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 I am not what one
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 travel. Definitely not too shabby
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 we have not been to
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 reside in Windy City’s northern
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 are a few quick observations.
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 places. We drove and walked
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 his blog or the photos
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” designation. The last true lazy
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 a Yankee such as myself
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 have called us to express
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 every year, and we just
I hope that every one of you had smashing time greeting the New Year! We did our usual thing with a group of our good friends, gathering around the table, eating, drinking, laughing around, eventually moving on to karaoke and movie-watching. We did this in practically the same company for years before moving off to
This year, with the new baby, I managed to leave almost all of my allotted vacation time till the very end. Spending three weeks at home in quick succession would be a challenge both to my wandering spirit and to my saintly wife’s patience. Although she cannot yet join me on voyages away from home,
Driving around the country in between sightseeing stops is one of my most favorite traveling pleasures. Pastoral landscapes aside, you can truly experience a foreign country only when you get away from its obvious touristy spots. And getting lost – figuratively speaking, of course, – on some back roads is the surest way to achieve
We have been back in the States from England for exactly a year, and Natasha made a fairly sad observation the other day: For the first time in over a decade, she spent an entire length of a year without venturing abroad. Not even to Dominican Republic or Canada… Not having been pregnant for most
Where do you think I’d go for my first real vacation since repatriating? Duh! Europe, of course! We did not manage to visit Prague while we lived in Europe, even though it kept my designation of “The Most Beautiful City” bestowed upon it after our first visit there. We always wrapped that trip into some
Spent a few days in Chicago on business. The schedule was fairly packed, but I managed to squeeze in an evening with the little brother and his family. Did not manage to find much time for idle city-seeing, although I did try to take different routes between the hotel and the office, as I aways
The kids will be out of school for two weeks in late March-early April, and we are suddenly faced with a dearth of places to go for a holiday. The big part of it is undoubtedly our “spoiled” attitude after several years in Europe – we simply do not find many destinations in North America
For our first family trip since coming back to the US, we decided on a pilgrimage to Our Nation’s Capital. Ok, not exactly. In truth, our old college friends have long settled down in Fairfax County, Virginia, and we’ve made several visits to stay with them over the years. The driving distance from us to
When I last tried to solicit questions from my readership, Tamila jokingly suggested that planning a grand Asian trip would occupy my mind for a while. I don’t think we’re ready for any adventure of such kind as yet, but I did put away a simple idea for a post on the heels of that: