"When I finally did have enough money, I got a backpack and went to Europe and bought a Eurail pass. I was eighteen. I would recommend that to anybody. Although it would be different now because no one is really ever cut off from anybody anymore. To do that then was really to be severed...

"Solitude, I reflected, is the one deep necessity of the human spirit to which adequate recognition is never given in our codes. It is looked upon as a discipline or penance, but hardly ever as the indispensable, pleasant ingredient it is to ordinary life, and from this want of recognition come half of our domestic...

There's no such thing as independent travel. Travel depends on fuel supplies, seatmates, ticket collectors, farmers, traders, innkeepers, and governments. It depends on the weather, the landscape, employers, clients, the generosity of others, what your parents did or did not do, the person you're negotiating with, the capital-T Travel Industry, the authorities (and more generally,...

The Finger Lakes Trail is deceptively simple. Looking at the map above, you might think, "What's there to see?" It doesn't trace a rugged coast, doesn't piggyback on the spine of a mountain range, and barely even interlaces with the Finger Lakes. Neither elevation nor landscape varies much -- it's mostly rolling hills. Consequently, the...