As the title suggests, this is part two of the list of fun facts about 130 countries. (Here’s part one.) This one is a bit more difficult: There are only three fake facts in this post. Can you find them without resorting to Google? Thirty percent of the residents of…

Lists of weird/fun facts about the countries of the world are always a good time, because hey, they’re weird! And fun! But there’s a twist – I slipped in nine fake facts among the real ones. Without resorting to Google (you can resort to Google a little), can you pick…

I swear this is the last blog anniversary/reminiscing post I write – unless this thing is still up and gasping along after 20 years, in which case I’ll do whatever I damn well please, so shut up. On February 17, this blog turned 10 years old. This makes me the…

Oh, look! Another voter-driven, who-to-follow travel Twitter list! So, here’s the fundamental problem with these voter-driven lists: they’re far more reflective of existing popularity and the willingness to campaign by the contenders than appreciable talent. Sure, voter-driven Top Whatever lists serve a vaguely useful purpose, even if that purpose is…

Researching the awesome “Florence Explorer 2.0” city guide app (UPDATE: sadly, now defunct) contractually required me to once again to sacrifice the bod and eat prodigious amounts of food during my recent visit. Since one of the guidelines was to put together an “author favorites” list, and since the app…

Remember these blogs? How Conor is Spending All His Money (later called Conor’s Mildly Thrilling Tales) No Place As Home The Great Wallnut I remember them fondly. They were the first travel blogs I read, way back during travel blogging’s Bronze Age (2003-06). I started this blog in February 2006….

[Lists are still in, right? If not, how about being retro? There’s no way that being retro is not still in. Either way, my conscience is clear.] So! I recently spent five action-packed weeks researching and compiling information on the US street food scene. As often happens during frenzied writing…

Here we are, the final post for Romania Month. I’m happy to close things out with a list that, not even six years ago, wouldn’t have been possible. A few standout places aside, when I first arrived in Romania in 2004, restaurants were pretty dreadful. Both food and service frequently…

A hard-won ‘best of’ list if there ever was one. I’ve spent many uncomfortable nights around Romania over the years to boil this list down to the perfection that it is today. The good news is that each year another worthy budget place opens up and one or two god-awful…

Romania Month continues with my picks for the best World Heritage sites in Romania. The full list of Romania’s World Heritage sites is impressively long. So long that you might be tempted to assume that Romania has naked pictures of World Heritage’s sister. They’re everywhere and, more importantly, each one…