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If you’re attracted to travel writing of a more personal nature, you might be interested in Steven McCurdy’s film A Year in Italy. McCurdy’ film is a 2 disk, 4 hour piece that spans the breadth of his experience in Italy.
Rather than meticulously ticking off must-see destinations and facts about Italy, McCurdy’s film … Read more »
“Travel is mostly about dreams — dreaming of landscapes or cities, imagining yourself in them, murmuring the bewitching place names, and then finding a way to make the dream come true. The dream can also be one that involves hardship, slogging through a forest, paddling down a river, confronting suspicious people, living in a hostile place, testing your adaptability, hoping for some sort of revelation.” –Paul Theroux, “Taking the Great American Roadtrip,” Smithsonian, September 2009
At some point in our travel planning, many of us consult a guidebook. How much we each rely on it differs, of course—from those who give a cursory glance early in the process to those who carry it around like a totem from place to place. And some have thrown over guidebooks nearly entirely for Web content.
But however we consume the … Read more »
One of my favorite columns is “The Frugal Traveler,” written by Matt Gross for the the New York Times. He gives his final swan song in this piece:
Three things I’ve learned about frugal travel
It’s a great retrospective of his career as a travel writer. While I haven’t always agreed with his definition of “frugal,” I always found Gross to have an engaging narrative voice and that curious nature that all vagabonders have.
Bangkok, Thailand
Most of us have tongues, and we keep them for the duration of our lives. There are exceptions to this, unfortunately, including the 300 individuals in Cairo who had their tongues cut out by Sultan Baybars al-Jashankir about 700 years ago (he didn’t like their political humor). But the … Read more »
After a year of collecting suggestions from over 32,000 people, the U.S Dept of State has unveiled a completely revamped source for travel information, travel.state.gov.
While most Americans may only interact with the Bureau of Consular Affairs when they obtain or renew their passports, their charter also includes assisting citizens who fall victim to … Read more »
The Finger Lakes Trail is deceptively simple. Looking at the map above, you might think, “What’s there to see?” It doesn’t trace a rugged coast, doesn’t piggyback on the spine of a mountain range, and barely even interlaces with the Finger Lakes. Neither elevation nor landscape varies much — it’s mostly rolling hills. Consequently, the southern half of upstate New York isn’t thought of as a major outdoor … Read more »
Jeannie Mark
Age: Late Thirties
Hometown: Vancouver, BC
Quote: “This is my dream, let me live it.”
Everyone wants to get off the beaten path, to carve their own, unique experience out of traveling, but how do you do it? The internet is full of tips and guides to out of the way places, but in the end getting of the beaten path is less about where you go and more about what you … Read more »
“An American asked why he calls the brothers of his parents and the husbands of his parents’ sisters by the same kinship term, is likely to reply, ‘Because they are all uncles,’ or he may ask, ‘What else could you call them?’ Were he asked why he doesn’t eat fruit salad or ice cream and cake for breakfast, his reply would likely be, that they wouldn’t be good, or that nobody does it, or that … Read more »