The Queens Garden-Navajo Loop Trail combination is the most popular at Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, as you leave the comforts of the ridge overlooking the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater and venture in and amongst the surreal hoodoos! The abnormal rock formations are unlike anything you have ever seen before, so I’d love to show off some of my [...]
Deep in the forests of southern Laos, a place where few travelers venture, lies an ancient relic. A relic that is instantly recognizable as the work of the Khmer Empire, who ruled over much of Southeast Asia during the Middle Ages. They left behind some very impressive religious sites, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat [...]
History is everywhere in the Middle East. Throughout the “Cradle of Civilization” lie remnants of many millennia of human activity, stuffed right into the hustle and bustle of modern-day life. I saw bits of this in Istanbul, with its Roman ruins and massive mosques, dating back centuries, but even that is small potatoes in this [...]
I’ve spent a lot of time in hotels. In fact, considering how much traveling I’ve done in the past 15 months, I’ve become a bit of a nitpicky guest. Few things standout. Outlet and TV placements become big deals. And lobbies are usually forgotten, sterile areas (which sometimes include parrots, but that’s another story). However, [...]
1 year, 8 countries. 9 U.S. States, plus the District of Columbia. 31 flight segments. 2012 certainly has been the “Year of Travel” for me! I spent 165 days away from home in 2012, spending nearly 6 months on the road as I traversed over 40,000 miles (or 70,000 km)! Let’s take a look at [...]
You know, when I moved to New York City five years ago, I never expected to encounter a hurricane. “Oh, that’s the stuff of the Gulf [of Mexico] Coast,” I thought, site of such horrific storms as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans back in 2005. But if someone had told me that I’d be [...]
Have you ever heard of “Chemical Ali?” You know, Saddam Hussein’s cousin who was responsible for “Gassing the Kurds?” His biggest claim to fame happened on March 16, 1988 on an otherwise quiet day, at least as quiet as it gets in an active war zone! It was late in the Iran-Iraq War when Saddam [...]
My calves were screaming at me. It was mile 10 of my 22-mile roundtrip bike ride (35.4 km) and I was exhausted as I huffed and puffed my way through the last, all uphill mile. As I swerved around a tree that had fallen in the middle of the trail, I heard a rustling nearby. [...]
