Due to my grueling schedule of world class scuba diving and seven course meals here in Micronesia, I’ve only just learned that nominations for the annual Travvies blog awards opened last week! There’s only one more week to nominate me! Run, run!!! For the second year in a row, the…

Greetings from the hot, sunny, duty free paradise that is Guam! My five day “familiarization tour” is coming to a close. It’s been a lot better than I’d expected in virtually every way. Furthermore, I think I may have stumbled upon an earth-shaking revelation: I haven’t actually crunched the numbers…

Sweet Jesus, do I ever hate research. I mean I really hate it. I like to do research about as much as the idiots setting United States foreign policy right now, meaning not at all – or occasionally allowing fantastically unqualified, arrogant f*ckwits to do it for me. It’s just…

The follow sage advice was forwarded to me earlier this week: “The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans. On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the…

If so, would you care to share the tale? I’ve been assigned the dubious task of writing an article about what to do if you’re arrested abroad (my editor seemed to think that I’d know a little something about this) and I’d like a few anecdotes to include in the…

For those of you that weren’t waiting in line at midnight, Lonely Planet’s latest edition of Tuscany & Umbria hit the shelves recently and through the magic of sub-standard mail delivery I just got my hands on my free author copies a few days ago. That’s right, author copies. Why?…

If you missed it, you can check this page for the rerun schedule, but I’ll save you the suspense and tell you that Anthony’s trip to Romania was pitifully conceived, planned and executed. Among other things, totally avoidable eff-ups included: • Rather than contacting me, he let his bumbling Russian…

I apologize in advance for the length, but not really. I vblog like I write – it’s either 2,000 words or nothing at all. [Cross-posted at This is Why I Love Minneapolis]

Both LP people and sick voyeuristic bystanders have been asking when I’m going to write up a review of the author workshop I attended in rainy San Francisco two weeks ago. When vivid descriptions of impending physical deformities started arriving from the editor pool in Melbourne, I decided I’d better…

It’s been a while since I compiled a lengthy list of my opinions and pet peeves and given them an authoritative title so as to pass them off as travel gospel that panicky newspaper researchers can quote in last second filler stories. (Goddamn I love the internet!) Plus, I just…