by Carolyn Handler Miller
One day a slender brochure arrived in the mail and my husband Terry and I scanned it with growing excitement. It was from the Archeological Conservancy, an American organization dedicated to the acquisition and preservation of archeological sites. The Conservancy was offering a unique, archeologist-led tour of eight Maya sites in Belize and Guatemala, most of which are rarely visited by anyone besides serious Mayanists.
by Edie Jarolim
It is 10am and I am sitting in a tiny mid-Manhattan office, contemplating penis sheathes. I'm not talking about the latex variety, though my fantasies of spontaneous, sweep-the-papers-off-your-desk sex always end with concern about sexually transmitted disease.
by Angela Smith Kirkman
As far back as I can remember, my life’s goal has been to travel around the world. Now, as I sit in row twenty-two of our Boeing 777, chasing the moon over the Pacific somewhere between Tokyo and the International Date Line, I can feel the book closing on this chapter, on the whole epic adventure. And the same question keeps resonating in the back of my mind.
by Judith Fein
Around the world, viewers and readers are transfixed by the racism dialogue that has transformed from a whisper to a scream in America. It took atrocities, murders, abuse to reach the point where black Americans are being heard. They are refusing to take it any more.
And in my heart, I think the roots of this racism are in slavery. I thought I had a basic grasp of the subject until I went to Louisiana and discovered 12 surprising—sometimes shocking--things I learned that I wanted to share with you.
by Jennifer Hobson-Hinsley
I honestly believe people are either born with a sense of direction or without one. You either drive past your own house at night, or you don’t. At birth, I was at the front of the receiving line for a sense of direction, my husband was at the back. My husband drives past our house at night, and it makes me absolutely crazy. Crazy hit a new level when we recently drove from our house in Santa Fe to Telluride, about six hours away.
by Chris Pady
While visiting the town of Derge (rhymes with reggae) in eastern Tibet, my partner, Michele, and I learn of Palpung, the area’s largest and most important Kagyupa (White) sect monastery, locally known as the “Little Potala Palace”.
Yet despite Palpung’s reputation, we have no luck hiring a guide through any of the town’s hotel staff, shopkeepers, or restaurant owners. Finally, we bump into an English-speaking monk who promises to arrange everything for us. “Meet here at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning”, he instructs, pointing to a designated spot. Nothing about the arrangement spells certainty, yet we’ve got nothing to lose.
Two young men, Juan and José sit, side-by-side, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, beside the road, watching the cars and the vans and the trucks and the buses going by.
Both are high school graduates, but no more than that; neither of their families could afford to send them to school anymore.
Juan lives on this side of the road. He helps around the house, helps to raise his younger brothers and sisters, and helps in his mother’s ukay-ukay (used clothing) store. Juan has not heard from his father for years.
by Harriet Mills
I had been in Australia for just over two weeks so I was firmly in the relaxed, travel state of mind when my Dad asked me if I wanted to do a skydive over Airlie Beach, the Whitsunday's, and the Great Barrier Reef. It sounded enticing so my straight answer was a prompt yes. This occurred on our first day of five in Airlie Beach and as time progressed my nerves began to rattle me. My sister had always been the daring one, but now I had placed myself in the position where I had to befriend my adventurous side.
Just below the brickwork of the fence line on one of the busiest streets in this enormous city, a fully-grown woman was squatting over the autumn leaves next to a tree that had no hope in hell of disguising her need to go. This was a manoeuvre I had performed myself many times, under the cover of the Australian bush. Never once did I consider I would see it here in the epicenter of Paris.
by Kate McCahill
For six hours, the bus creeps south from Cusco towards Lake Titicaca, crossing arid, wintered plains and sprawling Peruvian cities littered with plastic bags in a hundred colors. It’s late afternoon before we reach marshland, and then we round a bend and here is the lake, ocean-blue and ocean-huge. The road tips down into Puno, a rippling, clay-colored city pinched into the shore. The woman beside me says that you can see Bolivia from here.
by Chris Pady
I balance perilously on my teammate's shoulders, wondering what to do next. The crowd below me grows impatient. I would love nothing more than to wipe the beads of nagging sweat scurrying down my face in mini rivers, but my hands are covered in greasy grime. The cacophony of blaring music and people screaming is so loud that I can barely hear myself think.
by Renee King
The chatter of tourists surrounded me and invaded my ears. I tried to block it out, but, truth be told, even my own travel companions were taking up space in my head. I closed my eyes, took slow deliberate breaths, and cleared my mind. When I opened my eyes, a vast white valley spread itself out before me – inviting me to take in its pristine beauty. Towering majestic mountains on either side bookended the sea of ice before me. Awestruck and breathless, I tried to comprehend that I was seeing was nature – raw, unforgiving, awesome for all my senses. As I heard questions from either side of me, I was able to deflect that unwanted noise. I breathed deeply and found something just for me on the Mer de Glace in Chamonix, France.
by Fyllis Hockman
I am sweating profusely. My pores are so overrun with liquid that I fear I will float away in a river of my own perspiration. Since I am molting inside a sweat lodge, I figure I can’t go very far. Temporarily reassured.
