Upward Magazine: Issue #007

ISSUE 007

O C T O B E R F E AT U R E S - S O U T H E A S T A S I A

G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG - 6

&

USA

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Walk through the streets of Luang Prabang and find ornate golden temples sitting among lush green palm trees and orange clad monks.

Children and stray dogs play next to street vendors selling fresh produce and southeast Asian delicacies are complemented by the gentle hum of the Mekong river.

Planning your special day can be overwhelming, until you meet Kathryn. She is the talented woman behind Paper and Pine Company and she has mastered how to make your wedding or special event unique and tailored to you. Paper and Pine specializes in wooden signs, stationery and dÊcor to fit any event — big or small.

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FO U N D E R SUMMER JOHNSON

SENIOR EDITOR DAKOTA ARKIN

O P E R AT I O N S D I R E C T O R SANDY ANDERSON

C OV E R D E S I G N JESSICA BAILEY

DESIGN IKER FERNANDEZ & JESSICA BAILEY

E D I T O R I AL SUMMER JOHNSON ANNE FOONG, NICOLE STANTON BRITTANY TEMPLETON, DAKOTA ARKIN ASHLEY PUCKETT, EMMA CUNNINGHAM JESSICA NABONG, MICHAEL MARQUAND

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT KAWSAR SIDDIK, ROCKY ATHWANI

M AR K E T I N G ILKA PANDILOVSKA

CONTACT

UPWARDMAGAZINE.COM

UPWARDMAGAZINE

HELLO@UPWARDMAGAZINE.COM

UPWARDMAGAZINE

UPWARDMAGAZINE

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FOUNDER’S LETTER

MAASAI VILLAGE 2016

- SU M M ER J OHN SON

We’re Going to Print!

This Fall, we will be releasing our first print edition of Upward Magazine. Our entire team is engaged in fulfilling all of your travel curiosities and desires. Our goal is to transition our online adventure into a beautiful, sustainable print editorial that will be delivered right to your doorstep. In doing so, we will now have a quarterly distribution structure that will release Upward during each season. As we shift from being primarily an online entity, we intend on Upward becoming a timeless editorial piece to be enjoyed at home, or to bring on your next trip. As we take this journey into print, we hope to continue to encourage our readers to take on their next travel endeavours fearlessly as we share stories from all over the globe.

To subscribe or pre-order, visit upwardmagazine.com.

P.S. We will continue to publish a monthly snapshot of our magazine here on ISSUU. Our presence here is one that we cherish and we hope to give you a taste of what’s going on around the world in our Upward Mini.

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ISSUE 7 - SEPTEMBER 2016

WORLD S TORIE S Get Lost Along the Mekong

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ENTREPRENEUR Dotting Every i and Crossing every t: Paper and Pine Co.

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NO.1 World Stories

Get Lost Along the Mekong PHOTOS AND TEXT: MICHAEL MARQUAND

Walk through the streets of Luang Prabang and find ornate golden temples sitting among lush green palm trees and orange clad monks. Children and stray dogs play next to street vendors selling fresh produce and southeast Asian delicacies are complemented by the gentle hum of the Mekong river. Every scene in the city feels serene and playful and dripping with color.

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G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG

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G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG

Southeast Asia has long been a favorite destination for backpackers, luxury travelers and anything in between for good reason. In addition to being a haven for Buddhist culture, this part of the globe offers some of the most stunning landscapes in the natural world.

Although, anyone who has gone in the last few years may have gotten overwhelmed by hordes of tourists at Angkor Wat, or by being stopped every ten seconds by an aggressive vendor trying to sell a massage or a tour or a t-shirt in Chiang Mai.

Laos is a peaceful respite in this sense. It doesn’t offer any of the big world famous tourist sites, like the ruins of Sukhothai or the beaches of Bali. It does offer the same beautiful scenery, villages, islands and temples found in the rest of Southeast Asia and with a lot let less tourism and a lot more of the local culture intact.

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G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG

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G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG

Just outside Luang Prabang city are the Kuang Si Falls — a multi-tiered waterfall and swimming hole surrounded by tropical forest. The water is clean and warm with a surreal turquoise color. Sunlight filters through the trees onto tourists and locals diving off branches into the pools of fresh water.

Traveling north of Luang Prabang, I could hike through the villages of the indigenous Lao people. Along the trails I spotted raised wooden huts, roaming farm animals and friendly villagers farming, cooking and playing music.

Further down the Mekong is the Laos capital of Vientiane. It’s a city of Buddhist temples and French Colonial architecture that’s worth getting lost in. A 20 minute Tuk Tuk ride outside the city brought me to Buddha park — a terrain of beautiful and sometimes bizarre Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, representing gods, animals, and demons. At one end of the park the largest sculpture is a circular piece of architecture with a face on one end. I crawl into the mouth and up the staircase to a viewpoint where I can see the whole park. A giant reclining Buddha is on one end while the rest of the park filled with a seemingly random assortment of smaller buddhas, elephants, monkeys and a number of other statues that are unrecognizable to me. The place feels otherworldly.

