If you’ve been out of the country, you’ve had this experience. Maybe it was a smell, sight, sound, or perhaps a taste—something caused you to stop and think to yourself “man, that sh*t would not fly back home.” Some travelers may cast judgement on the offending odor, taste, or action, while others acknowledge that a […]
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 […]
Read all posts from this expedition to South Korea It is difficult to convey size with the written word. On the west coast of the Korean peninsula, the Saemangeum (say-MAHN-gum) reclamation project hosts the longest seawall in the world. But that is an architectural reference that means little to those outside coastal Louisiana, or the […]
Read all posts from this expedition to South Korea Are you a birdwatcher who doesn’t like to get up early? This is roughly the equivalent of a baker who’s allergic to butter. But, like margarine for the lactose intolerant, there are options out there for birders who’d rather study the back of their eyelids over […]
Read all posts from this expedition to South Korea “What’s your favorite bird?” It’s a frequent question posed to birdwatchers and I stumble for an example that people can relate to in North America: American Dipper, Marbled Murrelet, and Harlequin Duck are all a part of my regular rotation. But as for international birds, the […]
Read all posts from this expedition to South Korea “It’s just to the left of that red ramen container.” I found the piece of trash on the beach with my spotting scope and scanned left: got it. The beautiful russet tones and yellow legs of a juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpiper shone brilliantly through the huddled mass […]
“The thrill of take off: the burn of reentry.” Or it could be less of a burn: a mild irritation, perhaps. But if you’ve returned from overseas back to your place of birth after enough time to settle into a daily routine in a foreign country, chances are you’ve experienced reverse culture shock. What was […]
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 […]
Point A and Point B can both be exciting, but often times the best part of traveling between two points is the vehicle. And I’ve experienced a few: an elephant in Nepal; a camel in Morocco; a canoe in the Amazon; the back of a Peruvian truck, for three days, on a pad of burlap […]
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 […]