“Welcome to Patagonia!” our guide said with a huge grin that was partly genuine partly affected. The other guests and I were definitely affecting ours – to the point of clenched teeth. Having just hopped off a powerful jetboat, our group stood on a haunting black beach in five layers…

Now before I blow your tutti-frutti minds with the singular ass kicking that was my trip to Chile, let me state this disclaimer: I’m well aware that my smug bragging of enviable trips lately has far outweighed the usual abject misery for which I’m known and admired and perhaps this…

You know what really pisses me off? Idiots. We’ll get to that in a second. Meanwhile, you know what pisses me off slightly less? Total ass-spanking humiliation. I was duly informed this week via the South by Southwest Interactive Festival discussion panel selection committee that I am officially less interesting…

Folks, I’m just a few hours away from wrapping up my four and five star trip through Chile. But am I sitting back and letting these final hours wind down unproductively? Perish the thought. I’m a professional. When I’m on the road, I work like a miserable dog right down…

Check to make sure that your very expensive digital camera with numerous delicate moving parts is not in your day-bag before you go to the beach. [See the full “What I’ve Learned” list here. Start at the bottom and read up.]

[The last in the “Don’t Go There” series (so far), is my physically sickening October 2003 visit to the capital city of the tiny nation of Andorra.] Being the typical uninformed American, I hadn’t known that the country of Andorra even existed until I got my hands on a large,…

I’ve just finished reading and reviewing a new travel book for Gadling by first time author Eric Weiner called “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World” (see the review here). Great read, but more importantly, it made me reflect on my own Bliss…