If you visit Costa Rica’s Marino Ballena National Park late in the afternoon and see a couple walking down the beach into the blazing light of a setting sun, you might take a picture. Later, in looking at the picture, you might decide you like how it … [Read more]
12 Photos: Europe’s Migrant Crisis on Lesbos, Greece
Looking back on 2015, I think the hardest thing I did was spend only parts of three days on the Greek island of Lesbos, when the drama of the migrant crisis playing out there demanded more time than this. One million asylum seekers, many of them … [Read more]
Nha Trang Boat Trip with “Floating Bar”
The U.S. Coast Guard would be appalled, but drinking while adrift is a daily scene off the coast of Nha Trang, Vietnam. The "floating bar" is part of a popular all-day boat trip to outlying islands and it works like this: Shortly after lunch, a … [Read more]
The Benefits of Moments of Travel Misery
“There is little favorable to be said about poverty,” wrote Nelson Mandela in his book Long Walk to Freedom, “but it was often an incubator of true friendship.” I first read this line (and book) about 15 years ago, and I remember it sometimes in my … [Read more]