How I ended up in Hai Phong, Vietnam, with 10 other teachers is somewhat of a mystery. Being the only tays (meaning “Westerner” in Vietnamese), we were pseudo-celebrities in this small town. It was not …

It doesn’t seem possible, but my Jordanian friend insists that he is now married. I look carefully into Awad’s dark eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his black framed glasses, to see if he’s …

Stepping into a mine field gives one a whole new appreciation for the word "concentration." Akira tells me to follow him closely, and I am practically in his back pocket. The sun is a swirling …

I took another swig of crisp, clean German lager as I spied the nascent Oktoberfest fairgrounds across the street. Only the steel frames and brewery names were up – the stark beginnings of the world’s …

In the mountainous interior of Greece near Meteora, gigantic granite outcroppings, most of them topped with Christian monasteries, point skyward like fingers tipped in prayer. They are a stone’s throw from the pass of Thermopylae, …

In the summer of 1896, yellow fever, civil unrest, an independence war, collapsing buildings and general economic despair threatened the lives of the entire populace of Havana, Cuba. In the summer of 2012, cholera, civil …

My wife and I were deep in the Amazonian rainforest of northern Peru, traveling on a small river boat. Our local guide, Uciel, was born and raised in this tropical jungle, and his passion for …

My walk from the barracks to the connex is familiar. Begrudgingly, my boots start on the walk to work. For exactly 100 steps, large gravel rocks are the path. They are everywhere the pavement or …

In my long-range travels I have learned two great lessons: 1) the people most removed from the modern world not only think differently than I do but are far more logical, and 2) Western-style capitalism …

In Venice, I was a third wheel. Or more like a unicycle. The other wheels were found on a bicycle built for two, riding in the opposite direction. This was not the best city for …

In 1603, at a place Europeans then called Bantam, an English fleet trading for spices left behind a few merchants to organize the pepper trade for the arrival of the next voyage – two years …