All in travel essay

Meddling With Medieval Mysteries: Hiking through history in Southern France

Meddling With Medieval Mysteries: Hiking through history in Southern France

Fyllis Hockman
Active Travel, Art and Culture, Historic Travel, adventure travel, travel essay

by Fyllis Hockman

Climbing up the wide circular stone staircase to our hotel room in the Chateau des Ducs de Joyeuse on the first night, I knew this would be a very different trip. I could just as easily be entering a medieval castle as a lodging facility -- and then I found out I was, though I suspect our modernized room was a lot less drafty than those of the lords and ladies who preceded us.

The experience, near Les Oliviers south of Toulouse, certainly set the tone for our Southern France Walking Through History tour—conducted, ironically, by a company called New England Hiking. As we hiked through, around, up and over one medieval village after another, traversing castles and countryside and learning about the Middle Ages of the 11th-14th centuries, we were immersed in history.

Welcome to Glastonbury, England

Elyn Aviva
Current Events, Spirituality, travel essay

by Elyn Aviva

Welcome to Ynys-witrin, the Island of Glass, AKA “Glasto,” thriving spiritual theme park for the New Age, neo-pagans, witches, traditional Catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists, Hindus, Methodist church ladies, sound healers, shamanic journey-ers, light therapists, Arthurian aficionados, Isle of Avalon pilgrims, holy-well-water visitors, Grail seekers, and recovering addicts. If that makes your head buzz, it should. And that ain’t the half of it.

Glastonbury Park 2013. Photo by jaswooduk.

We had decided to spend a month in Glastonbury. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—which should have been a warning signal. A month in Glastonbury? A town where every time we had visited for a few days we shook our heads and said, “NOT a place to stay for very long! Too intense, too ungrounded…” But somehow, in a moment of inspired weakness, it seemed like a good idea. Get away from our apartment in Girona (Catalonia, Spain) where we couldn’t seem to get away from work. Rest and relax in a rural Somerset town where we could go for gentle walks up to the scenic tower on top of the 500-foot high, dragon-backed Tor hill, or visit the lush and lovely Chalice Well Gardens, or stroll through the extensive grounds of the ruined but still evocative Glastonbury Abbey.

Alcohol, Altitude And The Middle Class: I’m out of my depth.

Martin Nolan
Active Travel, Lifestyle, Personal essay, cultural musings, travel essay

by Martin Nolan

Growing up on a council estate in England, there wasn’t much opportunity to strap two pieces of wood to my feet and slide down a hill. There were plenty of hills but not too many skis. In fact, there was only one person on the estate who had gone skiing. He was the guy who had fancy tea bags and premium range biscuits. In England council estates are areas where low income families reside (like trailer parks but with bricks, mortar and no tornados). They are for working class families, who work all year to save enough money to go on a package Holiday to Spain. We didn’t indulge in expensive tea and we certainly didn’t indulge in skiing. If it was Victorian times, we would have been the good natured chimney sweeps and everyone knows chimney sweeps don’t ski. 

Council Estate, England. Photo file via Wikipedia Commons.

In the intermitting years, I had become wealthier and skiing had become more affordable. Although only ever so slightly. So it wasn’t until my early twenties that I was able to go skiing. It was an attempt to expand my horizons beyond my football loving, gambling, sun seeking past that lead me to book a trip to St Anton with Crystal Ski. I pretty much chose the resort because the people there seemed to like a drink. So in hindsight, it may not have been that big a departure from my usual ways.  A leopard can’t change his spots and all that.  So I packed my bag and went to the capital of Après Ski.

Travelling by myself did not come naturally. I’m basically a socially inept, mumbling wreck of a human being. Mumbling became a way to avoid my ill timed comments from being heard. My jaw was starting to ache from constantly having to dislodge my foot from it. Since my filter wasn’t capable of stopping the words passing through my teeth, I could at least say it in a way that they wouldn’t properly hear it. People being offended were replaced by nods of politeness. No one ever wants to admit they weren’t listening properly.

