RemyScalza.com: Independent Journalism

Canadian Geographic-Photography of Remy Scalza

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I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember.  But I’ve only been taking photographs seriously since I took a class with Pulitzer-Prize winner Pat Davidson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007.  My photographs have come a long way since then.  They still have a long way to go.  But I was honored when Canadian Geographic featured a collection of my best travel photographs in this month’s edition of its Field Reports, a monthly column that profiles Canadian photographers.

Field Reports

Interview with Remy Scalza

Remy Scalza’s first experience abroad was in his third year of university, when he spent a semester in Australia. After that, the Vancouverite couldn’t get enough of traveling. He spent nearly a decade in South America and Spain, teaching English as a Second Language and getting to know various cultures. He lists the Atlantic coast of Brazil and Cappadocia — a region in central Turkey where the Grand Canyon-type landscape captivates many a photographer — among his most memorable experiences.

Q What inspired you to pursue this career?

A There’s enormous satisfaction in capturing a beautiful image. Part of what appeals to me is that it’s a completely different side of the brain you’re using. In fact, sometimes on the spur of the moment, it’s hard to switch back and forth between thinking as a writer and thinking as a photographer. The writer side is hyper-rational, thinking out every detail. Photography has more intuitive elements. It’s more immediate and emotional . . . .

Check out the rest of the interview and a photo gallery on the Canadian Geographic site.

Wedded Bliss in Jamaica? No worries

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In most of my stories, I try to keep the “I” to a minimum – better to let the places I visit take center stage than go on about myself.  But I had to make an exception with this story.  Last year I was married in Jamaica, on a beautiful stretch of Negril’s seven-mile beach.  Turns out there’s a huge market for destination wedding stories.  I couldn’t resist.

Wedded Bliss in Jamaica

Remy Scalza, Postmedia News

In terms of spiciness, the Scotch bonnet pepper is about 30 times as hot as your average jalapeno – which probably explains why I’m sweating.

The jerk sauce at Best in the West Jerk Chicken Bar, a thatch-roofed shack alongside the main drag in Negril, Jamaica, is pretty much all Scotch bonnet peppers. I reach for a Red Stripe to douse the flames and pull my chair closer to the bar. Outside, sheets of tropical rain are falling, turning the dirt parking lot into a big mud puddle. “‘Bout time,” the bartender says, cracking open a beer for himself. “We need a break from de heat.” He’s right. It’s been 29 Celsius all week in Negril: gloriously hot and cloudless. There is, however, one problem with the rain. I’m getting married in 90 minutes on the beach. Just then, the wind picks up. Big drops whip sideways into the little jerk shack and sizzle when they hit the grill.

Couples choose to have a destination wedding for lots of reasons. It’s a chance to spend a whole holiday with family and friends, instead of just a hectic few hours. Guest lists tend to be smaller and costs lower. You get a vacation out of it. But paramount among the reasons we decided to tie the knot on the beach was the stress factor, or lack thereof. There’s an unwritten law that wedding anxiety is inversely proportional to distance from home and availability of umbrella drinks. This was important for us. My wife, Stephanie, was born without the Bridezilla gene. Aisle runners and wedding favours and matching boutonnieres don’t keep her up at night. And I’d be lying if I said I knew what a boutonniere was before this all started. So an island wedding seemed to make sense. It’s hard to sweat the small stuff when you’re sipping a banana daiquiri, feet in the sand, a few thousand miles removed from real life.

Of course, when it comes to the quintessential stress-free getaway, there’s still no place quite like Jamaica.

Click here to read the rest on The Province website.

Igloo 101: Snow camping in Vancouver

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It’s that time of year again.  While Vancouver drowns in drizzle, the mountains that tower above the city get walloped with dozens of feet of snow.  I trekked up to nearby Cypress Mountain to partake in that most Canadian of rites, igloo building.  Turns out it’s much harder and wetter than it looks.  But the end product is still pretty cool.  I wrote about the experience for the Sydney Morning Herald.  And here’s a short video.

