Inner City Blues The two sets of giant nuclear smokestacks on the way into town would be a precursor to what would be a very industrial city. I don’t know what I expected from Ulaanbaatar, really: maybe something more “traditional” and quaint? Perhaps little corner tea houses, rickshaws rolling down narrow streets and red lanterns…
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Alrighty, Almaty! Stepping off the jet bridge and into the airport, I saw an officer in a green, pressed uniform, with all the bars and stripes. He donned a matching, giant, flat hat, the size of a small satellite dish. Had I really made it into Kazakhstan? Just months ago, I’d taken a cab from…
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#176 I’d been trying to get into Syria for years. Just as it was my turn, the pandemic hit. I’d even already bought my ticket to Beirut (the starting point for trips to Damascus.) But it wasn’t in the cards. When countries started opening back up again, I headed to Lebanon—which was amazing—but sadly Syria…
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Party Over Here I’ve never had so much fun at an airport gate before: I was lucky enough to be a passenger on the inaugural flight from San Diego to Munich. I’d been looking to burn these Lufthansa miles for years, but the pandemic came along, and then, well…you know the rest of the story….
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Fifth Time’s a Charm It wasn’t until my fifth or sixth trip to Panama City (maybe even the seventh, I lose track), until I broke away from my usual routine of hanging around the coast to explore the local, non-touristy, internally-situated residential neighborhoods of PTY. RELATED: My many Panama trips chronicled HERE. I quickly became…
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Istanbul, We Meet Again Each time I do this, I come closer to getting it down to a science. It’s a task alone even getting out of that giant new airport – The fact that it’s so far away from town just adds to to the challenge of enjoying a layover in the city. The…
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With every passing minute on the island, I fell in love with Comoros a little more. It’s hard to explain – just a good, genuine vibe. Not a touristy, steel drum, sipping piña coladas-kind of vibe. But the feeling of being in a special place, with friendly people, who smiled and said hello and made…
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Disclaimer: I don’t use the word “bizarre” as an insult. Quite the contrary: I absolutely adore these lesser-visited countries…especially the ones that your average person has never heard of. I mean, is it not absolutely crazy that entire nations–countries with their own languages, currency, customs and history–are out there, that most of us don’t even…
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