Arriving in Bangkok can be an intimidating experience. Riding in the back of a little taxi through heavy traffic making its languorous way along the elevated freeway that winds from the airport toward Sukhumvit, the skyline looms. So many skyscrapers, stretching as far as the horizon. At their feet, a dense and endless web of…
Napa Valley’s Charm Lives On
The sins of progress have barely touched one of the world’s most prestigious wine regions. Once a sleepy, laid-back hideaway where the residents of Napa, Yountville, St. Helena, and Calistoga smugly enjoyed the fragrant air, tended their vines, and quietly celebrated one of the planet’s most attractive settings, the valley today remains the home of…
Exploring Wine Along Lake Erie
Discerning wine drinkers looking for new areas to explore should head to the southern shore of Lake Erie. Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes, has long been the backyard of U.S. grape juice production. The wine produced around the quintessential Rust Belt city of Erie, Pennsylvania, in what is called Lake Erie Wine…
Louisiana’s Poverty Point State Park Is Rich in Culture
The name may not sound inviting, but Poverty Point State RV Park at the Louisiana State Park and Reservoir in Delhi is one of the most beautiful we have ever seen. The name comes from the abandoned 1800s plantation that was on this property long before it became a park. All the RV sites are…
Wisconsin Dells: Water Thrills and Natural Beauty
Henry Hamilton Bennett, a carpenter, lost use of his hand while serving in the Civil War, and thus, a dramatic Ice Age river gorge became the Waterpark Capital of the World. True story, if incomplete. Wisconsin Dells is both a natural attraction and a tourist city on the Wisconsin River, attracting millions each year for…
An Exchange Experience in Frankfurt Rhine-Main
When my daughter began German classes in middle school, we could not have imagined how much the experience would add to our lives. Four years later, we hosted a student from Germany; we were preparing for my daughter to go there when the coronavirus pandemic spoiled everyone’s plans. In the summer before she started college,…
Reflection and Rebuilding in Berlin
On the four-hour train ride from Frankfurt to Berlin, my daughter, the friends we had come to visit and I used our phones and the helpful Marco Polo guidebook we had purchased at the Frankfurt station to plan the two brief days we would be there. By the time we pulled into the station, we…
Ecuador: Mountains, Markets, and Music
So many foreign visitors who arrive in Ecuador spend next to no time in continental Ecuador, often merely overnighting between flights in its capital city of Quito. This is because their main destination is its Galapagos Islands, 836 miles from Quito, 563 miles from the coast of Ecuador west out in the Pacific Ocean. Big…
Small Museums in Rangeley, Maine, Whet the Appetite for More
New York has its Metropolitan Museum of Art and Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution. Other cities and towns, large and small, throughout the United States are also home to museums that relate a variety of intriguing stories. A bit of research is likely to turn up interesting collections close to where you live that warrant…
A Serendipitous Road Trip to Paso Robles
Not all roads lead to Paso Robles wine country in California’s Central Coast. But in 2015, two events would lure me back to the Golden State’s rising star. In May of that year, a visit to then-new Bristols Cider House, in the town of Atascadero next door to Paso (the shortened moniker for Paso Robles),…
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