If you have paid much attention to travel news in the last few months, you know this has been a year for road trips. With world travel still closed, and the close quarters of an airplane making people nervous, folks have stayed closer to home. Road trips to the rescue. However, to successfully navigate that road trip one needs a very important element, a map. Map reading is a skill that has been lost in some ways today. Much like…
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The Characteristics of an Ugly Tourist
In 1958 the novel The Ugly American was published. The book was intended to expose the failing foreign policies of America towards the countries of Southeast Asia. Since then, however, the term has come to refer to Americans who travel or live abroad and are insensitive to the culture of the country they are in. They view everything through the lens of American values and standards. However, Americans are not the only ones who can fall prey to this conditions…
The Blessing: Around the World
It has been eleven months since I started this blog. Initially I had a number of adventures to share with you, but then it stopped. COVID-19 came along and the whole world shut down. How do you write a travel blog when you can’t travel? Where do you get inspiration for that next post? The good news is my blog is not like most travel blogs. If you look at most such blogs they will have titles such as “The…
Around the World on a Mission: The Beginning
I was 20 years old when I traveled for the first time on an airplane. That was 49 years ago. However, it wasn’t just any airplane ride. It was the beginning of a mission, a mission that would impact my life for years to come. For the next month I would travel around the world and see some of the most famous locations in the world as well as see what poverty really looks like. It would be my first…
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The Lights of Hong Kong
The Hong Kong lights glows at night. The many buildings brighten the skyline. From our hotel room we enjoyed wonderful views of the lights of Hong Kong. The rather shabby apartment buildings around us looked different at night. Their shabby exteriors were darkened by the warm lights from the many apartment windows. To get the most enjoyment from these lights, there are a couple of night time activities that show how much Hong Kong lights up. The first experience is…
Hong Kong Shopping Opportunities
As I stated in last week’s blog, Hong Kong may not be the same as it was nearly two years ago when my wife and I visited. The political situation has altered the calm of Hong Kong. This post is a description of the Hong Kong I saw in July of 2018, not necessarily as it is today. For many years Hong Kong has been one of the major shopping centers of Asia. Under the freedom and influence of the…
Hong Kong Impressions
It was just last summer that Hong Kong nearly dominated the news media. There was considerable political unrest going on in the city. Protestors in Hong Kong were upset with concerns about losing freedoms which they have enjoyed that the rest of China has not. News reports showed protestors invading the airport and shutting down the light rail system. With the daily news reports about significant clashes between protestors and the police, tourism was definitely in decline. Our visit to…
Palm Springs Impressions
This past Christmas our family decided we wanted to do something different to celebrate the holidays. Hawaii was at the top of the list, but it is so expensive to go there at Christmas time. After some discussion we settled on Palm Springs, California. None of us had spent any time there, and we thought we would enjoy some warm, sunny weather over Christmas rather than the typical cold, wet, gray skies of Seattle. While we did stay in Palm…
Autumn in Pinnacles National Park
Pinnacles National Park is a newer national park. It only became a national park in 2013. Perhaps because it is newer explains the reason why many people aren’t even aware of it. While it is located just 80 miles south of San Jose, it is the 13th least visited national park in the United States. Only a little over 233 thousand people visit in a year. Compare that to the 4 million who visit the popular Yosemite National Park just…
Taipei Adventure: Last Days Including Taipei 101
Our last full day in Taipei would finish with viewing Taipei 101, the tallest landmark in the city. (Check out my previous posts on days one, two and three) Since we were going to see Taipei 101 in the evening, we still had a day ahead of us. We decided to check out a different area of the city, Huashan 1914 Creative Park. This is an industrial area turned modern creative center, something that occurs often in the United States.…
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