When the chaos of the outside world grows, expands, and engulfs everything in my travel path, I head not to a museum, hotel, or restaurant for respite but rather to a church. Throughout Italy, a Catholic church seems to be the requirement in every town, along the same lines of having a supermarket or a post office. Those without are normally towns along the side of the road merely consisting of a café, bank, and tabacchi, the religious rejects if you will. The outside world whizzes on by. Cars honk loudly and vespas interject throughout most side conversations. When I need a break from that Continue Reading
Mount Sinai Wishes You Were Here
This Friday’s “Wish You Were Here” photo comes from Matt McCall, friend and now my enemy for he experienced sunrise over Mount Sinai and this was the result. This view did not come without struggle and strife. After a sleepless van ride, Matt arrived at 3 in the morning to hike Mount Sinai in Egypt. Heckling camel rides met him at the other end. With waves of refusal, he started the chilly climb to the top. “Sunrise at Mt. Sinai was a surprisingly unearthly experience. I felt as if I were at the edge of the world, reconnecting to people who lived thousands of years Continue Reading
Taking The Road Toward Emotional Travel Preparation
Most airlines will send you an email a week or two before your flight with the subject headline, “Prepare For Your Upcoming Trip”. The content is informative, explaining how to check in for your flight, what luggage weight restrictions to know, how to navigate through the terminal, or when you actually take flight. In my mind, these emails are wrongly titled. What can prepare you for travel? Most of us rush out to buy new luggage. We sell our belongings for extra cash. The necessary call to the credit card company must be made. We attempt fitting all necessary liquids into a minuscule Continue Reading
Riomaggiore Wishes You Were Here
While I tend to downplay Cinque Terre, known as the five towns in Italy strung out on the Liguria coastline, their beauty is undeniable. Sure, I might appreciate the area more without all of the crowds, but this view is something crowds can’t wreck or ruin. My grumpy nature for these five towns may have something to do with how I arrived to Riomaggiore. Traveling with a friend who just arrived from the US to visit, we ended up waiting 6 hours in the Florence airport for his lost bags. Just barely making the last train to Cinque Terre out of Florence, our train connections were hop-on, Continue Reading
Coffee with Strangers: The Importance of Travel Conversations
I arrived to a train station outside of Graz, Austria, clueless if I would make my connection after a delayed overnight train from Florence. A sleepless night of listening to movies and music on my now dead I-Pod passed the 9 or so hours. Knowing that the delay had pushed back my itinerary, I quickly hopped off the train to view the monitor, scanning frantically to see “Graz” somewhere on the screen. As I gazed at the glowing box covered in funny German words (funny to me for their length and that I can’t pronounce a single one of them), I realized I had about 40 minutes until the next train Continue Reading
Costa Verde, Sardinia Wishes You Were Here
It is no secret that I love Sardinia. The island just below Corsica and to Italy’s west yields those corny, take-your-breath-away moments. While I have yet to get up north and see what northern Sardinia is all about, I did spend some time exploring southern Sardinia’s scenery, filled with secluded beaches and peachy-colored, rocky mountains. What did I conclude of these visions? Well, I know why Sardinians live so long. This is what they wake up to every morning. Continue Reading
My Case For A Three Month Vacation
Travel, like everything else in life, involves time. From the moment you must press purchase, you know your set travel dates. You know when you will be leaving for a destination and when you will be returning home. Everything is within a certain time frame. Some of us go for the standard two-week vacation for that is all our jobs, family commitments, or school will allow. Others decide to be daring, going around the world any where from 8 months to 2 years. Then, there are those that just never come home. Their travel time is indefinite. They have no home base. Their home is packed away in a Continue Reading