Mingling on the Esplanadi The Sky Wheel spins remembrances of childhood. A southeastern breeze carries emotions, the X-girl laughter camouflaging the dark in her eyes. I smell apples and lilac. Sweden’s due west, Estonia to …
December 13, 2016
Literate
Literate
Flashes: Helsinki and the Åland Islands
The half-expected hazards of a taxi ride in Brazil
Rush job – a rush job summoned me into action. By no means could I depend on public transportation in Natal, Brazil (where I'd ended up due to strategic miscalculations as a travel addict). A …
March 13, 2016
From Russia, with love
When traveling abroad, it's often our first distinct taste of the foreign that uniquely heightens our senses. For me, it was entering the hustle and bustle of a Moscow subway station and hearing the alien …
November 19, 2015
Qamea, Fiji: paradise + misadventure
Nadi, Fiji, is a 10-hour direct flight from LAX. It’s ideal for travelers – especially ones who sleep soundly on planes, as I do. The flight leaves at 11:30 p.m. via Fiji Airways and arrives …
September 26, 2015
Escape the Go: Fiesta Island
We didn’t have anything like this in Chicago. We didn’t have a jutting piece of terrain you could drive out on, pull your car off the road wherever you felt like it, and set up …
May 10, 2015
No sidewalks in northeast Georgia
This Thanksgiving, I took my usual once- (and sometime twice) a-year drive down south. After ten years of back and forth over myriad routes, specifically those avoiding the highways, I've seen and tasted a lot …
April 21, 2015
Bangkok's kitchens
The sounds of a kitchen are like conversations. In the beginning, you hear the fracas of so many people speaking to each other, sometimes over each other. It’s the repartee against the quick pause and …
January 1, 2015
Ringing of the bells: St. Petersburg, Russia
Cemeteries have always fascinated me, and I have visited them all over the world. On a recent trip to Saint Petersburg, Russia, I visited the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Founded in 1710, it contains some of …
Siem Reap: my gift in the jungle
I've always found travel to be its own reward, but on rare occasions it also gifts some of us with a life-altering experience. While visiting friends in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I hired a tuk-tuk driver …
March 31, 2014
Spring in Afghanistan
When I think of what spring means in San Diego, baseball games and announcements of new animals from the zoo come to mind. Traffic and tourists who don't understand common-knowledge speed limit. It means more …
March 17, 2014
Pago Pago, American Samoa
A thick drizzle soaked me one Saturday afternoon in Pago Pago, American Samoa. (Pronounced something like “Pango Pango.) But the drizzle was a welcome relief from the Deluge of Heaven that had just raced across …
February 18, 2014