Europe doesn’t actually exist. It’s a huge myth invented by fantasy writers. The myth became so real that it took on the legitimacy of history and geography. All the people, cultures, landmarks, museums, rivers, mountains, cities — all of it is made up.
Picking the right guidebook is always a challenge. On the one hand, any guidebook is going to provide useful information, so you won’t necessarily have a better or worse vacation by picking one guidebook over another. But some guidebooks provide advice and recommendations that fit a particular traveler’s interests, budget, and time constraints; others are more…
I spent the Labor Day weekend in the wine country of the Willamette Valley, in and around McMinnville, Oregon. I went with my friend Margot to attend the wedding of my friends Lisa and Steve, who are wine aficianados, or oenophiles. They have spent a lot of time in the region, even got engaged down…
In the two weeks since my last post I have been thinking a lot about my difficulty with getting out of my comfort zone when I travel. This might seem ridiculous to people who can’t imagine going to Europe all alone. They might consider me enormously daring to even consider doing such a thing. And there was…
I was both delighted and wistful to read The Frugal Traveler’s most recent post about his journey through Scandinavia. Before he began his trip (and while I was in the last week of mine), Seth Kugel posted requesting readers provide him with ideas for a five-day intinerary in Sweden for under $100 a day. I found…
Even though I’ve been to all 50 states, there are a lot of places in the USA where I haven’t been and still would like to see. Near the top of my list is the Grand Canyon.
This is the itinerary for Rick Steves’ three-week Best of Europe tour:
I recently got back from what was, for me, a great adventure. Blogging each day during my three-week vacation in Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Finland, and Iceland was part of the joy. I returned home with many wonderful memories and well over a thousand photographs. And I have come to realize that what I miss most…
I’ve been home for two weeks now. I’ve finally gotten all my photos organized and uploaded to Google Web Albums, and I’ve gone through all my blog posts from the trip and updated them with a few details I’d previous omitted, but mostly by interspersing some of the best pics of the trip.
It’s my last night in Reykjavik, and the last night of my Nordic adventure. Tomorrow at this time I’ll be home. Well actually, I’ll still be in the air somewhere over Canada, as it’s still afternoon in Seattle, and my flight, which takes off at 17:00 local time, lands at 5:45 p.m. Pacific time. In…
Sometime in the last few days, my vacation stopped feeling like I’m on vacation and started feeling like my regular life. It’s as if being in new places, seeing new things, and meeting new people is the norm of my existence. I guess that means I could get used to this. And I guess that…
I can’t think of any words superlative enough to describe the things I saw today. I can talk about where we went, the names of the places, and such. And I can post pictures (check out my Iceland album starting with the picture above), but they are just not an adequate representation.
