PROFILE: Holly Morris | Travel + Leisure
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PROFILE: Holly Morris

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OCCUPATION Founder, Adventure Divas

HOME BASE Seattle

HER STORY Holly Morris, 37, dreamed up Adventure Divas six years ago while trekking though the Sumatra rain forest. A former book editor, she was inspired to "promote a role model too often missing from our media—the proactive woman who creates positive change in her community." The company began as a Web site,expanded into a PBS documentary series, and in 2005, will guide tours through countries such as India, Brazil, and Eritrea. While filming, Morris herself has circled the globe, interviewing pop singers, activists, and police chiefs.

LOST IN TRANSLATION "Everywhere I went, I'd ask the women what diva meant in their native language. Usually, it meant things like lioness, deity, light. Well, in Iran it turned out to be similar to the Farsi word for monster (deev). So there we were, trying to get people to talk to us in a country where it was risky for them to talk to us in the first place, and they think we're doing a show about women monsters. That was a real cultural faux pas."

IN HER SUITCASE What to pack when flash floods and leeches are all in a day's work? Morris never leaves home without a bottle of ibuprofen, Ziploc bags, duct tape ("for strap-ping wads of cash to my body and for fixing crappy parachutes"), and gifts (she recommends dried apricots for Central America and vitamins for Cuba, "especially calcium for the ladies.")

GIRL POWER "I visit beauty parlors in every country I go to: they are bastions of intelligence. One of my favorite pieces of advice came from a 'depilatory engineer' in Brazil. When I asked her what was the most important fact about waxing, she said, 'Know where you're going before you put the wax down.' Somehow, that strikes me as good advice for women travelers the world over."
—Jaime Gross

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