So booking a shared chalet may not have been the greatest of ideas. Strangers, small talk, me. A potential melting pot of problems. “Have a few drinks... you’re really charming when you loosen up”. That was my well thought through plan. Use social lubricant to slide your way into the group.

Discount Métro Passes

Travis Oltmann
travel essay

by Travis Oltmann

 

Our time in Paris had ended and saying goodbye proved difficult. I would miss the poetic rain and inspiring architecture, the grooved and powdered cobblestones beneath building walls that spewed graffiti, and the cloaked alleyways with bottles of cheap wine dangling from our fingers. It was everything I hoped it would be, which meant it wasn’t a postcard or hopeful imagination. Beauty mixed with the tangible. Drug dealers peddled underneath the illuminated Eiffel Tower at night, angry drivers swore at each other as they circled the Arc de Triomphe, and the Place de la Concorde was covered in bird shit.


Adventures were on the horizon, Spain awaited with sangrias, tapas, sunlight, and white-walled promenades. The only obstacle was getting to the Eurostar terminal somewhere off Fayette. When traveling, I’m not the type of person that likes to know what the day will bring. Wandering and last minute decisions have always yielded more memorable experiences than schedules or crowded attractions. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the ideal personality trait when we needed to catch a specific train and had no directions or general sense of where we were going. It also didn’t help that I drank three grand crèmes at a sidewalk bistro before leaving and had to stop every two blocks and find a washroom.

The three of us stumbled into a train station with the aid of blind luck and selective stupidity. Late and irritated, we hurried downstairs, rushing so we could blankly stare at the French metro lines for thirty minutes. Best bet memorized, we followed the crowd to the ticket kiosks.

Standing near the waiting commuters was a Parisian shouting about a deal in broken English. Naturally, being the thrifty travelers we were (beer money>comfort), we decided to investigate the bargain.

What’s Adventure Travel Anyway?

Judith Fein
Wellness, adventure travel, travel essay

by Judith Fein.

Photography by Paul Ross

Not too long ago, I was sitting in the waiting area of a hair salon, indulging in a guilty pleasure—reading trashy magazines. I skipped over the plunging necklines of movie stars I’ve never heard of,  bounced over an article or two about how to hook your man like a flounder, and my eyes settled on a pop quiz: how is your fitness level?

Treadmill? Yes, ma’am. 

Do you go to the gym twice or more a week? Check.

Is walking part of your daily routine? You bet. I walk at least 75 minutes a day in the hills and arroyos (river beds) around my home. 

Swim? Uh huh.

Hula hoop? Love it.

Tai chi? I’m there.

Yoga? Kundalini style. 

Biking? Nope. Hurts my butt.

Hiking? Well, if I can go really slowly on ascent.

Mountain climbing? Next life.

White water rafting? Sure, if it’s class 2 or under. 

Paragliding? I like to watch it. Does that count? 

I stopped the quiz and scrolled down to the results, which informed me that I am probably fit, but not an adventurer.

So, I wondered, does that mean I’m unqualified for adventure travel? And then my always-active mind skipped to: what is adventure travel anyway? 

Truffle Hunting in Alba, Italy: Tasty, tricky and sometimes tense.

Fyllis Hockman
Art and Culture, Culinary Travel, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Fyllis Hockman

The dog's tail wagged impatiently. Lady -- a small, nondescript, white and brown mutt -- raced ahead to the oak tree, sprinted back and forth, nose thrust into the ground, then triumphantly started digging with gusto. Looking up with an air of satisfaction, Lady was handsomely rewarded before her master carefully scraped the loosened dirt with his pick. The five visitors observing the ritual looked on expectantly. Using his fingers to gingerly explore further, the truffle hunter delicately removed his treasure: a large, walnut-size white truffle, one of the epicurean riches of Alba, a gem of a city in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy.

