Many of my best travel experiences have come about through recommendations from friends. The Taiwanese guy who took me to a stylish lounge bar in Taipei with the hidden entrance; the Australian expat who showed me his favorite ramen restaurant in Tokyo; and the list goes on. Thanks to the Internet , old-fashioned word-of-mouth is...

Social networks have made a dramatic impact on travel. During my first backpacking trip in 2004, I relied on e-mail addresses to stay in touch with the new friends I was making. I once met a girl in Paris. Later into my trip, I was shocked to run into her at my hostel in Edinburgh....

In my last couple of blog posts, I waxed poetic about the life of a digital nomad. As a counterpoint, here's a fine article that appeared in the Orange-County Register : Digital detox for a trip to Italy . Gary Warner, the newspaper's travel editor, decided to cut off the electronic umbilical cord for an...