The Banana Republic of Cairns

I’ve finally arrived in Cairns. Total damage done: nine days, four World Heritage Sites, and 3,030 km (1,882 miles). I’m staying in Cairns for five days to catch up on my photos and get my things together for Papua New Guinea. I’ll also be able to spend ANZAC Day in Australia, which should be interesting. …

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Disaster Strikes

All the effort I went through to back up my photos may have been for naught. I took everything to a FedEx/Kinkos store in Sydney to send it back to the US. So far, the package hasn’t been entered into the FedEx system to track packages, and there hasn’t been a charge to my credit …

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You Do Not Need A Guidebook To Travel

If you have been reading the news the last few days, you have probably come across the “scandal” about the Lonely Planet writer who wrote parts of the Colombia guide book without ever traveling to Colombia. Actually, it is a non-story. He was never supposed to go to Colombia. He was just supposed to write …

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Buh Bye Brisbane

My very brief time in Brisbane is over. I have several people in the area who contacted me, but I wasn’t able to meet up with anyone. My apologies to everyone. Queensland is really big. It is bigger than Alaska and 2.5x bigger than Texas. I still have over 800 miles to go to get …

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Good Old North New South Wales

Just a quick update. I’m in Ballina NSW, just south of Byron Bay. The McDonald’s here had wifi, so I stopped to check my email. I spent last night in Coffs Harbor. The drive was very uneventful. This part of Australia is much more green and lush than what I saw in Victoria. From here …

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See Ya Sydney

The last few days have been an exercise in frustration. I’ve spent hours trying to upload video only have it end up in failure, I couldn’t get iMovies to export my video, and made a big screw up with Google. There are limits on how much time I can spend on photos and the website, …

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The YaYa Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants

As you may have noticed, this blog really isn’t a diary. I don’t like to narrative descriptions of every meal I ate and everything I did every day. Honestly, you’d be bored to tears. Traveling like I do isn’t like being on vacation. When you are on vacation, you try to cram as much rest …

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Backing Up Is Hard To Do

I spent the last few days doing nothing but burning DVDs. It was really boring and frustrating. I had a stack of 50 DVDs which I started with. About 20 of the 50 didn’t work properly. I purchased a smaller stack of 20 and about 6 of those didn’t work properly. I learned a valuable …

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The Shrines and Temples of Japan: Part 3, Nikko

If you haven’t yet, first read part one and part two. I had a reader ask me what she should do when she’s in Tokyo and I suggested a visit to Nikko. That reminded me that I never wrote the final party of my three part Shrines and Temples of Japan series. So, in the …

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