Okay, let me just say that up to now the closest I had come to a truffle was in a Whitman’s Sampler box and it was covered with chocolate. And I’m pretty sure it had never been routed out by a dog. This truffle hunting is a respected art form in Alba, and proper training of the dogs is at its heart. Any breed can aspire to the job, but selection depends upon its resume. It must have a good nose (a trait the dogs presumably share with the region's prestigious wines), and trainers can ascertain that after three days. Once the dogs show promise, they attend the Barot University of Truffle Hunting Dogs, in operation since 1880, for two to three months of specialized training. Graduate school is optional.

Now let's talk truffles. Sure, to the uninitiated, it may just be a foul fungus, but to the gourmand, it represents the ultimate in gastronomic delights. It is judged by size, color, shape, texture, aroma - some would say offensive olfactory onslaught; others, fragrance of the gods -- and its overall perfection. There's a lot to be said for this smelly little mushroom.

Heritage and Whisky in Scotland's Orkney Islands

Frank Demain
Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, cultural musings, travel essay

by Frank Demain

I was very excited to discover that one branch of my family had its roots in the Orkney Islands, a handful of miles off the north coast of Scotland. It seems that my great grandfather was a master mariner, no less. As I had already acquired a taste for that magnificent Orkney malt whisky, Highland Park, it was not too big a step to decide that a trip to the Orkneys was required to investigate further my Orcadian roots and to visit the distillery just outside Kirkwall. My wife, essentially a gin-and-tonic drinker, does admit to liking the occasional wee dram and so it was not too difficult to persuade her to join me on my voyage of genealogical and sensory discovery.

Fortunately – and unusually for that part of the world - the sea was calm as we crossed on the ferry from Scrabster, a few miles west of John o’ Groats, the northernmost point on the Scottish mainland, towards the port of Stromness on the largest of the Orkney islands, confusingly called Mainland. Because of the flatness of the sea we were able to pass close to the Old Man of Hoy, a magnificent 449 feet red sandstone sea stack, perched on a plinth of basalt. From the sea it looks truly formidable and, despite its closeness to civilisation, it was not until 1966 that it was first climbed, by a team led by the famous British mountaineer Chris Bonnington. There and then I decided that my visit would have to include a trip to view the stack from the bottom on the landward side.

Old Man of Hoy sea stack, Orkney Islands, Scotland.

We enjoyed the warm, friendly welcome at the Highland Park distillery, and we had the joy of sampling rather older, finer bottlings than those to which our wallets normally extend. Smooth, peaty, rich, warming. 

A visit to the helpful people at the Orkney Family History Society, housed in the handsome Orkney Library in Kirkwall, provided some useful information. However, my ancestral investigations proved a little less definitive than I had hoped. Even now I have been unable to discover the origins of the elusive Betsy Birnie, maternal grandmother of my captain, Walter Weir Wilson. And sadly, I found that grannie’s highland home no longer exists on the narrow coastal plain on the east side of the island of Hoy. 

A Musical Journey Through Spain

Jessica Kitt
Art and Culture, Personal essay, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Jessica Kitt 

When I moved to Barcelona, my knowledge of Spanish music was as narrow as that of most expats travelling to Spain:  flamenco, castanets, and … flamenco? However, as my two-year journey throughout the country proved, there is a lot more to Spanish music than just flamenco. My first partial relief of ignorance came from a student I was teaching from the region of Asturias in the North of Spain. After about the first year of teaching British English classes in Spain, I developed a certain odd nostalgia for home and my Irish heritage.

Coming from quite a traditional background, with a family of musicians and Irish dancers, I was used to being surrounded by all things Irish. Frequently, I took to listening to my father and uncle’s traditional Irish band on my MP3 player before bed. One day, during a class with my Asturian student, I indulged in a discussion about Irish music and all the “exotic” instruments we had from uilleann pipes (Irish bagpipes) to bodhrans (hand held drums). During this discussion, my student informed me that the music of both Asturias and Galicia in the North is Spain was surprisingly similar to both Irish and Celtic music. I promptly downloaded some of this music and was shocked by how similar it was. 

Traditional Asturian drummers and pipers. Photo by austinevan via flickr ccl.

