I’ve noticed a disconcerting trend lately. And by “disconcerting,” I mean annoying. To me. Honestly, this isn’t normally a difficult thing to accomplish, but this particular situation has gotten so out of control in the past year that it warrants both comment and mocking. Lately, when it comes time for…

I had to decline an offer this week to predict 2010 travel trends. Besides being prohibitively busy writing the seminal works detailing how smart I am and how dumb everyone else is, but with grace and charm, I didn’t feel that I was qualified to publicly muse about future travel…

On a theoretical list of Thompson’s top fans, I’m just below his agent, editor and mom, jockeying for position with his wife and oldest friend. I read Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer three times. Partly because of his excellent storytelling, humor and how strongly I…

This list was created in honor of my LP colleague Mark Baker, who has gotten the silly notion into his head that the trend of making lists for every conceivable mundane subject is somehow reducing writing/publishing/blogging to single-celled entertainment on par with monster truck rallies or anything currently appearing on…

Before I arrived, I knew that the five-star Hotel Mirador de Dalt Vila had just recently opened its doors for business, but I didn’t realize how recently. “You’re our first guest!” I was enthusiastically informed after the complimentary hotel van delivered me from the ferry. It came to pass that…

Anyone who’s every spoken to me for more than seven minutes knows that I reap the same warm, comforting feelings from the Minneapolis Skyway system as most people would experience on a quiet, tropical beach. Moving into a Skyway-connected building instantly transformed my outlook on Minnesota winters – in that…

This is a follow-up to my guide to coping with arrest while abroad. Far less disturbing than being arrested while abroad, but statistically more probable, is being detained for a minor or non-existent violation and being intimidated into bribing your way out of the situation. Coping with detainment and bribery…

[International readers: though the information about being arrested abroad presented here was written for an American audience, I hope you’ll find some portions of general interest.] Before I get started, I’d like to unequivocally state, for both the readers and the person that originally suggested that I write this piece,…

Slackerology Theory: bringing home less disposable income and owning less crap can raise happiness and reduce stress. By this stage, I think my bias toward calculated Slackerology is pretty clear – as is my devout Atheism and loathing of the suburbs. While I was vagabonding around the planet from 2003…

Slackerology Theory: bringing home less disposable income and owning less crap can raise happiness and reduce stress. [I apologize. I know that last week I promised that this post would be about how to live like a European in the US, but as always, once I started writing, the post…