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“Homesickness is a feeling that many know and suffer from; I on the other hand feel a pain less known, and its name is “Outsickness.” When the snow melts, the stork arrives, and the first steamships race off, then I feel the painful travel unrest.” –Hans Christian Andersen, 1856 letter, quoted in Jens Andersen’s 2005 biography
A few nights ago, I sat in the audience at the Book Passage Travel and Food Writing & Photography Conference, listening to Andrew McCarthy talk about his transition from actor to travel writer. One of his comments about travel stood out in particular: “I love that feeling of going, it makes me feel a much better version of myself.”
While at home, I may at … Read more »
Since I’ve written quite a bit about how electronic technology is transforming travel, I enjoyed reading “GPS and the End of the Road,” Ari N. Schulman’s essay in the Spring 2011 issue of The New Atlantis. In the essay, Schulman posits that GPS devices, along with “location awareness” apps like HearPlanet and Layar, … Read more »
“I’ve been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s a tower, and it’s leaning. You look at it, but nothing happens, so then you look for someplace to have a sandwich.” –Danny DeVito, “What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, Jan. 2011
Rick Griffith
Age: 25
Hometown: Seattle, WA
Quote: “I feel like in the US we don’t have the opportunity to go to foreign lands as easily as say Europeans and we get caught up in only what is happening in our neighborhood. Seeing the world will blow your mind and completely shift your perspective.”
About 110 years ago an Englishman named Ewart Grogan made the journey across Africa from south to north. He was the first person to do so, and it took him two years.
In Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure, author Julian Smith recounts some of Grogan’s story, following much the same route. The title refers to the fact that Grogan … Read more »
Many travelers have a lengthy list of places they want to go. Alternatively, the list of places they’d prefer to stay away from can seem small in comparison. There are a variety of reasons to want to skip a place: war, security issues, disease outbreaks, a recent disaster, or even lack of interest in the destination.
What about when you want to avoid seeing a person … Read more »
“To this day, across the developing world, foreigners sacrifice their lives and energies, often heroically, in order to help the locals attain a better life. Yet frequently in the process they try to protect the places they visit from the very technology, freedom of movement, and material plenty that they have enjoyed in getting there. They want the local to honor the spiritual purity and postcard ancientness that they have gone to find — not … Read more »
Generally when RTW and other long-term travelers begin mapping out an itinerary for their trips, one of the first considerations is cost. Sure, it’d be great to hop from London to Paris to Rome and spend several weeks in each one, but those are incredibly expensive cities.
Start crunching the numbers and you’ll see that a month or two in Europe can eat through a huge chunk of your entire RTW budget. This is even … Read more »
Pop quiz, hotshot: what are the best travel tips you can share? I’m more comfortable writing stories about other travelers. This time, I was on the other side. Jessica Spiegel, a fellow vagablogger, put me in the hot seat in Budget Traveler Interview: Marcus Sortijas.
The piece was displayed on the website CheapTicketLinks, along with interviews of other vagabond luminaries such as Seth Kugel, who … Read more »