are launched from the Chetco River Station, one of dozens of Coast Guard stations that patrol the Pacific Northwest coast. A related story airs Thursday, January 22, on our U.S. cable television program Dangerous Jobs.

The Steller's jay is in the same bird family as the crow—and shares an extraordinary ability to find food almost anywhere. Birding columnist Mathew Tekulsky describes how one gregarious jay tried to share his sandwich in Yosemite National Park.

Jennifer Niven writes books about real-life adventurers. For her latest book she focused on the "female Robinson Crusoe" of the early 1920s—23-year-old Ada Blackjack, the unlikely hero of an arduous expedition into the far North to desolate, uninhabited Wrangel Island for the purpose of claiming the island for Great Britain.

Many Italian towns and small cities have a Pro Loco, a civic membership organization that works with local businesses and tourism officials to devise ways to enhance the town and attract visitors. It's an idea the rest of us might want to adapt to our own countries, writes National Geographic Traveler magazine's Sustainable Tourism Editor, Jonathan Tourtellot.

After a new case of SARS was confirmed in China, officials there ordered the widespread culling of civets, an animal that has been linked to the transmission of the virus. But some experts now warn that the slaughter of a "scapegoat" species may be a terrible mistake.