Meet the Sundancers!

by | January 2, 2026 | Introductions | 0 Comments

  From a trip planned over a year ago after a bunch of friends joined me in Killington 2024, we are flying out to Park City, UT for our first time at the Sundance Film Festival for their final time in Park City, UT! Welcome back those returning with me for their...
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Niger At Last: A Second Chance

by | December 10, 2025 | Border Crossing, December 2025 Annex: Niger, Fail, Flying Fancy, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Layovers, Niger, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come | 1 Comment

  11 months ago, I sat on the tarmac in Niger's International Airport at Niamey, watching my trip evaporate due to visa complications. The Niger Embassy in Washington D.C. had stopped issuing visas to Americans entirely.     But I don't give up. In late...
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Yemen Day 4: Mukalla Drive

by | December 5, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Yemen | 0 Comments

Al-Mukalla Pulling ourselves away from a desert mirage paradise at Haid Al-Jazil, we swapped our armed guard at another checkpoint during the 2 hour drive to Mukalla.     You point that thing away from me!     After a long wait at one of the...
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Yemen Day 3: Where Reality Surpasses Dreams at Haid al-Jazil-lion Miles Away From Reality

by | December 4, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

  Haid Al-Jazil As the afternoon began to wane, we continued onto our accommodation for the night at the Haid Al-Jazil Resort Hotel, named after what it overlooks and its location perching dramatically on a cliff overlooking the Wadi Do'an. You'll find remarkably...
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Yemen Day 3: Wadi-“we” Do’an Here?

by | December 4, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Deep into Wadi Do'an From Shibam, we drove deeper into the Hadhramaut system, heading toward Wadi Do'an, a dramatic side valley that branches off the main wadi.     Because of the recent military takeover of the local Hadrhamaut government yesterday, we had...
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Yemen Day 2/3: Waking Up to A Military Takeover | Shibam Diggity – Where Are Skyscrapers Born? Here, in The Manhattan of the Desert

by | December 4, 2025 | Crisis, December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Travel Warnings, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

  Day 2 was supposed to start with a morning drive to Al-Mukalla, the seaport and capital city district of Hadramawt. But that plan aged poorly, because we woke up to this instead:     Just like my morning of our last day in Kabul in 2019, we woke up to...
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YE-ah-MAN! Yemen Mainland Day 1: Oh Sei-yun Can You See?

by | December 2, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Yemen | 2 Comments

  Let's just say being here to take this photo at sunset today was worth the wait:     The Visa Maze: When Standard Procedures Is Anything But Standard Before you get in, you'll need an entry visa. As an American citizen in 2025, you'd expect the Yemen...
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Grenada Más

by | November 4, 2025 | Grenada, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End | 0 Comments

  🇬🇩 190 down. 3 to go. After our 3 day stay in Dominica, we took a long hour-and-a-half drive back to the airport from our Portsmouth lodgings, stopping for a quick photo opportunity along the way.     Dominica's airport is tiny. You...
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Dominica-n’t Miss This

by | November 1, 2025 | Dominica, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

  From St. Vincent, we boarded InterCaribbean Airways JY 717 at 12:20pm. Their new airport, however, was built just 8 years ago and still has some operational quirks. The staff double-printed my first leg itinerary from St. Vincent to Barbados without including...
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Dead Men Tell No Layovers: St. Vincent & The Grenadines in 12 Hours

by | October 29, 2025 | Layovers, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 0 Comments

  Fresh off a quick overnight in Grenada (courtesy of a free JetBlue voucher from last October's Welcome to Chinatown gala), we touched down at Maurice Bishop International Airport at 1:53pm.     This marked the beginning of a 3-country Caribbean...
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From Russia (To Mongolia) With Love On The Trans-Mongolian

From Russia (To Mongolia) With Love On The Trans-Mongolian

by | Jan 7, 2017 | , , , , , , ,

 This morning we woke up early for our 7am pickup for Train #004 from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar departing at 8:12am.  And there our train stood waiting for us, emerging from the hazy mist of an early morning fog as if out of a dream -- this is...

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Moscow On The Metro & The World’s 18th Best Restaurant

Moscow On The Metro & The World’s 18th Best Restaurant

by | Jan 4, 2017 | , , , , , , ,

    We started our second day in Moscow with a splendid brunch at Grabni, a cafeteria style restaurant where you self-serve from so many offerings that it'll make your head spin. Everybody loved the french fries:     Don't mind the random pony on...

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New Year’s Eve At Saint Petersburg And The Hermitage

New Year’s Eve At Saint Petersburg And The Hermitage

by | Dec 31, 2016 | , , , , , , , , ,

    I've been to nearly every single ex-Soviet state except for the mother of them all: Russia. That changes today.     And it wasn't easy getting here. Recalling my first monsoon trip to EgyptI also once again answered the call for emergency...

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