For me, there’s never a shortage of learning opportunities when I travel abroad. Whether I’m studying for my advanced scuba certificate in South Africa, struggling through an Arabic class in Lebanon or just listening to people tell stories around a dinner table, I’m always trying to soak up as much as I can about the city, town or village that is hosting me.  Beyond my personal learning experiences, I also like to see what kinds of events and perspectives are present in the country’s news.  When I am abroad, one thing I quickly notice is how much news never makes it back to the U.S.

I remember picking up an English language newspaper while traveling in eastern Africa back in 2002 and coming across a tragic article about a bridge collapse in a town that took a number of lives.  After finishing the article about the bridge collapse and the tragic loss of life that came with it, it hit me that if I hadn’t been in east Africa when it happened, I never would have known about this incident.  That back at home in America, that story wouldn’t even have registered a back page story in any local paper. It would have been replaced by a piece about a local murder, a national political scandal or, sadly, a story about a celebrity that would have little to no impact on those who read it. Not that the article about the bridge collapse was any less important, its just that there is too much news and not enough time to absorb it all.

There will never be enough hours in the day to catch up on world news, politics, scientific discoveries, fashion trends, sports victories and cultural traditions from around the globe.  When I was younger I wanted to be a world news reporter because then it would be my job to constantly be reading up on events, regardless of when and where they happened.  But instead I end up getting most of my news in bits via daily podcasts. I like to listen to ones with a global spin like PRI’s The World and the BBC’s Global News, but even those only get me a small percent of what’s going on around the world.

What if I want more?  

I am curious, where do you turn? What are your suggestions for news that will (1) give me stories that I am not getting from the national evening news and (2) that offer a perspective that beyond what we’re used to in the western media.  Do you listen to podcasts? Local or National television news? Magazines? Newspapers? And which countries are they based out of?  While I cannot add more hours to the day, I would like to make the most out of the ones I have to check out what is going on beyond my doorstep.