On a recent trip to Bali, Indonesia, to visit my cousin, I had quite the adventure on a 50cc scooter that I had borrowed for the day. Exploring small alleyways, I soon found myself heading …
May 1, 2012
Go Abroad!
One-way Streets in Bali
Changi Airport, Singapore: Layover Shangri-la
I just returned from a marathon flight halfway around the world, where I was faced with a layover of almost seven hours in Singapore. By my calculations, that translated to almost a day before I …
Spring in Prague's Old Town
My spouse and I just returned from our trip to Prague. We made our must-see list on the plane ride in: 6,200 miles gives you plenty of time to jot down (and agree on) all …
April 26, 2012
Royal Treatment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Part 2)
(continued from a March 29 travel story) Mada’in Saleh: Desert Tombs On my fourth day in Saudi Arabia, our group took a military plane to visit Mada’in Saleh, a pre-Islamic archaeological site of an ancient …
April 23, 2012
Singing Cebu City, Philippines
Although it’s still debated which country invented karaoke (an abbreviated compound word meaning “empty orchestra” in Japanese), a Filipino was definitely the first to patent it in 1975. And in my brief Filipino travels, Cebu …
April 19, 2012
Doing Europe: Summer in Rome
Living in Italy was refreshing compared to living in Prague. After two summers of work in Rimini as a club promoter (or professional partier), I moved to Rome. I was eager to experience one of …
April 17, 2012
Speedboat to Battambang
Last rainy season, after a few days touring the temples of Ankgor, I decided to visit the former French capital of northwestern Cambodia – Battambang. My guidebook explained that traveling to Battambang by speedboat was …
April 14, 2012
Tarangire National Park, Tanzania
Tarangire National Park is probably the least visited of the northern Tanzanian game parks and retains a real air of undiscovered Africa. The park is famous for its huge number of elephants, baobab trees and …
April 12, 2012
Belize Explored
I’d like to invite you to a tropical paradise, one of the finest vacation destinations that I have had the pleasure of visiting. Recently my girlfriend and I set off on a two-week open-ended adventure …
April 7, 2012
Paradise, Thai-Style: Beaches and Islands of the Andaman Sea
I first became intrigued with the beaches and islands of Thailand while reading an account about a family selling their home in those halcyon days when the real estate market was skyrocketing. They intended to …
Royal Treatment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Part 1)
Is it possible to have a strong connection to a place without ever having been there? Nearly every member of my family, other than myself, grew up in Saudi Arabia. My entire life I’ve heard …
March 29, 2012
The Allure of Paris: Eiffel Tower
PARIS! All the tour books, online research, talking with friends who have been there, and pre-trip planning don’t prepare you for the overwhelming feeling of immersion once arriving in Paris. On a recent business trip …
March 29, 2012
A Great Escape, Part Four
Daylight The lights at Villingen shut off on schedule. Edouard Izac, Harold Willis, and 11 others would become the only Americans to try a mass escape from a German POW camp during World War I. …
March 28, 2012
Visiting the Insides of a Chicken – Manukan, Philippines
“...stay with my family and me for a few days.” I’d just met a friend of a friend, here in California, who heard that I was planning a trip to the 22,000-mile coastline nation of …
March 23, 2012
A Great Escape, Part Three
The Best Made Plans Toward the end of World War I, the Germans boasted that their prisoner-of-war camp on the western outskirts of Villingen was tight as a sealed tomb. A ten-foot-tall, barbed-wire fence surrounded …
March 21, 2012