It is with enormous satisfaction and pride that I announce the publication of my first solo, book-length project, a Romania travel memoir called Backpacking with Dracula. Honestly, so many nights and weekends have been dedicated to working on this project for the past year and a half, I guess the prevailing…

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…

US immigration gets an upgrade (read, stupider than ever) Since 2010, in addition to many fine programs, the fledgling Brand USA (aka the Travel Promotion Act), “dedicated to increasing inbound international travel to the United States,” has spent untold millions of dollars making US immigration procedures quicker and simpler. While…

Why yes, this is a full-tilt, vanity listicle, shamelessly basking in personal achievement in the Lonely Planet universe. You wanna make something of it? All right, then. I’ve already forgotten how this got started, but for some reason I was cataloging all the Lonely Planet articles I’d written from late-2010…

A travel book investigating Vlad “The Impaler” Dracula and the vampire monster he inspired   The book is out now!   The undisputed A-lister among Transylvania’s cabaret of supernatural blood-drainers and face-eaters, Count Dracula is both a publicist’s dream and nightmare. Like Justin Bieber, despite unremitting horrifying behavior, the public…

I had the pleasure of reading a piece at “Notes from the Road” on April 11th with a bunch of other great travel writers. Many of them read from award-winning material or excerpts from their books. I decided to balance the night out and read a goofball blog post, a…

Last fall, MPR invited me to come in to shoot video with Tom Weber and talk about juggling. Yes, video. They were trying something new. Then nothing happened forever and I assumed the project was dead. Lo and behold, they posted the video a couple weeks ago! I’d just come…

The inaugural European Games will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan June 12-28, 2015. The event is a high point in Azerbaijan’s campaign to raise their tourism profile in recent years, as well as the New York Times listing Baku among its “52 Places to Go in 2015” and Lonely Planet…

Brace yourselves for a Pretty Major Life Announcement (PMLA) that I myself can barely believe is happening. It’s been 11 years, seven months and some change since I quit my idiot-proof career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, sold my car, my house and everything in it, bought a…