Because my very first travels were solo and began years ago, whatever safety rules I may have adhered to in the beginning have become somewhat become absorbed into my psyche and, therefore, a little difficult to extract and express. I have pulled out several of them, though, and compiled them into the following list. Whether [...]

As I reflect on 2011, I need to be realistic. It was a good, educational and exciting year full of getting to know other cultures, exploring the world and trying new things. Like any year, though, 2011 had its down sides. I traveled and I loved, I lived and I lost. I’m a private person [...]

I’m privileged to have my eyes so often opened to the ways of the rest of the world as I travel a little and spend a lot of time living like a local. While I’ve found that my native land of America has more stuff than most countries, other countries actually have some things that [...]

It seems as if some of the most interesting sights I happen upon while traveling are forbidden territory. As far as photos go, anyway. Whether a No Photos Allowed sign is hanging in the foreground, someone tells me not to take a picture or it’s obvious that I shouldn’t, sometimes these prohibitions make snapping a [...]

I am not accident prone, but I have had a few rather painful injuries and mishaps since I began my living-like-a-local travels almost a year and a half ago. If I was the type to routinely get hit by cars and fall down stairs or whatever it is that accident prone people do, my injuries [...]

Whether you’re a nubile traveler or you’ve been a citizen of the world for years, travel can open your eyes. A few months ago I wrote a post entitled Five Things I Find in Other Countries That Don’t Exist At Home . Just five? You might say. Yes, just five, because I am terrible at [...]

Before I first started traveling in the Middle East in 2008, I had many preconceptions about this part of our world. Mostly acquired through watching television news, some gotten off the street and others a figment of my own assumptions, only some of my imaginings about the Mid East have proved entirely true. Here are [...]

Travel is the ultimate eye opener. If your routine life is growing a little old, take a trip and learn how the rest of the world lives. After traveling to even just a few countries, you’ll see that there are some ways of life in your home country which seem perfectly natural to you but [...]