Getting to Seville
Happy Independence Day from Seville, Spain (a/k/a Sevilla, Espana). Checking out this incredible city (probably my favorite city in Europe so far) required first getting here. And it took me a full 24 hours. After an...
Last Few Minutes in the US (for awhile)
I'm sitting in the Washington Dulles airport having flashbacks to a time I sat in the Atlanta airport some five years ago. It was then that I was about to strike out on my first trip around the planet. Before I left on...
RTW Trip Planning
Back in 2012, I took off on a solo trip around the world. Circumnavigating the planet is known as an "RTW Trip." (I have no idea why nobody calls them "ATW.") Back then, I went from Paris to Copenhagen to Malmö to...
Thank You Greensboro News & Record
I was flattered when Doug Clark over at the Greensboro News & Record invited me to contribute some excerpts from this blog to their paper. I was humbled when I saw the result this morning. So, if the $382 in...
A Long Wait at Customs Inside the Country
In what I think will be the final act of this RTW adventure, I headed to Raleigh a couple of days ago to pick up a package I sent myself from Cape Town. The package went air mail. It turns out it sat in Cape Town for...
Getting Around the World in About One Month
When I set out on this journey, I planned to take in the world, not take it on. I went to places I'd read about, but never seen. Nowhere I visited was undiscovered. There were Starbucks, Apple Stores, and KFC's most...
Reflections on Auckland and Queenstown
Yesterday afternoon, I stepped into an Irish Pub. It was Trivia day and the guys I sat next to were playing. When I added Fiji, Chad, Iran, and Iraq to their list of "Fully sovereign nations with four letters," they...
Welcome to the Sky
I can't talk about my day without acknowledging what happened in Connecticut. It's impossible to imagine anything more sad. As I've encountered people from all over the world today, when they learn I'm American, they...
Queenstown is Remarkable
Saying the Remarkable Mountains, which stand guard over Queenstown, are "remarkable" is a bit like telling a tall person he's tall. "Hey! How's the weather up there, guy?" Sure, it's true, but you're not the first...
God Save the Queenstown
I've only just come into Queenstown from Auckland, but may I illustrate the difference between these two cities? Auckland is a big city -- beautiful -- but big. It's not unlike Philadelphia. Queenstown is more like,...