Just last month and exactly one year after Scott wrote that it might be possible for U.S. vagabonds to visit Cuba soon, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) made the following statement in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; [edited]

Americans have the right to travel to Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, which seeks a nuclear weapons capability in violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. We can … Read more »

Everywhere you travel, you’ll always end up naked with a certain stranger: The shower. The (near) daily ritual of bathing is a sensory riddle, forcing you to figure out a place on the most basic level.

Sometimes it’s easy and you have a predictable, jet-infused tub to soak in, with surround sound speakers and fluffy white towels.

But most scenarios aren’t as agreeable. Often you’re lucky if the … Read more »

My husband and I recently watched the movie “Four Christmases.” Aside from being mostly un-funny and completely predictable, the movie started with a major plot flaw. The two main characters had spent the last three Christmases traveling to exotic destinations instead of visiting their families. But rather than tell their families they would be traveling simply because they wanted to travel, they lied and said they were volunteering. (If … Read more »

The quest to escape tourist hordes can lead you to some pretty strange places, but some travelers go a bit farther than most, hence the arguably suicidal, but almost always compelling, war-zone travel adventure.

We’ve written before about tourists heading to war zone destinations like Iraq and how tourism can transform economies-in-ruin into thriving tourist meccas. In that context tourism often helps war ravenged … Read more »

It’s hard to believe the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand is in its 13th edition; having first graced the shelves of alternative bookstores and organic co-ops in 1982, a full month before the guidebook that started it all, Southeast Asia on a Shoestring (or the ‘Yellow Bible’), hit the stands.  Lonely Planet was a little known mom-and-pop (literally — Maureen and Tony Wheeler started the LP juggernaut in 1973 after an overland trip through … Read more »

Are you a traveling linguaphile? Many of us that are drawn to travel are also drawn to the study of different languages. Moreover, the seductive accents and quirky slang terms found within our own mother tongue can be endlessly intriguing.

If you can’t leave language alone, Adam Jacob de Boinod’s book The Wonder of Whiffling is certainly for you. The book is a tour of … Read more »