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Have you ever opted out of a peak travel experience because it was just too much money? I certainly have, especially during my 20s when I was backpacking around the world on a very-tight shoestring. Entering the Topkapi Palace museum in Istanbul? That’s $12, too much! Enjoying high tea at Harrod’s in London? $75/person. Not […]

Me: How much to the airport?” Taxi driver: “700 baht” Me: “That’s $20. Come on man!” Taxi driver: “The airport is very far.” “Me: “Forget it, we’ll walk.” And so began one of those stupid travel mornings when you just don’t feel like getting “ripped off,” so you stubbornly spurn the local vendor and declare, […]

No visitor to Japan should miss the Great Buddha of Kamakura, only an hour outside of Tokyo. The first time I saw it, 35 years ago, I could swear it was about to reach out and grab me, that’s how graceful and life-like it is. Depicting Amitabha, the Buddha of Eternal Life, the statue is […]

I’m staying in a little hotel in Goreme, Turkey, at the center of the Cappadocia region, enjoying a little lunch in the café, when an old gentleman in the corner asks, “Do you play backgammon?” “Well, I know how the game works.” “Let’s play!” How could I say no? This is exactly why you travel […]

“I’m going to tell you a lot of stories today. None of them are true.” If your guide told you that before a walking tour, how would you react? Nine times out of ten, you’d run in the opposite reaction. I mean, how can you trust a guide who is blatantly, unrepentantly lying to you? […]

What’s the opposite of a green thumb? A black thumb, perhaps? Red? Puce? Whatever it is, I’ve got one. Although I can’t garden to save my life (or my plants), I do appreciate a good garden. And I really appreciate a great garden, like Ritsurin Koen, in Takamatsu, Japan. Originally created in the Edo period […]

The first thing you notice upon stepping into the Storm Dome is your difficulty breathing. The next thing you notice is how hard it is to move. Or to think. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The sign outside the room warned that temperatures could drop to minus 8° Celsius, with a minus 18°C wind. That’s […]

“Dave, can you help me secure my tent?” “I’ll try, Astrid. It’s super windy up here on the rim.” “Dave can you help me with MY tent?” “I’m doing my best, Johann. Ask Katrina to help you.” “Dave, my suitcase just slid down into the valley!” “Really Katrina?!!” What a ridiculous situation I’ve put myself […]

When visitors talk about traveling to California, they’re mostly thinking about hitting the two big cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles: San Francisco for its hills and cable cars, Los Angeles for its beaches, palm trees and Disneyland. If they have any extra free time, perhaps people will squeeze in a visit to the wine […]

So much of what makes a Wow place a Wow place is the unexpected. You arrive in a city, a park, a museum, whatever, thinking it’s just a brief stop on the way to someplace better, and then realize that where you’re at is astonishing in its own right. Such are my feelings about Bologna, […]