An ice place you have here

Remy Scalza; Special to the Sydney Morning Herald

Chilled from a day in the snow, worn out from hours of shovelling and stacking snow blocks, we worm our way into the tunnel of the igloo one after another. The wind’s howl mutes to a low hum. The day’s grey light goes black. I follow the pair of boots in front, crawling in towards the glimmer of light ahead.

The boots belong to Michael Harding, igloo evangelist. An outdoor guide with baby-blue eyes and snow-white hair, Harding has raised untold hundreds of igloos in this corner of western Canada. “They’re warmer than tents,” he’d explained earlier this morning as we climbed into the back country of the mountains outside Vancouver in his late-model Nissan Pathfinder. “They’re soundproof. They’re practically cozy.”

I’ve joined him and another guide for a one-day crash course in igloo basics, dragging along a friend from Vancouver for this most Canadian rite of passage. Not that I’m planning an assault on K2 any time soon. But even for armchair adventurers, there’s just something about an igloo.

To read more on the Sydney Morning Herald website, click here.

For Cheaper Medical Care, Try Tijuana

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In a place where you can’t drink the water, is it safe to go under the knife?  I was surprised to learn that growing numbers of people from Texas and California are heading down to notorious Tijuana, Mexico, for medical tourism.  Procedures range from cosmetic surgeries to more advanced stuff including gastric bypasses and even experimental treatments not approved in the U.S.   Obviously price is a big factor.  But is getting medical care in Tijuana – given the drug violence and long history of sleaze – a good idea?  I checked things out while on a trip to Mexico and wrote about the experience for The Washington Post.

For Cheaper Medical Care, Try Tijuana

Remy Scalza: Special to the Washington Post

Adrian doesn’t look like a pharmacist. He’s not wearing a white lab coat and hasn’t shaved in a few days. He pats the breast pocket of his shirt to show me the best spot to stash pills when crossing back over the border.

“They won’t check here, and if they do, just tell them you have a medical condition,” he explains.

Out in front of his little shop, under his neon pharmacy sign, a busty mannequin done up in a skimpy nurse’s uniform and holding a heart-shaped sign for Viagra beckons more customers off the street. No prescription? No problem.

Tijuana, Mexico, just across the border from San Diego, has long been a favored destination for Americans in the market for cheap and illicit meds, among other things. The city was a seedy refuge for Hollywood pleasure-seekers during Prohibition, and then came decades as a playground for hard-partying co-eds and service personnel too young to imbibe north of the border.

But times are changing. Discount pharmacies such as Adrian’s are slowly disappearing as Tijuana turns its attention to American medical tourists looking for more than painkillers and sex pills. Savvy comparison shoppers, they stream in from California and beyond for deep discounts on everything from cosmetic and weight-loss surgeries to hip replacements and stem-cell transplants. Some are uninsured in the United States. Others are hoping to save on the high cost of elective procedures back home.

And then there’s me, just here to do a little browsing.

To read the full article on the Washington Post website, click here.

New Healthy Street Food Rules in Vancouver

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Street food is a big part of any city’s culinary scene.  But until last summer, Vancouver’s street fare was limited to hotdogs, popcorn and chestnuts.  City officials recently lifted the ban, setting off a food cart renaissance.  But there’s one catch: New vendors are selected based on whether they offer healthy, fair-trade and organic options, among other criteria.  I blogged about the unusual requirements for In Transit, The New York Times’ travel blog.

New Street Food Rules in Vancouver Emphasize Health and Diversity

By Remy Scalza

In Vancouver, street food is an emerging mini-industry. But new vendors who want to sell hot dogs and cheese steak sandwiches may need to switch to healthier options. A controversial city council decision made last month requires vendors seeking licenses to conform to a range of new rules, which emphasize healthier fare; organic, local and fair-trade foods; and an increased diversity of options.

Click here to see the full post on The New York Times website, as well as a video I shot of one of the food trucks.

