Somewhere in Egypt The Patriarch of Constantinople may have spent some time at Al-Kharga Oasis , but I had to give it a miss. And I really, really hated to do that. Nestorius (c.386-c.451), to simplify a complex issue, was the loser in one of the great theological controversies in Christian history, and so he...

Aswan, Egypt One of the best things to happen to me earlier this month began in the toilet. I was staying in a super cheap hotel in Aswan, Egypt, and the shared toilet was -- well, imagine 40 people who neither aim well nor, because the flusher is broken, flush. Then imagine a front desk...

Leon, Nicaragua I have several regrets in life, and here is one: I didn't ask if she was okay. It was late on a cold January night and I was standing alone at the Trocadero, looking at the Eiffel Tower. At some point, through the faint and assorted sounds of the city, I heard sobbing....

Cairo, Egypt It may seem incongruent to have a bar song come to mind while walking through the medieval mosques and alleys of Islamic Cairo. But so it goes. The bar song I'm thinking of is the theme to the old television show "Cheers." Here are the lyrics (and the one-minute youtube video , in...

I like to criticize technology's effects on travel -- how it can shut us off from both sight and sound, turn soul-searching into wi-fi searching, and funnel hours of exploration into the confines of a monitor. But today, the man in dark glasses reminded me how blogging can push you further into the analog world....

Cairo, Egypt Stability and control: that's the role of an aircraft spoiler. As your jet prepares to land, the spoiler may rise to decrease lift, increasing the rate at which the aircraft descends or slowing the speed of the aircraft down. The Wright brothers would have been impressed. For the long-term traveler, however, the spoiler,...

Delhi, India I've written previously about the pleasure of a local newspaper set next to a cup of coffee. In this post I want to zero in on one of the benefits of this arrangement. Here it is: In addition to a hopefully pleasant aroma rising from your cup, inside your paper are stories about...

Ko Phangan, Thailand Not many years ago (in the grand scheme of things), most of us were in diapers, not yet knowing what country we were from or even what a country. We didn't yet know we were Christian, Muslim, Skeptical, or whatever. We didn't know we were Republican or Democrat, male or female, or...

Masaya National Park, Nicaragua Some things in life frustrate me. Take, for instance, how small the travel sections of most bookstores are, and how narrowly the genre is defined. I’m aware that narrow definitions are helpful and even necessary, not least when organizing a bookstore. But there’s a danger in this too, especially when we...

Gulf of Thailand There are no icebergs in the Gulf of Thailand, but at any given moment there is, in this and many other seas, someone thinking about the Titanic—or at least about Leonardo Dicaprio. I almost didn’t take this photograph. For most of three hours I had been lying on a bench on deck,...

Hanoi, Vietnam If you have ever seen an artistic rendering of a prehistoric caveman sitting around the campfire with his buddies, you may have thought, boy, we've come a long way! Or then again, if you're like me, maybe you didn't think this at all. It's easy to forget the incredible changes the world has...

Bangkok, Thailand Selecting reading material for the road can be a daunting task, even in a relatively small bookstore such as the one in Bangkok pictured above. Interestingly, one of my favorite reads came not from a bookstore directly but from my mom through the mail. I was traveling across Asia at the time, and...

Granada, Nicaragua One morning in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as I sipped coffee in the pleasant open-air environment of the Foreign Correspondents Club , I read this: "Yeay Mao was a strongly passionate, sexy woman who always needed a penis. So after she died her spirit still likes the penis, and people bring her offerings of...

Besham, Pakistan Early on in Khaled Husseini’s book The Kite Runner , the main character says, “To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.” The reader can’t read this line without conjuring up some mental image of Hassan, and that image will...

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Life, today more than ever before, often involves the navigation of cultural stereotypes. It's a tricky business, as world leaders, soldiers, missionaries, and Kentucky Fried Chicken will tell you. Stereotypes aren't necessarily negative. Like stories, they help us frame and understand the world. They give us a starting point from which to...

Got a great photo of New Year's the last time you were in Asia? Well, dust it off and submit to the Asia Welcomes 2010 Photo Contest . It's sponsored by the Asia Society , a nonprofit organization working to strengthen links between the United States and Asia. The contest will accept any photos taken...

Penang, Malaysia Interesting people can be found in hostels, bus stations, and everywhere else where lungs pull in breath. Then there are the places where lungs have long fallen still: cemeteries. Interesting people are found here, too. For example, behind an Anglican church in Macau in late 2004, I met a young woman named Abby...

Selecting 250+ pictures to represent the expanse and wonder of the planet is a daunting task, but it is one that Earth Bound: A Rough Guide to the World in Pictures has done very well. Best known for its guidebook series, Rough Guides has pulled from a collection of more than 100,000 images to create...

near Roan Mountain, Tennessee To be immersed in a foreign world, one doesn't necessarily need to leave the country. If you're American, for example, you could go to parts of Miami. Even better, you could take a hike on the Appalachian Trail. Completed in 1937, the 2175-mile long Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine....

Gatun Lake, Panama Canal A year ago this morning, Christmas Eve, I woke up on a sailboat anchored in the Panama Canal. Howler monkeys were making a wonderful ruckus in the trees on shore. The air was weighted with humidity. Our mooring buoy reeked of bird guano. The waters of Gatun Lake lapped softly against...