I only took three overseas trips in the year of 2019, but the nature of those trips made the year remarkably fulfilling. I visited 8 different countries – Portugal, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Turkey, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan – and all were first-time visits. To be fair, half of those were…
My last trip of 2019 was epic by any measure. I spent close to two weeks in Israel for the very first time in my life. Along the way, I also visited Istanbul, explored a bit of south of Jordan, and set foot in the West Bank, adding 4 more…
The trip almost did not happen at the very last moment. We were waiting for boarding our outbound flight only to be told that it was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Three hours standing in ticketing line later, the best we could do was to rebook ourselves on a really…
As is always the case on our family travels, should you have been following my lovely wife on social media you would have known by now that we spent a glorious week-plus in Portugal. It was our first trip to the country, so we tried to reasonably cover as many…
I have managed trips to 4 foreign countries over the course of 2018 (Scotland, France, Greece, Italy), of which one was a fairly triumphant first. It continued a curiously stable trend established in the last couple of years (2017, 2016) following a much higher output of 2015. Where it comes…
This was not exactly a spontaneous trip – we planned it almost three months in advance – but it did come up fairly spontaneously back in August. After returning from Greece, I did not really expect to have either time or opportunity to take another journey this calendar year, but…
The quirks of family vacation planning this year conspired to put two amazing trips within a short interval of each other. Less than 4 weeks after returning from France, we went to tour Greece. Going to the country that we have never been to before, we tried to balance our…
Those who follow my better half on Facebook are well aware that we have just spent over a week in France. Those who don’t know that now as well. We explored for the first time the department of Dordogne and then re-acquainted ourselves a bit with Paris. Walked over 20K…
Another best-buddies whisky discovery trip is in the annals of history. When we did our first one, we came back with a clear feeling that we wanted to reprise the experience. It took us 3 years to align our schedules for the second time, but we did it. This time…
Year 2017 continued the slowing trajectory established by the preceding year in terms of my travels. I again visited only 4 foreign countries (Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, France), two of those on intraday trips. Going by the methodology of the Travelers’ Century Club, which counts geographically segregated parts of a…
Our latest visit to Costa Brava has run its course. We return regularly and always greatly enjoy both the breathtaking scenery and the superb company, with a fair amount of outstanding food and wine thrown in. The last two weeks only reinforced the long established feeling of the place practically…
For a good half of the last year, it looked as if it would be hopelessly behind its predecessor in terms of travel accomplished for its duration. My first trip of any kind took place only in late July. But a flurry of travel activity from October to December meant that I…
So I spent another week abroad. This time I went to Vienna, a city that I count among my favorites despite the fact that I had only been there once before, over a decade ago. The foremost goal of the trip was to explore Christmas markets, which parts of former…
Fun trips are coming thick and fast in the second half of this year for me. I am still several photo-essays away from completing the story of our summer trip to Catalonia, I just returned from a jaunt around California wine country, and there I am in Madrid for a…
Those who follow my lovely wife’s Facebook updates are probably aware that we just spent an extended weekend in the California Wine Country. This particular destination was significantly overdue in hosting us, given our affinity for wine in general. It gave us fantastic weather, breathtaking and romantic vistas, and of…
We always have memorable vacations. Whether it is through mixing detailed planning and potential for spontaneity, combining specific destinations and experiences with periods of pleasant idleness, or simply being lucky with hitting mostly the right notes, we are hard pressed to recall a trip that did not leave positive impressions.…
At the beginning of the last year, I wrote this piece on travel and obligations, where I predicted my travel plans for the year. Although the plans underwent changes as the year progressed, the outcome was pretty much what I had predicted: I ended up setting foot in 7 foreign…
We turn our attention to destinations within the great United States of ours rather infrequently. In half a dozen years since our repatriation from England there have been only a couple of pleasure/sightseeing-centric trips that we undertook without crossing international borders. There are several excuses I can cite for prioritizing…
3 countries, all visited for the first time. 4 major towns, each explored in significant depth. Several day-trip excursions of varying durations. 6 UNESCO sites added to my collection. Travel between destinations using planes, trains, boats, buses, trams, metro, and an occasional taxi (not a single minute behind the wheel,…
It has been nearly two years since the last time we took a family trip where all five of us were present. One could say it was overdue. So we decided to spend an extended weekend in Quebec City, which was a brand-new destination for all of us. The trip…