Qatar. The only country in the world that starts with “Q.” Aerial photos of a soccer stadium with an, er, *distinctive* design slated to be built for when the hot, arid country hosts the 2022 World Cup—an audacious feat made possible by the nation’s burgeoning oil reserves. Camels. Desert. That was the extent of my […]
What comes to mind when I say “Washington, D.C.”? Aside from politically-charged phrases like “gridlock” and “senatorial quagmire,” I imagine it’s, like me, landmarks like the U.S. Capitol, White House and Washington Memorial. These architectural icons symbolize the beating heart of the Free World. When I moved to D.C., to which I am obligated, as a […]
It was a warm evening even though the sun had disappeared behind the marine horizon hours prior. Thickly vegetated trees—faintly illuminated by the incandescent porch lights—swayed gently in the sea breeze. The waves rhythmically massaged the stretch of sand on the dark, unseen beach beyond, a beach we’d driven three hours to visit, at night. […]
“Cuba.” What comes to mind? For me, cars. Classic cars. And when I booked my trip to (legally) visit the Caribbean island, it’s the first thing I thought of. As a birdwatcher visiting a country that is home to nearly thirty species of birds found nowhere else in the world (including the smallest) that’s a […]
It was our first backpacking trip of the year, and we knew there would be a few cobwebs: an obese backpack, forgotten necessities, atrophied quads, and sore heels. It was already late in the season: the first weekend of August. A social get-together with some out-of-town friends on Friday night compressed our timeline to just […]
I haven’t posted in a while. It is hard to contribute to a travel blog when you, um, haven’t traveled. But sometimes adventures can be found just around the corner from home. As a child, I spent many summers down at the beach, searching the area uncovered by the receding tide for a smorgasbord of […]
Grandiose, Ostentatious, Awe-inspriring, Humbling … Such is the way that religious institutions—churches, synagogues, temples, mosques—are described around the world. Their designers created physical tributes to the deities that guided many lives throughout the centuries. Even today, in an age when our attention is torn from one flashing screen to another, these monuments still stop us […]
Sure, it’s a weird thing to obsess over. But once I noticed my first, it was impossible to stop looking for more. And I found them, all over France. This story starts in Port de Vannes market on our first weekend together in Paris. This market is a veritable orgy for the antique browser, tables […]
Three shapes emerge when you look at a map of Paris: a circle, a spiral, and a horseshoe. The peripherique is the 35km circular highway that defines the boundaries of “Paris proper.” The spiral is provided by the twenty arrondissements (or “neighborhoods”) of Paris that—in an effort to disorient tourists—begin in the middle and spiral out […]
It happened again. The sky looked damned tempting when I glanced out of our window: puffy balls of cotton back-dropped by dark storm clouds. In between those clouds was a celestial commodity that had grown rare in recent weeks: blue sky. I threw the tripod and camera in to my backpack and headed to the […]