Paris Syndrome and Setting Travel Expectations

Recently on This Week In Travel, we came across a story about Japanese tourists who visit France and come down with something called “Paris Syndrome“. Paris Syndrome is a condition that strikes tourists who visit a place and find that it doesn’t live up to how they imagined it. Some Japanese have a vision of …

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Operation Street Food – Day 2 (Tropical Fruits)

Another day of street food has come and gone. Here is what I had to eat on Thursday. Lunch Jackfruit – 20 baht (US$0.60) bag of chicken skin and 2 chicken wings 42 baht ($1.27) bag of longkong – 50 baht ($1.51) Dinner Skewer of chicken gizzards and grilled fish – 20 baht (US$0.60) I …

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Commentary: Of Things Which Are Different, Both Little and Large

The first time I ever visited Canada I was fascinated by all the things which were different. The road signs, the occasional sign in French, the metric system, and the different products in the stores. The reason why those things stuck out is because, as much as Canadians hate to admit it, America and Canada …

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Visiting The Most Serene Republic of San Marino

I wrote most of this on the train going from Rimini to Venice as I traveled through the Italian countryside. It has sat on my laptop for half a year since my fittingly short stay in one of the world’s smallest countries, San Marino. I love tiny countries so traveling to San Marino was a …

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Travel Blogging vs Travel Writing

I’m in Vegas for Blog World Expo this week, so I’ll be devoting some time to talking about blogging and the travel industry. Here is my first installment. The impetus for this post came from an off hand comment made by Jen Leo before one of our podcasts a few weeks ago. I mentioned that …

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Coming Home After 27 Months Around The World

I’ve been in Wisconsin now for several weeks. I had expected to have some sort of difficulty adjusting to live back in the US, but the truth is, I’ve managed to take everything in stride. When i got off the bus from Chicago my mom, my aunts, nieces, nephews and even my 88 year old …

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Visiting Wadi Rum

In my humble opinion, the greatest movie ever made is Lawrence of Arabia. Shot on location in Wadi Rum on 70mm film, a forerunner of IMAX, it is a fantastic story with amazing acting, directing, and cinematography. It tells the story of TE Lawrence and the Great Arab Revolt in WWI against the Turks. I’ve …

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Jerusalem Syndrome

There really is something called Jerusalem Syndrome. Wikipedia describes it as a: …mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by, or lead to, a visit to the city of Jerusalem. It is not endemic to one single religion or denomination but has affected …

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Visiting the Killing Fields

One of the things which has made up a major part of my life has been academic debate. I was on the debate team in high school, in college and coached high school for three years after I graduated. During that time I read volumes about almost every subject you can imagine. In debate, you …

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