That’s right, we’re going off-topic again, but this time it’s for a very important reason. We’re only weeks away from the November 2021 election and the Minneapolis ballot has a crucial charter amendment question about establishing a Department of Public Safety, or as it’s more popularly known, “defund the police.”…

What’s my problem now? If you’re new to this blog, what took you so long? Also, you may not know that I was a full-time, freelance travel writer for 13 years. This included many years researching and writing Lonely Planet guidebooks, which requires agonizing amounts of fact-checking, because if you…

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…

And we’re back! This post is going to be a more useful, less goofball update to my original humor writing post from 10 years ago(!), called “How to write funny shit for your blog.” What makes me qualified to talk about humor writing in an authoritative manner? Pardon the humble-brag,…

First of all, how was your pandemic? Spirit-crushing? Zero stars? A little cloudy? Well, at least we can finally entertain the idea of a vacation outside of our home, yard, and if you were a risk-taker, the nearby park. This hasn’t been a reality for more than a year and…

Can you identify the real Dracula’s Castle from these pictures? This week marked the 124th anniversary of the novel Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. (The 125th anniversary is going to be a real banger, I bet.) To mark the occasion, I’m going to provide you with priceless information that will make you…

This is my public declaration, so I don’t back out (unless I quietly delete this later), that I have run the numbers and formulated a plan to retire at 50. OK, it’s more accurate to say that I can retire at 50, just as soon as I complete an admittedly…

tl:dr – If you work in travel and tourism, and are younger than 50, these issues are going to affect you sooner or later. You’re going to want to be proactive, not reactive, if you want any hope of your business/destination surviving and maintaining a career in this industry until…

tl:dr The numerous flaws in TripAdvisor and Booking hotel reviews are dizzying and likely beyond rescue. I’ll preface this post by saying that I have no new hard evidence to present here. There’s no conclusive DNA test, no bloody murder weapon, and no one caught red-handed with 12 kilos of…