This similarity between Irish and Northern Spanish music was again proven to me when I travelled to the North of Spain to work on an organic farm for a month.

Motorcycle Diaries in Vietnam

Motorcycle Diaries in Vietnam

Sasha Hill
Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, adventure travel, cultural immersion, exotic travel, travel essay

by Sasha Hill

 

When I think of Vietnam, I think of the motorcycles. 

My travel partner, Sierra, and I marveled at the sea of them, flowing in a colorful mass around the city streets. We zeroed in on individuals: tiny young women in heels, families with three generations along for the ride. What for us was a cultural statement of rebellion, of reckless daring, was for them just a means of transportation. My grandpa had once punctuated his description of my mother’s “wild” young adulthood by recounting a story of how she once rode a motorcycle up the East Coast with a friend. “I bet she never told you that”, he concluded, in dramatic satisfaction. If he could only see the middle aged Vietnamese ladies, demure in their business suits and protective masks. 

Vietnam was the final stop before we crossed the Pacific to home, after eleven months on the road, from Peru to Asia. We’d brainstormed the trip when we were fourteen, and spent four years planning and saving up. 

It was Sierra’s idea to rent the motorcycle. The trip itself was her idea. My role was usually to follow along, checking her only when the ideas got out of hand. Like when she proposed we schlep down from Granada, Spain to Meknes, Morocco a day early on no sleep to make it in time for a Halloween party. Sometimes I regretted my all too responsible reactions. Rent a motorcycle? We had no experience! What if we crashed? And right at the end of our trip.  

But I found myself saying yes. 

Medellin, Colombia: Dance Capitol of My Heart

Paul Ross
Art and Culture, Photo Essay, cultural immersion, travel essay

story and photos by Paul Ross

“I would do anything for love, but I won’t
             dance, don’t ask me.”
                                -Meatloaf & Fred Astaire

I’m an American baby boomer who doesn’t dance. It was an awkward social activity for a lot of guys in my generation and the excuse for not doing so was that I was always playing in bands –for other people’s dancing. The story is plausible because it’s partly true.  But, somehow, there I was, salsa’ing mi cola off at midnight in Medellin, Colombia.

Salsa dancers, Medellin, Colombia.

         HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Flashback ––

         Arriving in the capital city, Bogota, in search of stories with my wife and travel partner Judie, Chef Sofia Samper whisked us like compliant egg whites off to a large local market. There she shopped for select delicacies to be incorporated into a custom lunch at her cooking school/restaurant. Music thumped in the background throughout the marketplace.

         During the subsequent lesson in Colombian cuisine at trendy Casa 95, Chef Sofia danced around her kitchen to an infectious Latin beat. And I began tapping my toe.

Molokai - the most Hawaiian of islands

Deston Nokes
travel essay

by Deston Nokes   

When I flew from Honolulu to Molokai, the culture shock was akin to leaving Las Vegas for a small town in Utah. Gone were the towering hotels, expansive resorts, chain eateries, blinking neon, and surging swarms of humanity on Waikiki. 

On Molokai, it’s quiet. It’s gentle. The island is only 10-miles wide and 38-miles long. There isn’t a lot of structured activity and visitors should be prepared to entertain themselves exploring, snorkeling, hiking, making crafts and just enjoying the sensation of just being in Hawaii. Sportsmen find the hunting and fishing terrific, and there’s just one nine-hole golf course, where the pace is said to be …  leisurely.  

Halawa Valley: Okalani Ganeau-Brown chants permission to enter Molokai’s sacred valley Photo by Deston Nokes..

Kaunakakai, the island’s largest “town,” is just three blocks long, but we did find the island’s best ice cream at Kamo'i Snack-n-Go, and we lined up for the warm bread made daily at Kanemitsu's Bakery.

Here, every beach is public and no building is higher than a coconut tree. There are no traffic lights, escalators or elevators. The Hotel Molokai is the only hotel unless visitors opt for a vacation rental. And traffic? A local saying defines a Molokai traffic jam as “two trucks stopped in the road talking story.”

