Alot of attention has been given over the last five years to the uptick in ethical tourism and travel. Not really knowing what it all means, at a2ethics.org, we nevertheless want to be part of the wisdom of crowds, in this case the crowds of tourists who are now flocking to see global warming in action on a cruise to Antartica. And the private tour operators, who running out of frontiers, are now preparing to offer trips to take on the rigors of bone density loss and microgravity into space.

Yes, the issues surrounding ethical travel are as infinite as the universe. So are you ready to take them in--in our Places and Travel feature? We hope you are.

Rather than start with the ethical perils of space travel or the potential for reinforcing religious intolerance through conducting one denominational pilgrimages to the Holy Land, we would like to spend much of our time this year offering a different kind of pilgrimage: pilgrimages to places with famous ethics histories and destinations for doing ethics things. (And if you go to our local resources section, we give the locals in our area some suggestions: www.a2ethics.org/node/527).

What does this mean? It means visiting places where the Stoics hung out and where Socrates went to watch wrestling. It includes places where you can look at the first edition of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Or find out where Confucius lived. Not to mention the location of the sites where Al-Mawardi wrote his greatest works. And all the while, to learn through your rambling around and getting lost in new places--about  the wide range of ethics talks, lectures and tours going on everywhere in the world.

So, let's begin with The School of Life. It is located at 70 Marchmont Street in London's Bloomsbury area.

What is The School of Life? On the street, it is just another shop or store, a place where you can consume carefully selected and gallery-like artifacts of knowledge and philosophical culture. Once you walk in, however, you soon find that the main exhibit and the consumption is really going on in the basement. Don't be deceived. There is no moonshine here. This is a speak-easy for thinking. The drinks are simply convivial.  

As it happens, the day I went to The School of Life, the speaker was someone I really wanted to hear:  Nigel Warburton, the Philosophy Bites" host, whose podcasts with philosophers are a school in and of themselves.  (We have included Nigel's website on the a2ethics.org World Ethics Initiatives page: www.a2ethics.org/node/524/). The evening's topic: "How To Speak Your Mind."

Now before you go to thinking that The School of Life is not for you and speak your own mind about this, you need to visit and see it for yourself. And if you are a virtual traveler, go to an informative, short video about The School at: www.monocle.com/sections/business/Web-Articles/The-School-of-Life). Better yet,  just go directly to the School's website: www.theschooloflife.com.

There are many other places you could travel to in the world. But after that evening, I also remembered an obvious, but often forgotten fact: there are many who do not allow their own citizens to speak their minds, let alone travelers. We need more places like The School of Life to remind of us that.