• Palm Trio

    Three lone trees near my hotel in Downtown San Diego.

  • Evening Walk - Steinheim, Germany

    Epilogue: The Longest Summer

    I ride a school bus every morning now. Again. A big yellow one. With green vinyl seats you peel yourself off of in hot weather. With the fold-out STOP sign. With the flashing lights. With the windows that only slide halfway down, enough to only tease riders about relief from the stifling environs. But my lunch hasn’t been stolen (yet), so things are still good.

  • Pools IV - Pamukkale, Turkey

    The Cotton Castle

    Back in Selcuk, a working-class town devoid of much decoration or fanfare, I await my next bus while taking photos of kids playing in the streets. After a quick meal at a neighborhood eatery, my next stop is Pamukkale.

  • Sunset - Essaouira, Morocco

    Upward Bound

    Having acquired some kind of cold in Marrakech, I’ve started to cough. I hoped that good food and the warm air would snuff it out before it (and I) became a nuisance. No such luck. I awake today to begin a two-day mountain trek with a full-blown hacking cough.

  • Toward Lagos - Near Lisbon, Portugal

    And Sometimes the Guidebook Isn’t

    Despite the theft of my wallet and the ensuing hassle that caused, Lisbon (are its residents called “Lisbians”?) was nice. Any city moves up in my rankings when it can offer me an enormous meal of a whole fish, soup, potatoes and vegetables for less than five dollars.

  • Surf and Pebbles - Kaikoura, New Zealand

    Epilogue: “Oh great ocean, oh great sea,…

    Run to the ocean, run to the sea.” Or, in my case, run straight back into a major snowstorm whose howling winds scream “Welcome back, sucker!” The yin and yang of travel continued to the end. The bitter, cold, snowy, icy, sucky end.

  • Beach Rocks - Kaikoura, New Zealand

    Leavin, on a jet plane…

    As I write this from an internet cafe in Auckland, I am awaiting lunch, awaiting my bus to the airport, awaiting my flight home (fingers crossed for a cancellation). New Rule: Buses loaded with Japanese tourists, faces pressed to the glass, all holding cameras (some holding two), can appear at any time, in any location.

  • Tongariro Crossing - Tongariro National Park, New Zealand

    The Road to Mount Doom

    It began this morning in Taupo with a 5 am wakeup call for the bus ride to Tongariro National Park. The bars were still bumping and thumping with New Year’s festivities, but I suited up with cold weather gear, attempting to be prepared for the Tongariro Crossing, billed as New Zealand’s most spectacular one-day walk.

  • Wellington - Wellington, New Zealand

    Welcome to Wellington

    Going drinking last night was a wonderful reacquaintance with city life. Shops, bars, public transit, streetlights — the sweet signs of a major metropolitan area. And a break from hostelling, staying at Helen’s house in Wellington, was a perfect respite.

  • Playtime - Kaikoura, New Zealand

    A Whale of a Time

    Absolutely Brilliant” reports the Sea Conditions board of the whale-watching shop in Kaikoura. But a cruise doesn’t appear to be in the works for my afternoon. It’s 11 am, but without a reservation, I am the 34th person on the waiting list.

  • Maori Warrior - Te Whakarewarewa Village, Rotorua, New Zealand

    Leaving RotoVegas

    A Christmas carroll singalong concert in the park. Mean black swans the size of 8-year olds. Casinos and strip clubs around every corner, almost as frequent as churches. There are steaming and wheezing and erupting geysers. Volcanoes. Boiling and belching mud pits. It all has an intrinsic juju that evokes the future that theologians have promised the wicked among us.

  • You Gotta Go There To Come Back

    Kia ora, everyone! It’s that time of year again. Time to polish those brass knuckles for yet another pre-holiday stampede-like trip to the mall. Time to take a page from Elvis’ playbook and shoot out those radio speakers after the bazillionth grocery store listening of Chimpmunks Christmas songs.

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