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near Roan Mountain, Tennessee
To be immersed in a foreign world, one doesn’t necessarily need to leave the country. If you’re American, for example, you could go to parts of Miami. Even better, you could take a hike on the Appalachian Trail.
Completed in 1937, the 2175-mile long Appalachian Trail … Read more »
In many first world countries, tonight will be celebrated with parties, drinking, and the inevitable shouting in unison of “..5!..4!..3!..2!..1!..HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Some will find themselves in public plazas with hundreds or thousands of revelers like those in Times Square, some will be at all-night clubs, and some may celebrate with smaller groups of friends, perhaps sitting around a TV and watching Dick Clark for the 38th time.
However, as Simon Winchester pointed … Read more »
Travel can be like walking on a frozen lake. Although logic tells you it’s safe, it’s hard to ignore the stomach-churn of vulnerability. Your first few steps might be cautious, but soon you’re jumping, stomping, and sliding.
Here are some other similarities between travel and ice fishing, courtesy of a family trip to New Hampshire’s Grassy Pond on Christmas Eve:
Getting … Read more »
I’m done with the typical New Year’s resolutions. Every year I say I’m going to eat better, exercise more, do laundry on a regular basis. And every year, by March I’m back to my old eating habits, lounging on the couch, with a pile of laundry as tall as my 6-year old niece staring at me from the corner of the room. So this year, I’m concentrating … Read more »
I had some snippet of poetry floating around in my head the other day and couldn’t figure out what it was from. Then I (naturally, being a child of the Millennium) Googled it and realized that it came from the lush traveler’s anthem, Tennyson’s Ulysses.
For those of you who might have had to write a paper on it in school, you might have missed the glorious words of support for the vagabonder that Ulysses … Read more »
Some of us have vagabonging etched so tightly into our DNA it could be considered a heritable trait. I certainly plan on introducing any children that I would have to a lifestyle of frequent travel. I plan to sling my would be cublings across my back and walk into the world with them. But could it really be that easy?
While in Morocco, I met a woman in Fes who was vagabonding with her 2 … Read more »
Rolf poses with one his favorite travel-writing role-models, adventure scribe Tim Cahill, at Northern California’s Book Passage Conference in August
Toward the end of each year I usually post a round-up of my travel highlights from the previous 12 months. This year I’ve been diligent enough with additions to the “Rolf’s News and Updates” category that … Read more »
The philanthropic community might consider changing its approach to fundraising by making people feel good, rather than guilty if they don’t help, according to author and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in his December article in Outside magazine: “Nicholas Kristof’s Advice for Saving the World.” Frustrated by the lack of major public reaction to events in Darfur vs. the outpouring of attention to … Read more »
A few topics that people get heated about: politics, religion, and sport. I’d add food to that list. The New York Times discussed this in an article titled The Chocolate Wars. It’s about Kraft’s attempt to mount a takeover of Cadbury.
The mayor of London had this colorful comment:
“We face an appalling choice of succumbing either to Kraft, makers of the plastic flaps of orange cheese, or to Hershey, whose Hershey … Read more »
Gatun Lake, Panama Canal
A year ago this morning, Christmas Eve, I woke up on a sailboat anchored in the Panama Canal. Howler monkeys were making a wonderful ruckus in the trees on shore. The air was weighted with humidity. Our mooring buoy reeked of bird guano. … Read more »