There was an interesting article in the New York Times last week, about how little vacation Americans take. Fifty percent of us, author Walter Kirn says, won’t go anywhere during the peak summer travel season. But that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is Kirn’s proposed reason why, and where that reason comes from....

Travelistic is the new YouTube for travelers. With over 4,800 videos uploaded, it's easy to watch the daily moments of travel, the normal rhythms and routines of life, experienced through different eyes in unique lands. Val's mouth watering South Indian breakfast of idli (rice dumpling) with spicy vegetable soup and masala chai will set any...

With summer half over in the northern hemisphere, and winter half over in the southern hemisphere, it's a good time to start looking ahead to what the next season will bring in terms of travel plans. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't take a year's worth of planning to take a round the world trip,...

No matter where you go, you gotta go. Mary Ann Racin learned that firsthand in her sixth month of pregnancy as she spent a month traveling in Paris with a two-year-old. "We toured an unprecedented number of toilettes on our journey. Some were wonderful, floor-to-ceiling well appointed water closets; others were old-school Turkish toilets with...

We introduced the Lost Girls earlier in the year, after they’d won the 2007 Travvies award for Best Group Written Travel Blog. But in case you don’t remember them, Lost Girls Jen, Holly and Amanda are three twenty-something New Yorkers who put their media careers on hold to take a year-long trip around the world;...

We've all heard that in some parts of the world the left hand has only one function. But what about the lesser known world customs? How does a traveler avoid the cultural faux pas? Last year, Rolf wrote about common faux pas among travelers , suggesting ways to keep from being perceived as an "Ugly...

As we noted back on St. Patrick’s Day, the springing up of Irish pubs around the world is making sure you could celebrate that holiday Irish-style just about anywhere. The trouble is, Irish-style isn’t always so Irish. But no matter. Authentic or not, the branded Irish pub is a sign of the times; and officially...

Some travel blogs begin and end with the departure and return flights of a particular journey. The trip over, the blogging ends. Some bloggers, however, realize midway through their experience that life itself is a journey, and they can't quite stop writing about it. Kendall's Quest is about just such an adventurer. Originally started as...

Forget the fossil fuels. Andrew Skurka has his own way to see the country. First, he decided to hike 7,778 miles in 11 months (that's almost a marathon a day). Now's he's attempting a 6,875 mile hike in under eight months. Meet Andrew Skurka , 26-year-old backpacker and long-distance hiker extraordinaire. This summer, he is...

The wonderful California indie bookstore Book Passage will be once again hosting their Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, this August 16-19. Faculty at this year's conference include Don George (Global Travel Editor, Lonely Planet), Catherine Hamm (Travel Editor, LA Times), Isabel Allende (author of Inés of My Soul ), Jamaica Kincaid (author of Among Flowers:...

You've heard of Yapta , right? And Kayak ? Farecast , too, huh? Then you probably know about Orbitz . And Travelocity and Expedia . Which means, of course, you're an expert on finding cheap airfare. Well, you're a few steps ahead of me. I've been booking a lot of flights this summer, and every...

Travelers think about water a lot. But not nearly as much as the local residents do in many developing countries. One billion of Earth's inhabitants have no safe drinking water. Each year, 2.2 million people around the world die of waterborne disease, 6,000 every day. Twice as many people die of diarrheal diseases in China,...

Joining the growing field of responsible-travel coverage, heavyweight National Geographic Traveler has just launched a new blog about authentic and sustainable travel, Intelligent Travel , or IT. If, since you’ve already been reading Traveler ’s IT – and its archive dates back to October 2006 – you’re wondering why they’re calling it new, doubt not:...

The weather is really heating up where I'm sitting (finally), which has more and more people I know thinking about being outside and getting out and about in the world. Most of them are just trying to squeeze a couple of weeks of vacation into their busy lives, but some are really planning for big...

Wow, is Europe kicking our butts. It was bad enough when each of its national rail networks could whip up on us on its own. Now they’re all joining up, and making high-speed European rail travel even faster and easier. Not that they haven’t always been well linked. But traveling between countries sometimes meant changing...

Some people are born with a travel bug, and dream of hitting the road as soon as they're beyond their parents' grasp. They feel restless in any state except a moving one. Other people stumble upon vagabonding almost accidentally, not quite sure how they got there but unable to let go of the idea once...

Fifteen-year-old Malkolm Boothroyd loves birds. He loves them so much that, at the age of 12, he had his own radio series about northern birds on CBC-Yukon. Before he turned 13, he was the subject of a film entitled Malkolm the Birder Boy- Search for the Bluethroat , a quest to spot his favorite species....

Stephanie Pearson recently traveled through the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan with Buddhist guru Robert Thurman (Uma's dad), and has returned with a fascinating bit of reportage at Outside Online , called " Cosmic Whiplash ": After watching the cultural and environmental decay that took place in nearby Nepal, which has historically catered to the $5-per-day...

With my email address published alongside some articles I’ve written about life in Germany, every now and then I get an email from someone who wants to know how I managed to expatriate there. Mostly people write out of frustration. Teaching English, as it does elsewhere, seems to offer the best employment opportunities. But competition’s...

It's hardly a secret. In January of 2007, Seat61.com received 364,000 visitors, the highest visitor month in its history. Seat61.com is the premier site dedicated to travel by train and ship, containing comprehensive information on just about any route a traveler could desire, from Slovenia to Senegal, Botswana to Bangladesh, and of course all of...