The Guide Advantage

Recently I’ve been thinking about the advantages of having a guide on a trip. I love traveling on my own, but there are some places and situations where a guide is invaluable. In addition to smoothing out tricky situations, they bring a wealth of background knowledge and insight that can immensely deepen your experience in [...]

On the Abiding Importance of Travel

In his wonderful, seminal essay “Why We Travel,” Pico Iyer writes: “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and [...]

Africa on My Mind

A few days ago I was dreaming about Italy.  Now it’s Africa that’s on my mind. I’ve had a couple of wonderful safaris in East Africa, and I’m thinking that I’d like to explore a different part of the continent. Here’s one trip that has really caught my fancy, offered by Bushtracks: Remote Parks and [...]

Italian Dreams

Recently I’ve been thinking of the wonderful trip I made to Italy last spring to teach a travel writing workshop. We were based on Lake Garda and I fell in love with the entire region — the history, the style, the food, the landscapes! And of course the people!  I want to go back to [...]

Road Notes: On Adversity

In these challenging times, I keep thinking about some of my own most rigorous journeys. There are always moments when you think you can’t climb another step up the scree of Kilimanjaro, can’t force yourself out of bed one more morning to teach a group of sleepy Greek students, can’t ignorantly navigate the intricacies of [...]

On a Robert Thurman Journey

Last night I had the transporting pleasure of hosting an on-stage conversation with Dr. Robert Thurman, pre-eminent scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, founder of Tibet House, professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University, 44-year friend of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and author of the urgent and compelling recent book “Why the Dalai Lama Matters.” Dr. [...]

Olympic Thoughts

I’ve been watching snippets of the Olympics over the past two weeks, and what struck me last night, amid all the fanfare and farewells, was that the Olympics represent exactly what i love about travel: People from different places, cultures, and backgrounds meet and get to know each other for two weeks; the world is [...]