Category: Travel
India Times Three: 3
2001 Continues Una and I had a decision to make. A longer, more comfortable trip versus a faster trip in an Indian second-class train car. I was inclined to experience traveling like a local. Van travel and Girl Scout backpacking taught me I didn’t always need luxury to enjoy a journey. Una was older, but…
India Times Three: 2
2001 Continues By the third afternoon, our tour group arrived in Agra. My second visit. Una’s first. Our guide, Prakash, warned us we would start before dawn the next morning. Ten hours later, the Elderhostel group stood in awe as the shrouded form of the Taj Mahal floated in and out of gray mist. When…
India Times Three: 1
Part 1 Jawaharlal Nehru: “India is a geographical and economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads.” 1972/73 Almost fifty years ago, I was on the Hippie Trail with my new husband, traveling overland to India and back. The huge subcontinent of India was the…
The Help of Strangers
Mexico, September 1971 TOM AND I WERE ONLY a few weeks into our honeymoon road trip. It was late afternoon on our second day in Mexico, and we were sweaty and tired from the long, hot drive across the Sonora Desert. The city of San Luis Potosí slumbered under the siesta-time September sun. Though it…
A Mother’s Memory of Her son’s bootcamp graduation.
Some years ago, I took an emeritus class at U.C. Irvine in travel writing. There I learned that a travel essay needs to be more than a travelogue. To grab readers, travel writing should also have attitude. The writer’s voice is essential, as it is through their eyes the reader views the adventure. I hope…
Chinese Morning
Beijing, 2002 TOM BURST INTO THE HOTEL ROOM. “I’ve found the market!” he said. “It’s just around the corner.” His enthusiasm pulled me out of my jet-lagged stupor more effectively than the two cups of tea I had just drunk. We had arrived in Beijing the afternoon before. After eating a Chinese meal in a…
A Man In Love With His Wife.
Sicily, near Palermo. 1972 We met Albert and Rosalia fifty years ago, and our few minutes of friendship shine in my memory. Tom and I were on the honeymoon of a lifetime, living in a Volkswagen van and traveling from one continent to another, from one country to another. Twenty-four hours before, we had endured…
A Lifetime of Travel
In a previous blog I shared my collection of passports —a long line of documents that began when I was sixteen. These booklets, with their photos that reveal my gradually aging face and random visa stamps in red, green, and blue, represent a lifetime of travel. I also have a large box of travel journals,…
Travel Photos to Bring Back Memories
Travel photos can help you remember highlights of your journey long after you are home again. They can remind you of special experiences and people you met along the way. Nothing beats a significant photo for bringing back memories. Too often, travelers limit themselves to photos of tourist views and selfies taken in front of…
Four Books about the Silk Road
For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the Silk Road. Before adoption of the magnetic compass and advances in ship design in the early 1500s, this overland journey, also known as the Spice Road, served as the main trade route between China and Europe. Visions of camel caravans crossing the…