My experience is that travel is awe-inspiring, eye-opening, mind-bending, and never ceases to amaze. I hope to never stop. It is, on occasion, hair-raising, challenging, disorienting, and downright scary. So what does one do when things don’t go according to plan? When you miss your flight (or your traveling companion does- looking at you, Juliet 😉)? When you’re...

For those of you who read my postcards, you know that cold weather and I don’t do well together. Yet I often visit cold-weather destinations because they are uncommonly beautiful, are unique, and have wildlife that can be seen only in very few places. So I go. By now, I know to bring certain essential clothing: two kinds of long underwear, wool socks, jackets of...

Many years ago, I began taking a pillow with me when traveling. I’ve always liked soft downy pillows and all too often, the ones I find in accommodations are otherwise. In Cairo at the Garden Hotel in 1983, there was what felt like a sack of hardened cement at the top of the bed. Who could possibly rest their head on such a forbidding surface? Having no alternative,...

I’m not much of a shopper at home (well, except for plants but that’s an entirely different story). However, when I travel, I love to shop. It’s such fun to buy things and then enjoy them in my house long after I’ve returned. I get to relive the experience of the purchase: who I was with, what the place looked like, how good the sales...

I’m thrilled to have had two of my postcards reposted on India’s Endangered, a website raising awareness around species in India that are on the verge of extinction so as to galvanize efforts for their conservation. Thank you, India’s Endangered!

It is the afternoon of August 12, 2003. I am in southern Tanzania. Josephat, our guide, is driving the Land Rover with my daughter, myself and two others on a game drive in Ruaha National Park. Suddenly, Josephat becomes engaged in a conversation on his two-way radio with other guides in the park. They are speaking in a language I do not understand in hushed tones,...

To be outdoors in the sunshine. To gaze at the blue sky and its grand clouds, shades of white and gray, cumulus or lenticular. A modality that I share with other creatures, human and animal, but not with cars or buses or trains or planes. To rely on my body. To get there on my own two feet. To see the world from up high, glorious vistas, layers of mountains, giant...

What to take my stuff in is the first question. Roll-aboard to carry on or duffel to check? Almost always a back-pack either way. Frankly, I don’t like to check anything. There’s the possibility of it being lost or delayed and the headache associated with either of those events. However, carrying on definitely limits the amount of stuff I can bring and...

I don’t have a bucket list. I keep my eyes and ears open for interesting places to visit. Sometimes it will be somewhere I’ve had on my radar for years (e.g. Spring Green, Wisconsin). Other times, an overheard conversation will get me to thinking (e.g. Sicily). I have no parameters. That is, I am attracted to places near and far away. Of course there are...