"For Dad" by Austin Eichelberger
In March, I visited my parents in Virginia from my home in New Mexico: twenty-four full hours of driving over three days and across six states, from desert mesas to grassy flatlands to the wooded Appalachian Mountains where I grew up. I stepped through the kitchen door just as dim night settled over the nearby barn where my mother was feeding horses. My dad, whose name I share, walked toward me smiling but breathing hard, an effect of the lung disease he had been diagnosed with months before. It had already restricted his existence, keeping him from the veterinary work he loved and the active, exuberant lifestyle he had always enjoyed. Watching it happen from over halfway across the country – like snippets of a harrowing home movie, with distance creating a gnawing hunger – was feeding a mix of anxiety and relief within me: anxiety that I'd be too far away to make it home if something happened, relief that I was far enough away to deny the disease’s effects on him.
by B.J. Stolbov
I’ve often wanted to see where the gold in my wedding ring came from, or the gold in a bracelet and necklace, or the gold in a camera, cell phone, and computer. (Yes, there’s gold in a computer!)
Didipio Gold Mine isn’t easy to get to. It’s in an isolated corner of Quirino Province in Northern Luzon in the Philippines. It’s more than an hour’s drive from the nearest town, Didipio. The narrow, gravelly road twists and turns, up and down, through hills and valleys, untouched and unspoiled, lush and green, with stands of coconuts and groves of bananas, lots of bananas. Only a few houses can be seen from the road. The mine is out-of-the-way in one of the least populated areas in one of the least populated provinces in the Philippines.
On a sunny dry day, about an hour before the wedding, it begins to rain; the skies open up, dumping torrents of tropical rain, and I say to the family of the bride, “I’m sorry about the rain.”
“It’s a blessing!” they reply.
An hour later, it’s again sunny and dry, and outside the church on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, the bride is waiting, dressed in her full wedding gown, inside an air-conditioned van.
“It’s a blessing!”
The groom is waiting outside the church, in the increasing heat; he is spotlessly clean and his hair neatly combed.
by Dorty Nowak After growing up in a family where dinner was eaten off trays in front of the TV, I wanted to create a gracious dining atmosphere in my own home. Lit candles and cloth napkins were the norm, and I combed Good Housekeeping for tips to better the ambience for my family and guests. However, it wasn’t until I moved to Paris that I discovered how little I knew about what truly makes a pleasurable dining experience.
by Nancy King
It was dark at 6 a.m. when I struggled to wake up so I could get ready to sell books. Would anyone care if I showed up or not? I was wondering what difference my books made in the world as I ate a hasty breakfast and drove to the farmer's market. Wishing I were still in my warm bed cuddling my cat, I set up my display and sat down at a table with three other authors, each of us trying to sell books to people as they passed by carrying bags of lettuce, tomatoes, and corn; they were interested in eating, not reading. Was the effort of writing a book worth it?
Just as I was thinking I’d rather sleep than try to sell books, a woman in her early fifties came up to me and said, “I’d like to buy one of your books. Which one do you recommend?”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” I said.
As my husband and I jetted off to Portugal recently, I anticipated a trip that would be filled with Fado and gorgeous scenery, plenty of good wine, beautiful old tiles and medieval churches. We did find and luxuriate in all of these things. But it never occurred to me that Portugal would bring us closer to the heart and soul of love. We stumbled across three powerful love stories that caused me to somewhat shamefully compare these tales to my own almost-20-year marriage. Was our love as good as theirs, I wondered?
We encountered the physical remnants of the first love story at the magnificent Quinta das Lagrimas hotel in Coimbra, which is an old university town located in the middle of the country. The hotel had once been a palace, and the handsome rooms and gardens were permeated by romantic vibes. As we explored the garden, the poetic tragedy of the lovers Dom Pedro and Ines unfolded.
Flights lead to unexpected adventures, moments where I feel the delicate lanugo-like hairs on my neck tingle, and momentary flashes where I hover just above reality. From standing at the top of a ski hill in the French Alps, so high up that you are not sure where the mountains end and the clouds begin, to hiking up a fresh muddied trail into a remote lagoon in Thailand while being followed by Macaque monkeys in the swaying branches above, travel allows me to be completely in the moment and nothing else in the world matters.
Lake time is different. It is familiarity and warmth. It is jumping off the dock, boating, long balmy afternoons spent reading Swedish mystery novels and card games that last late into the night. It is perfectly barbecued steaks, freshly picked Alberta corn and a chilled Big Rock beer. I cherish lake time and could not imagine summer without it but it is not getting on an airplane. I smile, I laugh, I relax, but I do not get that travel high. The only moment that comes close is when I’m out on my water ski-- a natural feeling of euphoria hits me as my slalom ski glides across the smooth waters.
