A Vicarious Journey to Tibet

Every once in a while I come across a particularly noteworthy coffeetable book. Today I want to spotlight one such wonderful book, Matthieu Ricard’s stunning Tibet: An Inner Journey.
Tibet exerts a pull that few other countries can match. Partly it’s the country’s high solitude and mountain-ringed inaccessibility. Partly it’s the culture’s association with a rich, esoteric and [...]

Treasure in Our Backyard

Recently I joined a wonderful barbecue put on by the good folks who produce Weekend Sherpa, a weekly newsletter and website which is all about great outdoors things to do in Northern California. Walking the talk, they set their celebration in a little-known Northern California treasure: Treasure Island, in san Francisco Bay. The barbecue site boasted million-dollar [...]

NGT Honors AC Members

It’s taking me a while to catch up on my magazine reading, but I was very gratified to open up the May/June issue of National Geographic Traveler. This is a special issue of the magazine devoted to the theme Tours of a Lifetime. The editors selected 50 tours that they think deserve special acknowledgement and accolades, [...]

Friday Forum Talks Travel

Last Friday I appeared on the terrific KQED radio show Forum, one of the liveliest and most reliably intelligent talk shows in the country. Forum usually focuses on the burning social and political issues of the day, but on Friday they decided to take a break for an hour and focus on summer travel instead. The way the [...]

GeoEx Announces Rare Discounts

Geographic Expeditions, a stellar adventure travel company that opened up much of Asia and continues to set the adventure travel standard there and around the globe, has just made a rare announcement: They’re offering special discounts on three of their fall departures.
On the September 6 and October 4 departures of their Himalayan Kingdoms tour, the fare is being [...]

Interview on ‘The World’

Today I was interviewed for a short segment on ‘The World,’ the intelligent and horizon-broadening daily radio show that is produced by the BBC and Boston’s WGBH. The occasion for the interview was an AP poll that found that fewer Americans were planning to take vacations this summer. The World’s terrific anchor Lisa Mullins asked me [...]

Cafe du Monde

I’m sitting at the Caffe Strada in Berkeley, one of my fsavorite cafes in the world, a sun-dappled terrace that looks right onto the campus, and realizing again how small the world is. On my right two twentysomethings are speaking Norwegian; a trio behind me are speaking French; and on my left a diminutive student lost [...]

Backroads Anniversary Savings

The good folks at Backroads, the premier biking and hiking adventure travel outfitter, have just announced some tempting offers to celebrate their 30th anniversary. They’ve chosen 30 of their top departures between May and October, and are offering $400 savings per adult on the international departures and $250 per adult on the US and Canada departures. [...]

Bhutan in San Francisco

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and you haven’t yet been to the current exhibition at the Asian Art Museum, “The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan,” drop everything and go! You’ve got just a few more days — the exhibit closes on May 10 — to view this stunning and [...]