Articles with travel

National Monuments: Hidden Gems to Discover

During these last few years of COVID anxiety, National Parks have been more popular than ever as people try to avoid crowds and stay outside. Previously I have shared about the ones that I have been able to visit, and you can find those posts here. In March I shared about the lesser known National Historical Parks. Today I want to focus on another list of possible places to visit this summer, National Monuments. If you hear monument, you might…

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More Than Just Redwood Trees

Redwood National and State Parks is more than just the redwood trees in its names. While the trees are often the star, the parks covers a lot of territory so a visit will allow you to see more than just trees. On our second day in the park we saw trees, but we saw more as well. During our first stop of the day, we saw no redwoods. We would take a fairly short hike around the Yurok Loop. The…

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From California’s Sea to the Redwood Forest

It was a cold but sunny morning as we left Fort Bragg and continued along the northern California coast. Our first stop was at a small beach called Seaside Beach. It is at the mouth of the Ten Mile River. From the parking lot and beach one can walk to Ten Mile Beach. Seaside Beach is fairly small with a very nice view of sea stacks. One of its unique features is that dogs are allowed on the beach which…

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Scenic Vistas Along the Northern California Coast

The California coastline stretches 840 miles along the western United States. There are many beautiful locations along the coast, but most people think of locations in southern California such as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, or Laguna Beach. However, heading north of San Francisco one can encounter some stunning views along the coastline that are less crowded and well worth the visit. Highway 1 runs along the California coast. It is a winding and twisting road. It will take…

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2021: Travel Adventures in a COVID world

The saying is that, “Timing is everything.” I started my blog shortly after retirement from teaching in 2019. I was looking forward to sharing some of my past experiences initially and then moving on to new adventures. While my wife is still working, she has generous vacation days so I expected we would travel a lot. However, about seven months later the world shut down as COVID took over the world. How was I going to write a travel blog…

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Facing the Challenges of World Travel

When I began this blog over a year ago, my intent was to encourage people to explore our world. For me traveling is the best way to learn about the cultures and peoples of our very diverse world. While we can read about places and peoples in books, see travel shows on TV, or watch documentaries or movies from different locations, nothing compares to actually being in a place. Places are more than what we see. They are smells and…

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The Fundamental Skill of Map Reading

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…

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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…

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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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