My 2014 Travel Plans

Several times in the past I’ve outlined my future travel plans, and in every case they ended up being inaccurate. Plans change, opportunities arise and some things just don’t pan out. I present this not as an official document, but as a draft of what I know as of now. The further out in time …

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My Most Memorable Hotels of 2012

For the second year in a row, I’m posting the list of my most memorable hotels of the past year. As before, this list isn’t necessarily a list of the “best” hotels. I don’t go out of my way to find hotels to review and I’m not a hotel reviewer. I don’t have a checklist …

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The Two Continent Club

I have this crazy thing I do where I categorize people based on the number of continents I’ve met them on in person. It all started in the first year of my travels with some random German girl who I first met in Japan and I later saw in Australia. I realized “Hey, we’ve met …

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September 2012 Questions and Answers

This is by far my biggest Q&A column ever. I had a over 30 questions asked this month. If you would like to ask a question for next months Q&A, just follow me on my Facebook page and pay attention to when I put out my next request for questions. Without any further ado, here …

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Random Thoughts From A World Traveler On The Olympics

It is that time again. The two weeks every four years when we shift our attention from high paid athletes in team sports to lower paid athletes in lesser known sports. The time when television crews have to pretend they care about sports such as Equestrian, Synchronized Swimming and the Modern Pentathlon. The Olympics is …

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Saying goodbye to my grandmother and losing loved ones while traveling

I arrived in Quito yesterday after spending 4 days in the Galapagos Islands. It was a great experience and one that I’d like to repeat at some point in the future, but with a 500mm lens to do some proper wildlife photography. It was a great experience and I’ll be writing on it in more …

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Arriving In New Cities After Dark

I just arrived in Quito, Ecuador. My flight landed at 11:15pm and by the time I got out of the airport through what was perhaps the least efficient passport/customs control I’ve ever seen, I finally took a cab and arrived at my destination. All things being equal, I don’t like arriving in a city at …

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Cruising Around The World on the Queen Elizabeth

Last January I was invited by Cunard Cruise Line to sail aboard the Queen Elizabeth from Acapulco, Mexico to Los Angeles. As it was the dead of winter and I was in Wisconsin, it sounded like a great deal. I’m not a big cruise guy. I had only taken one previous cruise and that had …

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My 10 Most Memorable Hotels of 2011

I stay in a lot of different hotels. A LOT of hotels. They range from 5-start luxury hotels to youth hostels. Some I pay for myself (aka the cheap ones) and others are provided by tourist boards (aka the nice ones). The majority of the places I stay at all sort of blur into one …

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