Seoul, Korea: Then and Now
My trip to Seoul, Korea was going to be a nostalgia trip. Fifty years had passed since I was stationed there for a year when I was in the Army. It turned out to be not so much nostalgia. So much had changed that the things I remembered have been replaced with a modern bustling […]
Bedeviling Tasmania
Tucked away 150 miles south of mainland Australia, the island state of Tasmania too often is a travel adventure after-thought. Talk about a missed opportunity. Superlatives come easily in “Tassie,” as its 500,000 residents call it, where the world’s tallest flowering trees shelter some of the planet’s oddest mammals. Even a short visit can yield […]
Cosmopolitan Panama City
With a colorful cocktail in hand, I lean close to the edge of the balcony and watch the show beginning to unfold before my eyes. Towering buildings begin to gleam, flash yellow, then orange and finally fade to black. As the last rays of sunlight dip below the hill, a million electric lights flare into […]
Reverent Myanmar
The World’s Most Devout Buddhist Country The headlines are jarring. In account after account, they report incidents of jailed journalists, ethnic genocide, and other appalling human rights violations. They’re grim snapshots of Myanmar, Southeast Asia’s most mystical, least understood land—a country of more than 100 ethnic groups that opened its doors to foreigners less than a decade […]
Small-Ship Expedition Cruising on the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar
An Outstanding Adventure Without the “Bells And Whistles” One of our most memorable family expedition cruises was in Myanmar (formerly Burma) with Pandaw Cruises along the Irrawaddy River. Planning to cruise with a 24 and 26 year old, my husband and I had some apprehension initially about whether they would find it boring, with no […]
Soul of Antartica
Sailing into the mystic unknown, I realized this expedition cruise to Antarctica on the Hurtigruten Midnatsol was quite different from any cruise I have ever been on. It was exploratory and research-based, where scientists were sailing to the land of silver blue glaciers and ice floes, to learn about climate change and migration patterns of the wildlife who lived there. We went from Ushuaia, Argentina, and were given […]