Hole In The Donut Travels

It’s time to reveal my tentative travel itinerary. I say tentative because I never really know what my route will be. Some places, I definitely want to visit; others are potential destinations and still others are only “if I have time.” I generally have a hotel or hostel reserved for the first few nights, but [...]

Some people have itchy fingers. I have itchy travel feet. Since returning from my six-month round-the-world (RTW) trip in 2007 I’ve continued to travel in the U.S., staying on the road more than 50% of the time. I’ve been longing to strap on my backpack and head back out for another round of international travel [...]

A while back I wrote that Hole In The Donut was featured on the Briefcase to Backpack website.  The founders of the site, Michaela Potter and Sherry Ott, both took a mid-career break to travel around the world and in so doing discovered an interesting fact: although Brits, Aussies and many other cultures accept the [...]

I am sitting at the airport in Lisbon, Portugal, waiting to board my plane. This trip has been a wonderful adventure for me over the past six months. I don’t know why I was so driven to do it; I only know that it was extremely important for me. Perhaps I was feeling my [...]

It may be unfair of me to pick three words that define all of Portugal, since I only visited a tiny part of the northern coast, so I’ll say that the following three words define the coastal resort areas of Portugal:
Sunny: Practically perfect weather, mid-eighties during the day with gentle breezes and in the 70’s [...]

I’ve got packing down to an exact science. For this six month trip I carried only a small backpack and a carry-on size (22″) rolling suitcase. So I had to choose every article with great care. One of the most difficult decisions when traveling light is what shoes to pack, simply because they take up [...]

My incredible luck has not failed me as I near the end of my six month around-the-world journey. For my last ten days I have chosen Portugal because I have long wanted to come here, and Cascais specifically for its beaches. Somehow, I just knew I would be tired at this point and badly [...]

I arrived in Portugal following a nightmare 13 hour travel day where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, including nearly being throw off an Italian train over a seat assignment, a flight that was an hour late, and getting lost at night between the airport and the rail station in Lisbon because the [...]

The three words I have chosen that best describe Italy, in my opinion, are:
Historic: Culture, art and history are everywhere; a feast for the eyes and for the soul
Passionate: From the cadence of spoken Italian to the lovers on the streets, Italians are passionate about everything

There are a few bits ‘n pieces about Italy rolling around in my mind (some informative tips, others funny) that I couldn’t make fit in any other blog entry, so I decided to lump them all together in this final post about Italy:

At least 50 percent of everything you want to see in Italy will [...]