Mia Gains-Alt, an Oakdale, Calif., transplant and former Bravo TV’s Top Chef contestant, fell in love with Hawaii while shooting the reality cooking show on location in Kona. In a fit of inspiration, she applied for the chef position, and moved her husband, three daughters and even her mother to the rural island. 

“The people here are really tight knit, and there’s a certain amount of freedom in that,” Gains-Alt said. “And, as a parent, I love that Molokai is so safe for our kids. I have peace, sanity, and just don’t feel like I need to go anywhere else.” 

What If We Didn't Go Home?

What If We Didn't Go Home?

Ellen Barone
Foreign Language, Lifestyle, Transformational Travel, cultural immersion, travel essay

“So, when exactly are you coming home?” my father asked.

“I don’t know, Dad. Our visas allow us to stay in Peru for at least three months, then we’re thinking of heading on to Argentina and Chile...”

The broken and sputtering magicJack connection at the South American Explorers Club in Cusco broadcasted about every third word of our conversation, but the message that traveled down the steep stone streets of the ancient Inca capital and across the continents to the lush green lawns of Newark, Delaware, the college town I’d grown up in and where my parents still live, was crystal clear: We weren’t coming “home”. 

The truth was, my husband, Hank, and I had no idea when, or if, we were going home. We didn’t even know what “home” meant anymore. We’d been winging it, temporarily inhabiting Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Peru: itinerant and loose in the world in a manner that both worried and intrigued family and friends back home.

We were four thousand miles from our homeland, eleven thousand feet above sea level, south of the Equator where summer is winter, and living in a fourth-floor walkup without heat. Yet, life felt sweet and rich and fortunate. 

Finding Courage in a Foreign Language

Wynne Brown
Foreign Language, Life Lessons, Solo Travel, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Wynne Brown


His email started out: "It's been a hard day." And ended, "I'm afraid the Costa Rica trip's no longer an option for me."

Mike and I have shared a warm platonic friendship for 40+ years and have wanted to travel together for decades. Last year we finally booked a trip to Costa Rica with the ecotravel company Naturalist Journeys since we'd both always wanted to see Resplendent Quetzals, Morpho butterflies, and—with luck—the exquisite lemon-yellow eyelash viper. 

We also wanted some independent exploration, so we'd arranged to stay in San José for two days before the group tour. 

Ah, yes, best-laid plans...

The week before our departure came Mike's message: "At 9:30 this morning, my right eye went crazy—I had big oil spill 'floaters' that were black with red edges (blood) moving across my eye, and my vision turned cloudy, as if I were looking through a gauze curtain..."

The diagnosis: His right vitreous humor had separated from his retina.

The treatment: Rest—and no airplane flights. 

The result: I'd be flying to Costa Rica without him and spending two days alone in San José. 

Finding Mario Bollag

Michael Housewright
Art and Culture, Culinary Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, travel essay

story + photos by Michael Housewright

Brunello di Montalcino is perhaps the finest wine produced in Italy. It is made entirely from Sangiovese grapes, grown just outside the hilltop town of Montalcino, in Tuscany. It was the first wine I ever loved.

I met Mario Bollag  at a wine bar I curated in Houston, Texas. He spoke impeccable English, and was easily the most charming winemaker I had met in all my years in the business. In addition, he made outstanding Brunello at his winery, Terrlasole.  We hit it off immediately, talked, and tasted wine for several hours. He invited me to visit him and the winery as soon as I could make my way overseas.

Less than two months after Mario’s visit to Houston, I took him up on his offer, and went to Italy. With my wife in tow, and a rental Volkswagen Golf procured, we set out from Rome airport in search of Mario Bollag.  Being a frequent traveler to Italy I assumed finding Mario in tiny Montalcino would be a cakewalk. I was wrong.

