As I have previously written, I’m not a big fan of travel guidebooks. That does not, however, mean I am not a fan of books. I am a voracious reader and during my almost three years on the road I have consumed so many books that carrying them around became a serious issue for me …
October 14 marks the 12th anniversary of my very first blog post on this website. I mark this date as the start of my travel blog. My first post came almost a year and a half after registering the domain name for the website and 5 months before I actually turned over the keys to …
From the World Heritage inscription for the Vizcaya Bridge: Vizcaya Bridge straddles the mouth of the Ibaizabal estuary, west of Bilbao. It was designed by the Basque architect Alberto de Palacio and completed in 1893. The 45-m-high bridge with its span of 160 m, merges 19th-century ironworking traditions with the then-new lightweight technology of twisted …
From the World Heritage inscription for La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia: Built between 1482 and 1533, this group of buildings was originally used for trading in silk (hence its name, the Silk Exchange) and it has always been a center for commerce. It is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture. The grandiose Sala …
Joshua Tree National Park is located in the Mojave Desert in Southern California, centered roughly between Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. It gets its name from the Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia, seen above) which inhabits most of the park. Due to its remote location in the desert, Joshua Tree isn’t a popular national …
This the second installment in a series for my 4th Travelversay Celebration. One of my favorite activities is visiting the great museums of the world. Unlike my list of favorite cities which had a heavy Asia/Pacific bent, this list has a heavy European bent. The simple fact is, Europe has far better museums than Asia. …
Here is what has been happening on my US road trip the last few days and other odds and ends: With today’s daily photo, I have now caught up with my most recent World Heritage site. Carlsbad Caverns was my 106th World Heritage site and it only took 35 days to go from Italy to …
If you are reading this between noon on April 9th to noon on April 11th, I’m sitting in a chair on the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and Los Angeles. I decided to take the train for no other reason than I’ve never taken a long train trip before, and this was a great opportunity …
I have come to the conclusion that the image of Texas I have always had is wrong. Very wrong. Texas was supposed to be oil wells, cattle, pick-up trucks and guys in big cowboy hats. It’s really nothing but an endless expanse of malls, stores, walled subdivisions, and highways. Friday, I had no fewer than …