Tijuana Reconsidered

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Tijuana is one of those places that very few people have been to, everybody’s heard of and pretty much no one wants to go to.  I took a trip to the sleazy Mexican border town par-excellence mainly out of curiosity.  Could it really be that bad?  Would the streets be thronged with college kids getting drunk on cheap margaritas and high on discount prescription meds?  What about all the drug violence that the State Department has been warning us about – the daylight shootouts by rival gangs, the kidnappings?  Well, it turns out that Tijuana is suffering mainly from a serious image problem.  It’s not exactly picturesque, but it’s hardly any more dangerous than your average U.S. city.  And despite being pushed up against the U.S. border, there’s a homegrown culture that’s distinctly Mexican. I wrote about the experience for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Good, the bad and the edgy

December 12, 2010
A lookout on the Tijuana coastline.


A lookout on the Tijuana coastline. Photo: David Peevers/Lonely Planet

Boutique wineries by day, tequila blowouts by night. Remy Scalza finds anything-goes Tijuana has shrugged off its battle scars and made changes.

THE special tonight in La Querencia, a minimalist bistro near the banks of the Rio Tijuana, is wild quail served in bitter-sweet chocolate sauce. Around me in the dining room couples cluster at brushed stainless-steel tables, chatting in Spanish above a trance-music soundtrack and moving steadily through bottles of wine from the nearby Guadalupe Valley. The energy in the room and the optimism are a distant cry from the mood during the worst of la violencia – the drug-fuelled mayhem that had middle-class Tijuanense fleeing north of the border just two years ago.

Since those dark days, Tijuana, Mexico, which lies just across the US border from San Diego, has done an abrupt – if largely unnoticed – about-face. A new, hard-nosed chief of police has worked to rein in the drug cartels and residents have turned their energies inward, cultivating a sophisticated bar and restaurant scene and reinvigorating the arts and culture circuit. Tijuana, for all its challenges, is in the midst of a mini-renaissance.

To read the rest of the article on the Sydney Morning Herald website, click here.  

Western Promises: Young and Saudi in North America

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Photo: Greg Geipel for Vancouver Magazine



Vancouver has long been a popular destination for international students, in particular ESL students from Japan and Korea who come across the Pacific to study English.  Recently, however, I began noticing a new constituency:  Arabic speaking students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  After asking some questions, I discovered that there are tens of thousands of Saudi students studying in Canada (even more in the U.S.) as part of an ambitious scholarship program intended to show young Saudis a glimpse of Western life.  I spent a few days hanging out with a group of guys from Riyadh during Ramadan, and I wrote about the experience for Vancouver Magazine.

Western Promises

Young Saudis have an all expenses-paid ticket to study in Vancouver, and they’re getting more than just a university education.

By published Nov 30, 2010

By Saudi Arabian standards, Trad Bahabri, a 21-year-old from the capital city of Riyadh, may be a good driver. By Vancouver standards, however, he is not. One afternoon during Eid, the holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Bahabri is driving north on Knight trying to get to Richmond. This is the wrong direction. He eyes oncoming traffic, slams on the brakes, and makes an abrupt U-turn in his Chrysler 300, a hulking new sedan with an imposing metal grille. “Saudis like American cars,” he explains. “We don’t have to worry about the gas.”

By the time we finally crest the Knight Street Bridge, other drivers have begun to stare. It’s not just his driving skills that are attracting attention. To mark the holiday, Bahabri is in traditional Saudi dress: a flowing white robe known as a thobe, which he stayed up late ironing, and a brilliant red and white-checked head scarf, or shemagh. The shemagh spills over the headrest and flaps around when the window is rolled down.

Bahabri stops in an industrial part of Richmond near Ikea and parks behind a drab cinderblock building with a sign strung above the doorway: Saudi Students Society of British Columbia. Later in the day there will be a feast to commemorate the end of Ramadan. A small crowd of men—some in thobes and shemaghs, and just as many in jeans and hoodies—is already gathering out front.

Click here to read the full article on the Vancouver Magazine website.

