May 30, 2003
Freighter ship travel FAQ
Ever since posting information on Vagabonding.net about hitching rides on freighter ships, I've been getting lots of follow-up questions. Rather...Read this article
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The dubious threat of radical Islam on globalization
"The sheer horror of September 11 also conceals an important fact: By most measures, Islamic fundamentalism is the weakest of...Read this article
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May 29, 2003
Getting around to following my own travel advice
Deep in the pages of Vagabonding, you'll discover that I advise readers to avoid fast food and packaged meals on...Read this article
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Carsten Jensen on the world's uncharted territory
"Our world harbors an uncharted territory, no longer white spaces on the map but black spaces, erected by political terrorism,...Read this article
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May 28, 2003
Travel Planning 101
Occasionally, I get travel questions that are so broad and basic that they can be hard to answer in a...Read this article
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Henry David Thoreau on what lies beyond the monuments
"Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to know who built them. For my...Read this article
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May 27, 2003
Notes on Tanya Shaffer's Somebody's Heart is Burning
A long-standing debate among travel-lit critics is the issue of perspective: Should travel authors involve themselves as active, changeable characters...Read this article
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Not everyone wants to live like Americans
"The entire view of the world that supported the markets' faith in globalization has melted down. …Led by the United...Read this article
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May 26, 2003
Ed Readicker-Henderson on the limits of guidebooks
"When you're headed out with your happy travel dreams, the guidebook is your magic key, it's your oracle, where all...Read this article
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Coast-to-coast on recycled vegetable oil
Here's a novel road-trip concept: According to a recent CNN report, a group of US college students is traveling across...Read this article
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May 24, 2003
Michael Palin on travel in the Muslim world
Salon featured a nice interview this week with Monty Python vet Michael Palin, who recently completed a new travel documentary...Read this article
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May 23, 2003
An air courier travel tip sheet
Air courier travel is an arrangement that allows travelers to save money on economy-class overseas plane tickets by forfeiting their...Read this article
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The dangers of tribal thinking
"Arabs and Israelis have a real tendency to get caught up in their private tribal worlds, in which all their...Read this article
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May 22, 2003
What I'm listening to in the jungle
The walls are a bit thin at my residential hotel here in south Thailand, so I can generally hear what's...Read this article
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Walker Percy ponders why sightseers prefer to be alone
"How does one see the thing better when others are absent? Is looking like sucking: the more lookers, the less...Read this article
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May 21, 2003
Is there a vagabonding age limit?
A reader from Virginia recently asked if it was too late for him, as a family man in his mid-40's,...Read this article
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A cautionary note about occupying Iraq (fifty years in advance)
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But...Read this article
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May 20, 2003
My neighborhood eatery in National Geographic Traveler
The monsoon rains seem to have started here in Ranong (which is a rainiest province in Thailand as it is),...Read this article
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Professor Cahill's Travel 101: Rule #15
"Schedule a day of rest every now and then. Contrary to what you might read, sudden insights seldom happen at...Read this article
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May 19, 2003
Finding cheap air tickets overseas (Bangkok, for example)
The relative benefits of buying air tickets en route (as opposed to buying a round-the-world ticket in advance) is often...Read this article
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Professor Cahill's Travel 101: Rule #11
"Rule 11: Eat what is put in front of you. They are not making fun of you. The rooster's head...Read this article
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May 17, 2003
Europe-bound backpackers sought for MTV documentary
I seem to have caught wind of the news a little late, but it appears that MTV has been recruiting...Read this article
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May 16, 2003
The perks of speaking in front of drunk people -- Book tour stop #10: New York, February 24
When I traveled to New York for the first time back in 1994, the very first person I met while...Read this article
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Professor Cahill's Travel 101: Rule #8 (in part)
"There are places where you are expected to bargain and sharpies who want to take advantage of you. Unfortunately, too...Read this article
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Nude cruises and tours to Saudi Arabia
For the past couple years, I've been convinced that backpackers and independent travelers were the only folks still traveling in...Read this article
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May 15, 2003
Starting your trip with a one-way ticket
A reader asks: "Is it possible to buy one-way air tickets in this day and age? I ask because I've...Read this article
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Professor Cahill's Travel 101: Rule #7
"Rule 7: Read guidebooks. Guidebooks, books on the country, and books by local authors can help you refine the nature...Read this article
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May 14, 2003
Going home again, kind of -- Book tour stop #9: Wichita, February 20 & 22
While driving through Texas a couple weeks back, I heard a country radio song called "You're Always Seventeen in Your...Read this article
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Professor Cahill's Travel 101: Rule #6
"Rule 6: Stop whining. If you're cold and wet, it's a good bet that everyone else in your party is...Read this article
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May 12, 2003
Notes (and a tangent) from Tim Cahill's Hold the Enlightenment
I just finished Tim Cahill's newest book Hold the Enlightenment, which is tough to evaluate thematically, since (as is always...Read this article
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Evil can follow from good as well as from evil
"The most powerful societies are still in the West. You'd be amazed at the damage that simple decisions in the...Read this article
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Professor Cahill's Travel 101: Rule #5
"Boredom greases the cogs in the machinery of marvels. …Oh, God, will you be bored. The three days waiting for...Read this article
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May 09, 2003
Ban nightclubs! Force people back to square dancing!
This week's Chronicle of Higher Education features an interesting article entitled "Cultural Globalization Is Not Americanization". The writer, British economist...Read this article
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Ian Littlewood on how travel can be the enemy of tyranny
"Tyrants never like their subjects to travel: as long as there are no grounds of comparison, there is no basis...Read this article
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May 08, 2003
Up for studying travel writing in Paris this summer?
This July I'll be teaching the travel-writing portion of the intensive creative writing program at the Paris American Academy. The...Read this article
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Ian Littlewood on the fickle addictiveness of travel
"What keeps the traveler in motion is the possibility that over the next hill, round the next corner, across the...Read this article
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May 07, 2003
Exercising possibility: A morning in Burma
This morning, I went on my obligatory monthly visa run to Kawthaung, the small Burmese border town that lies about...Read this article
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Ian Littlewood on the defiant joy that comes at the beginning of a journey
"When our spirits lift at the start of a journey, there is usually an element of relief to be leaving...Read this article
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May 06, 2003
Rick Steves talks travel at RolfPotts.com
This month on the RolfPotts.com Writers Page, I feature an interview with Europe travel guru and PBS television host Rick...Read this article
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Ian Littlewood on the emotional detachment of travel
"It is one of the seductions of travel that it allows us to enjoy the extremes of human emotion and...Read this article
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May 05, 2003
How old is too old for the Peace Corps?
Over at the Vagabonding.net Q&A, I got an interesting question from Erin in Massachusetts. She writes: "I'm 27 and have...Read this article
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Jeff Greenwald on the slow pace of time abroad
"Back home in the Wild West, time whips by with the relentless and terrible purpose of a strangling vine filmed...Read this article
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May 02, 2003
Notes from the SARS-panic bandwagon
It's interesting to see how SARS has been portrayed in the media in recent weeks. You'd think there was a...Read this article
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Phyllis Rose on expectations and reality
"But professional imaginer or not, when you are at the destination you've dreamed of all your life, you're liable to...Read this article
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May 01, 2003
Something was bound to go wrong eventually -- Book tour stop #8: St. Louis, February 13
Before my book tour ever started, I tried to think of all the worst-case scenarios that might occur as I...Read this article
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Pico Iyer on the perception of "paradise"
"A foreigner tends to see paradise where a native sees purgatory, insofar as a foreigner is in a privileged position...Read this article
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