The nearly four-hour train journey north from Munich whipped us past a landscape of farmland, old Bavarian villages and rolling hills. Our destination: the historic city of Bamberg. We booked a small room at the …

Sorrento is well positioned as the gateway to several locations of interest in southern Italy, including Pompeii, Capri, and the spectacular, meandering Amalfi Coast. But the town of 17,000 is also worth exploring in its …

Recently I went back to northern Baja's Guadalupe Valley. I hadn’t been there since the late 1980s. Back then, it was just emerging as a serious wine-growing region, with two giant producers (Cetto and Pedro …

Sitting near the base of the Alps in southern Germany, Münich's nearest coastline would be where Venice slowly sinks into the Adriatic some 300 miles away. But while one might make the case a gondolier …

The Air Force prayer has a line that goes, "I slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God." That’s pretty heady stuff – but the next time you're feeling trapped by …

Most Americans probably don’t know where the Faroe Islands are. They’re a small island chain between Iceland and Scotland, speaking a language derived from Old Norse and Western Norwegian dialects. If anyone's heard of the …

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 …

In South America, religious icons are as common as sunrise, and shrines are ubiquitous. But a shrine studded with cigarette packs, bottles of beer and decks of playing cards? Welcome to El Chaltén, Argentina – …

The gringos are back! And in large quantities! …but please stop going to every single tourist trap in downtown Tijuana. The American paranoia seems to be coming to an end. San Diegans are starting to …

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 …

“Tell Johnny Golf Shoes that you want a Ken Caminiti, and that Patty Ohio sent you,” the server at Big Bowl tells me. Am I seriously being told to go to a random bar with …