When I started this blog, I promised it would be a travel blog “writ large”. That means you can travel without leaving home, if you put yourself in a new situation: culture or region and stay long enough to get to know the locals, the culture and find yourself being changed in the process. This … More Factory Girl: Prologue
My guest blogger this week is Marco Polo. His travelogue, The Travels of Marco Polo, was written with the aid of romance novelist Rusticello of Pisa around 1300, while both were in prison in Genoa. It is thought to be the first western travel “blog”. The book belonged to my grandfather, so I have been … More Glamping a la Kublai Khan
Iceland has been on my list of places to visit for a long time for a number of reasons. Iceland has a lot of natural hot spring pools and volcanic activity Bjork is cool (Dancer in the Dark, swan dress, Olympic Oceania dress) Iceland is pretty near the Arctic Circle so it has some very … More Iceland is Cool!
Part I: In 2009 I traveled to Cambodia again for my clinical training project with the Cambodian mental health organization, TPO. I traveled alone, having long before gotten the hang of moving through southeast Asia successfully without knowing anything more than how to say hello and thank-you in three languages. After this upcoming stay of … More The blood beneath the yoga mat: Ecolodge #2
In 2008 my son was halfway through his Motorcycle Diaries experience, minus the motorcycle, spending six months traveling from Brazil up through South America on his own. As he was nearing Peru, we started talking about meeting up somewhere in Amazonia. We found a place that seemed to fit the bill advertised in Lonely Planet. … More Getting my feet wet: My first Ecolodge experience
In August 2003 I spent a month in the West African country of Sierra Leone. I landed in Freetown, the Capitol, and then took a bumpy six hour ride in a four wheel drive SUV to Kenema. Kenema is a small town that made international news in 2015 because it was a hot zone for … More The Mists of Tiwai
In a previous post encouraging folks to plan their own travel (I can do it by myself!), I listed nine goals for travel I apply in the planning process. Two are the subject of this post. You are more likely to meet the locals or other diverse travelers that enrich your experience of the place … More Crazy, Lucky, Funny, Poignant, Scary: Peru, Part 2
Quechua woman selling at the Pisac market in Peru … More I Can Do It By Myself!*
This year I read a terrific travel book by Tim Cope about his long trek on horseback following the route of Genghis Khan from Mongolia to Hungary (On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads). As much as possible Cope stayed out of cities and encountered what little … More Getting to know the Locals in Turkey
In 1966 I joined a national YM/YWCA summer organizing project to bring college students from all over the US to Chicago to be part of the Fair Housing Campaign for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King. (www.movingimagearchivenews.org/the-1966-march-on-cicero-a-step-towards-equity/) I was 20 and a college senior to be. The goal was to … More Traveling a Great Distance in a Few Miles
Other states, other lives, other souls 