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“The first thing you do when you arrive in a strange city and want to get lost is put your bags away. Getting lost involves — requires — intense wandering, and a suitcase or heavy backpack is only going to slow you down and make you long for a hotel, a shower, and a change of clothes. If you’re lucky, you’re already at the bus or train station, and the left-luggage office is perfectly equipped … Read more »
We’ve all heard horror stories from our friends—and have many of our own—about certain airline experiences. With the sheer volume of flights scheduled around the world on any given day, it is a statistical certainty that there will be the occasion snafu, and sometimes it’s your flight’s turn to have the bad day, and sometimes … Read more »
I sat on the porch in the Australian late afternoon sun, shadows stretching long across the grass, cockatoos screaming through the bush canopy, sipping my tea, knitting. My mind wandered as the guys discussed the merits of following our instinct and road tripping right straight up through the red heart of Australia instead of the well traveled coastal route. There was a lull in the conversation.
“My Dad make that walking stick?” I changed the … Read more »
“Day after day, perhaps week after week and month after month, your foot is in the stirrup. To taste the cold breath of the earliest morn, and to lead, or follow, your bright cavalcade till sunset through forests and mountain passes, through valleys and desolate plains, all this becomes your mode of life, and you ride, eat, drink, and curse the mosquitoes as systematically as your friends in England eat, drink, and sleep. If you … Read more »
Cost/day: $20
What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately?
This. In my pants. ‘Nuff said.
A couple of weekends ago we saw the most amazing thing: 12 Southern Right Whales
Six mother and calf pairs lounged about on the surface of the water, seeming basking in the late winter sun. Their great puffs of breath sending salt spray high into the air. The babies lolling about and splashing in … Read more »
“The commonality and familiarity of travel may also be seen in the fact that travel is the most common source of metaphors used to explicate transformations and transitions of all sorts, we draw upon the experience of human mobility to define the meaning of death (as a “passing”) and the structure of life (as a “journey” or “pilgrimage”); to articulate changes of social and existential conditions in rites of initiation (of “passage”). …If the essence … Read more »
Recently I was asked by a magazine to look at possibilities for a travel article. Specifically about some Western European locale that featured prominently in World War II, but hadn’t been covered too widely. Turns out it was not an easy task. While scouring my map of Western Europe looking for places that hadn’t been done a thousand times already, the thought entered … Read more »
There’s something to be said for getting lost.
I rather like it, actually. Taking off with no destination, exploring a city by braille, and the serendipity that inevitably arises as a result are intoxicating. There are days in which the last thing I want is a map, or directions, or to “get there” in … Read more »