On a Taco Mission in San Francisco

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I visited San Francisco for the first time earlier this year.  As a traveler, the city can be overwhelming – so much history, so much culture, so many tourist traps.  I decided to skip the Fisherman’s Wharf and the cable cars and instead caught the BART to the gritty Mission District.   Home to a huge Latin American population, the Mission is revered among taco lovers for its cheap, authentic Mexican cuisine.  I spent a day trolling the neighborhood’s main drag for the perfect taco and wrote about the experience for BCBusiness Magazine.

Travelling to San Francisco

Remy Scalza; Special to BCBusiness

October 2010

At the southern end of Mission Street, amid the fruit stands and pawn shops, is a sign that reads simply La Taquería.  Here in America’s taco heartland – San Francisco’s gritty Mission District – that name speaks volumes.  There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of taquerías packed into the neighborhood – humble taco joints serving Mexican street food to clientele who know their jalapeños from their habaneros.  To call yourself La Taquería – literally, the taco stand – in this context is brassy, even confrontational.  It says, “I alone am worthy of the name: the one, the only.”

With carne asada like this, however, it’s hard to argue.

The Mission District is just a brisk subway ride from the cable cars and fishermen’s wharves of San Francisco’s well touristed center.  But in appearance, demographics and culture, it’s a world away.

Click here to read the full article on BCBusiness.

Cabo Polonio: Lonely but lovely Uruguayan beach

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Great beaches – wherever they are – seem to have an incredibly short life span.  Once they’re discovered, in come the condos, the patio dining and the shops selling t-shirts and cheap boogie boards.  Natural oasis becomes man-made playground and the charm is lost.  The challenge, of course, is finding a beach before it reaches that point on the curve; i.e. with just enough amenities to accommodate the hardy traveler but none of the commercial excess.  Cabo Polonio, an isolated beach town on the tip of South America in Uruguay, fits that bill nicely.  I recently wrote about a stay there for the Toronto Star.

Cabo Polonio: A lonely but lovely Uruguayan beach

September 1, 2010; Remy Scalza – Special to The Star

CABO POLONIO, URUGUAY—It’s well past midnight when Joselo, the blind bartender with silver hair past his shoulders, brings up the story of El Pingüino.

“Four penguins washed up on shore,” he says. “I took them all in . . . but El Pingüino was special.”

Joselo is speaking by candlelight in his eponymous bar in Cabo Polonio, a tiny beach town about 150 miles east of Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. The candles aren’t for effect. Cabo Polonio, a thirty-minute dune buggy ride from the nearest highway, has no cars, no paved roads and, apart from its signature lighthouse, no municipal electric power.

“When the bar would fill up, I used to bring [El Pingüino] out on the dance floor,” Joselo explains. “He’d walk right through the crowd . . . completely at home.”

Welcome to Uruguay, a place where dancing penguins hardly seem out of the question. A diminutive, Dorito-shaped country of 3 million wedged between Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay remains largely untouristed, nonglobalized and just plain quirky. Of the dozens of towns, cities and villages strung along its Atlantic coast, no two are alike. Cut off in capes, isolated on rocky points, marooned behind dunes, each has evolved along its own, often eccentric, path.

To read the full article on the Toronto Star website, click here.

Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

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Next-door neighbor to both Iraq and Iran, Kuwait is in a volatile part of the world.  But in the decades since Iraq’s invasion, Kuwait has prospered off of a steady stream of oil revenue.  Today, the country is something of a contradiction:  A conservative Muslim state where Sharia law prevails and a consumer-oriented society where lavish wealth has encouraged lots and lots of shopping.  I visited Kuwait recently and spent some time in the country’s largest mall.  I wrote about my experiences for National Geographic Traveler.

Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

By Remy Scalza; Special to National Geographic Traveler

Just beyond the gleaming new subdivisions built in the desert, it rises – glorious and shimmering – in the Kuwaiti heat.

With 250 stores covering 2.5 million square feet, The Avenues is neither mosque nor desert palace but Kuwait’s largest shopping mall, a temple to the cult of consumerism.  I’ve come to be initiated.

Read more . . . .

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