Nancy has done the impossible. And I don’t mean cycling from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina over three years with twin boys who broke the Guinness World record for youngest persons to cycle the continents. That’s entirely doable, as is clearly evident by their success. The impossible is encapsulating the scope of that epic...

I’m pretty sure my kids don’t appreciate the life that they have. They say they do. They recognize that their life is not normal. But really, I don’t think they get it. They have no frame of reference for what it means to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day, every day, for...

Cost/day: FREE (airfare not included - ha!) What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? As I write this, it is now 3:40am and I'm bunking in the San Francisco Airport after 16 hours of flight changes, delays and one emergency turn-around. Some of the things I've seen tonight include: Watching the pilots pack their bags...

This article is the sixth in a series of posts explaining how to bring your music on the road and get to travel with it. Read the series’ introduction , Post#1 , Post # 2 , Post #3 , Post #4 and Post #5 In my last post I concluded that vans are the ideal...

(Border, SD) "Wait - you're moving where?" CP: "South Dakota" "Why would you ever move there?" CP: "Well..." Cost/day: ~$30/day (food / gas / fun) What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? When I turned off the Interstate and into Rapid City, I saw (and promptly ignored) a speed limit sign stating 25 mph. Seconds...

Cost/day: $55/day Admittedly - I'm cheating a bit. I'm off the road for 2-3 months, so this was a day trip from Philly. If you stay longer, careful planning (couch-surfing, travel deals) will keep your lodging costs reasonable. As for fun - well, you just need to look around for it. What’s the strangest thing...

Cost: $50/day What's the strangest thing you have seen lately? Lavacicles. These pointy tooth-like projections can be found on the roofs of many of the incredible lava tubes and caves at Lava Beds National Monument in northern California. They formed when viscous lava that was dripping from the top of the tubes cooled and hardened....

When you think of places you've visited, do you remember the sights--or the people? In this article, it was the latter that made the lasting impression: I couch-surfed across America . The vivid and quirky cast of Couchsurfing hosts the writer encounters provide enough fodder for its own TV sitcom. An excerpt: Bill, our host...

Have you ever returned home, only to feel like home was more foreign than any of the exotic locales you've visited? You're not alone. Reverse culture shock has a way of ambushing people, despite how much you may have heard about it. When we travel, we have our awareness up. We know we must learn...

"The United States, as I have before observed, comprehend an immense extent of territory, with a population running from a state of refinement down to one of positive barbarism; and although the Americans travel much, they travel the well beaten paths, in which that which is peculiar is not so likely to meet the eye...

"All you need to know about American society can be gleaned from an anthropology of its driving behavior. That behavior tells you much more than you could ever learn from its political ideas. Drive ten thousand miles across America and you will know more about the country than all the institutes of sociology and political...

The academic schedule is like a shell game. For all of our school years, we get used to having summers off. Then once we start working, those glorious three months get cut down to two weeks. For those of us who live in the United States, that is. Every once in a while, the media...

One of the most eye-opening moments when working abroad is finding about all the differences between your host culture and home culture. For example, a Japanese salaryman might accept unpaid overtime as business as usual. A French worker, on the other hand, might disagree with staying beyond normal business hours. Salon.com did a detailed comparison...

LIFE.com recently put up a set of never-before published photos of the Hell's Angels from 1965. Check out these quotes from the photo captions -- there's something shared between the mid-60's Hell's Angels and the RTW travelers of today. Of course, the list of things NOT in common is plenty long -- independent travelers aren't...

The truth of a place is revealed by its scent. Forget political boundaries -- if you want to know what two places or lifestyles have in common, compare their smells. Tracing a fence along the back of the Allentown Fair last week, past the carny trailers, I smelled India. It was both a surprise and...

As China and America's relationship draws them ever closer together, it was inevitable that some influences would cross borders. UPI had a great photo essay dedicated to this topic: American brands in China . How do you feel when you encounter American brands abroad? My reactions have varied. In Europe, I shunned Starbucks like the...

Although there are a lot of people in other developed countries who don't travel, Americans tend to get singled out as the worst offenders. Backpackers love to repeat the statistic of how few Americans hold passports as proof ( read more about this myth ). This article from Brave New Traveler, Are Americans afraid to...