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G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG

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G E T L O S T AL ONG T H E M E KONG

Over the next few days, I continued to travel south to Si Phan Don (also known as the four thousand islands), a lesser known destination bordering Cambodia. The area is very remote, even for Laos. A bus ride to a shuttle, to a short boat trip took me to Don Det where one can find a cheap riverside bungalow for less than 10 U.S. dollars a night. Wander around the island and visit the waterfalls, rent a bike for one dollar or get an inner tube and float down the river letting each tiny island pass by. Go kayaking and watch the pink dolphins swim at sunset. Then, fill up on noodles, pumpkin burgers, and Beerlao — the national beer. During my time in Laos, I met a lot of friendly locals as well as Westerners who came here as tourists and just stayed. If I spend too much time here, I might be tempted to do the same.

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NO.2 Entrepreneur

Dotting Every i and Crossing every t: Paper and Pine Co.

TEXT: NICOLE STANTON / PHOTOS: PAPER AND PINE CO. (KATHRYN KARRIGAN)

Planning your special day can be overwhelming, until you meet Kathryn. She is the talented woman behind Paper and Pine Company and she has mastered how to make

your wedding or special event unique and tailored to you. Paper and Pine specializes in wooden signs, stationery and décor to fit any event — big or small.

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PAPER AND PINE

FEATURED PLACES

PAPERANDPINECO.COM

MINNESOTA, US

PAPERANDPINECO

“‘I’ve always been a very crafty person. I’ve tried everything...’”

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PAPER AND PINE

“... hard to say when my Etsy store turned from hobby to business...”

“I’ve always been a very crafty person. I’ve tried everything.... sewing, scrapbooking, jewelry... so two years ago when I got engaged, wedding planning became the ultimate craft!” Kathyrn made everything from curtains to an eightfoot marquee sign to fabric menus, place cards, programs, pillows, wood signs and the list goes

on and on. She says, “We had an absolutely amazing wedding day and honeymoon, but I was totally depressed after it was all over!” Her newfound hobby had seemed to have come to an end. “One of my bridesmaids suggested that I put some photos of the wood signs I created on Etsy,” she says, “and all of a sudden I was

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PAPER AND PINE

“The difference between good and great is often in the details.”

selling so many that I could barely keep up!”

“It’s kind of hard to say when my Etsy store turned from hobby to business, but I would say over the past six months my husband and I started thinking we might be able to make something substantial out of it all,” Kathryn

says. While Kathryn was painting and working solo when the business started out, it is now a team effort. “My husband and I work seamlessly together and there’s no way I could get all these projects out without him,” explains Kathryn. “We hope to hire in the future, but it’s hard to let go of the reins. My sister comes

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PAPER AND PINE

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PAPER AND PINE

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PAPER AND PINE

over during the weekends to help us, which is awesome since we both still have full time jobs and put in 50+ hour workweeks. I’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg with this shop, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day!”

The next step for Kathryn is to hire an accountant and purchase a new laser cutting and engraving machine.

Instagram and Etsy are the primary sources for Paper and Pine sales. Kathryn explains, “Other than Etsy, Pinterest brings us the most viewers. Etsy gets 32 million visitors per month! I mean how can you beat that?” Although, she does admit that social media takes more time than she wants to spare.

Right now, Paper and Pine is focused on weddings — nursery décor is up next. “Whenever my husband and I are on our umpteenth hour of the week and totally burnt out, we remind each other of our long term goal — to work for ourselves. It is so rewarding to see the benefits of our hard work. We dream of the day where we don’t have to request a vacation day or make someone else money or can sleep in for just one extra hour.”

The difference between good and great is often in the details. Paper and Pine Co. designs classic signs that go for an eternal aesthetic rather than trendy. Kathryn says, “I want for people to look back on their wedding decorations and not be like, ‘what was I thinking!’ I also try to steer away from most of the cheesy wedding quotes.”

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PAPER AND PINE

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ANNOUNCEMENT

Special Announcement Hello everyone, we are very excited to announce that we will be transitioning to a print magazine, published quarterly.

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ANNOUNCEMENT

The target date for the first print issue is January, we will still publish smaller issues each month introduced as ‘Upward Mini’. These mini issues will feature the same features and editorial team and often, give a preview of what to expect in the larger, full quarterly print editions. Our intent was always to move to a full print magazine and you can expect approximately 150 pages of content which is truly global nature with beautiful imagery. Think of the quarterly magazine as a ‘coffee table piece’ perfect for inspiring and planning your next adventure. The first print issue will be set for pre-sale in October and can be mailed straight to you. To support the print transition, we are updating our website and once completed, we would love to hear your feedback.

Thank you again for all of the support.

- The Upward Magazine Team

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