Standing at the top of the Man-Made World

Jolandi Steven
Art and Culture, travel essay

by Jolandi Steven

The Arabian music and lights are soft and atmospheric, conjuring up wild desert landscapes in my imagination: falcons frozen on invisible air currents, the loping gate of a camel transporting exotic spices in the blazing heat of late summer, rolling rust-red dunes forming an undulating sea of sand, a Bedouin tent shimmering mirage-like in the softening colours of sunset. The music falls squarely in the category of elevator music, appropriately playing in a parcel-sized space that doesn’t seem to be moving, despite the digital numbers on the display screens that are hopping and skipping playfully over entire floors, teasing and tormenting my eyes. Before long, the elevator that makes the longest travel distance in the world, and travels at a speed of up to 10 metres per second, effortlessly glides to a graceful stop. Polished steel doors slide open with what sounds like a barely audible sigh. Twelve people step out on level 124.


It has taken less than a minute to reach our destination, despite the sludge-like queue that imprisoned us at the bottom for over an hour. Only a couple of handfuls of the 28, 261 glass panels that clad this marvel of engineering shield me from empty space and certain death. The sheer glass walls inexplicably negate my usual fear of heights, and I am irresistibly drawn to them. Pressing my palms and nose against the cold glass, I try to imagine the ant-like bodies of the 12,000 workers that scurried around during the height of its six year construction. I feel small and insignificant. A coward cocooned by a glass case. I gaze out towards an imagined city built out of Lego blocks. Nothing feels quite real from this height.

Ladakh, India: Without Words

Ladakh, India: Without Words

Ariel Bleth
Life Lessons, Personal essay, Transformational Travel, Voiuntourism, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Ariel Bleth

In the darkening room, as dusk drew its graying curtains, there was enough light to see the dirt smudged on the aqua walls.  The volunteer coordinator, Wongel, sat next to me and translated.  We were on rugs thrown over thin mats, with small tables in front of our crossed legs to hold the tea that could not be refused even though we were not thirsty.  My “adopted” mother, my Ama-le, seemed mostly concerned that we eat her hard biscuits and drink her sweet milk tea.  My hand trembled slightly as I held the teacup and tried to look like someone she would be pleased to have in her home for a month, someone who could do the field work that she needed to have done.  Wongel explained that she didn’t expect me to be able to do as much work as they did and that she wanted me to let her know if I had any problems at all.  Silently I questioned how this would ever happen, given my half-day Ladakhi language workshop and her apparent lack of English.  I realized that my few learned phrases, like “Jule, Kamzang-le” (hello, how are you?), wouldn’t go very far. 

I went to Ladakh, a mountainous desert region nestled high in the Indian Himalayas, to live for a month with a family and help them farm, as well as to learn what I could about their traditional Buddhist culture and the forces that shape their relationship to one another and their environment.  Our home had one main room, where we cooked, ate, and socialized.  That first night, Ama-le squatted in the corner. There were bowls of flour and water on the floor before her, and plates of shelled peas, sliced potatoes and leafy greens.  I took my same place on the mats, waiting for some indication from Ama-le as to what I should be doing.  She mixed the flour and water, lightly kneading the dough while Nono-le (Ladakhi for young brother) shuffled around the room, his arms held straight out before him like a zombie.  Three steps and he was down, crawling.  Ama-le delighted in what appeared to be her grandson’s newly acquired skill of walking.  Imitating him with a waddle and extended arms, she looked at me and laughed.

Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay: Surreal Doesn’t Begin To Do It Justice

Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay: Surreal Doesn’t Begin To Do It Justice

Fyllis Hockman
Historic Travel, adventure travel, exotic travel, travel essay

by Fyllis Hockman

Descending the steep, narrow plank, inch by inch, hand over hand along the long pole, I thought: “This better be one hell of a cave!” Exploring the other-worldly interior of Hang Trong Cave was to be one of many surreal experiences I was to have traveling along Ha Long Bay in northeast Vietnam.

In the 1992 movie Indochine, credited with putting Ha Long Bay on the map, Catherine Deneuve describes it as “the most remote outpost of Indochina.” Today, the bay still retains that end-of-the-Earth, Lord-of-the-Rings-on–water quality.

Load More