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Category: State of travel

Back from Vienna

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…

In Madrid to see a soccer game

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…

Back from Napa

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…

Back from Costa Brava

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.…

2015 Travel wrap-up

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…

Back from a trip south

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…

Back from Scandinavia

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,…

Back from Quebec City

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…

Back from Netherlands

I just came back from a trip to Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands. The goals were to enhance my Amsterdam photo-archive as well as to visit and photograph as many World Heritage sites in the country as possible. I am happy to report that I achieved nearly the…

Back from Scotland

My oldest friend and I undertook a trip to Scotland this past week with the expressed goal of trying as many different Scottish whiskies as was humanly possible. Ok, not exactly true – this was his expressed goal. Unlike him, I have been on a Scottish whisky trail before and…

Travel and obligations

In 2014, I visited 5 foreign countries – of which 3 were first-time visits for me – and added 11 World Heritage sites to my roster (admittedly, most of those featured on a single trip in a matter of two weeks). Certainly far above the average American intake of overseas…

Back from Italy

Over 2,200 kilometres by car. Nearly 150,000 steps (if the pedometer is to be trusted). A couple of thousand shots that should yield at least a couple of hundred additions to my public photostream. Six regions of the country that had dedicated stops on our itinerary. A dozen cities that…

Back from Chicago

Seeing family who we do not get to see often enough, having kids spend quality play time with their cousins, and fitting in some sightseeing – that’s my recipe for a good time in Chicago. We took a portion of Easter week to visit my brother and his family. They…

After a business trip

A recent business trip took me to two countries farther east that I’ve ever been and to one country that I have not visited since I was a kid (not counting the well-familiar fourth country where I had only an hour and a half between flights this time around). Here…

Back from Italy

All good things come to an end and our long-overdue family trip to Italy turned out to be no exception. It was fantastic. The trip gave us a chance to spend time at locales that we’ve never visited before as well as to return to some of our most favorite…

World Heritage sites

Gary Arndt travels the world. I never got into any details of how that came around, but he apparently made a lifestyle change about six years ago and since then had become a sort of celebrity in the travel photography field. I actually do not find either his prose on…

Back from Mexico

Once in a while, we decide to go for a beach vacation. It’s a pretty long while. Our last such vacation was a week-long stay on the Costa del Sol in 2008, but that included two day-trips and a couple of other excursions to strip the holiday of its “lazy”…

Counting license plates

Driving around on our college tour, one of the games that we occupy ourselves with is searching for different license plates on surrounding vehicles. Up to this point, we managed to see license plates of 35 US states, plus Washington, DC, and 4 Canadian provinces. The most exotic – for…

Madrid notes

I’ve been thinking for the longest time that the only reason I have to keep this website going is that my expat musings from the years of living in England can be of use to friends and strangers alike. Only yesterday a couple of friends relocating to England for work…

In Europe, again

When we lived in England, we had a tradition of going to some interesting destination for my birthday. Be it Amsterdam, or Andalusia, or Rome – I’d rather be someplace fun for my birthday. (Ok, part of the reason for that “tradition” was that school holidays coincided with my birthday…