Hole In The Donut Travels

Last week, the blues hit me with a vengeance. There was no mystery about my mood; wanderlust was having its way with me and I knew it was once again time to travel. I threw a few things in a bag, grabbed my camera, and pointed the car north, intending to check out some of [...]

Mixed in amongst the rock, R&B, blues, and folk songs that comprise my music collection is a CD that contains a 20-minute recording made at a lake at the Khlong Saeng Wildlife Sanctuary. In 2004 I visited this Sanctuary, which is located in a remote area on the southern peninsula of Thailand. There are no [...]

Hidden at the end of narrow Freeschool Lane is the last remaining acre of undeveloped land in Key West’s historic Old Town. How this priceless parcel escaped development is nothing less than a miracle, but even more miraculous is the tropical rainforest that today grows upon the site. This is Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden, a [...]

Day two of meandering around the northern Gulf Coast area of Florida left me with a much better impression than the previous day. Venturing further south, I began the day at Manatee Springs State Park. Located a few miles inland from the coast, the park encompasses the entire length of Manatee Springs, terminating where the [...]

When most people think of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, what comes to mind are the lighthouses, the first flight of the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk, and the miles of beaches. These popular tourist attractions are worth a visit, but there is so much more to the Outer Banks that the average person [...]

I am an avid map reader. I can spend hours poring over a map of a destination I plan to visit. Give me a map and I can find my way to anywhere – I’m like a homing pigeon where directions are concerned. So when I consulted maps of Interlaken and [...]

For the past five days I’ve been staying at the Sunset Bungalows on the northern tip of the island of Zanzibar, near the village of Nungwi. Initially, things did not go smoothly. On my first day I had lunch at the resort’s restaurant on the beach and tried to charge the meal to my room, [...]

I have been back from my Maasai home stay for two days now and I am still struggling to write about it. I could variously describe the experience as appalling, fascinating, stimulating, exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, mind-expanding, enraging, or gratifying, and each one of those adjectives would be appropriate. But, let me start at [...]

The Balinese don’t celebrate wedding anniversaries. They don’t celebrate birthdays much, either. What they do celebrate is their religion. Hinduism is the center of their everyday lives, which are steeped in religious ceremony and tradition. Towns prepare for temple festivals by weaving intricate designs of young palm fronds onto long bamboo poles, which are then [...]

Mother Nature put on a show today. It started this morning when I awoke to blessed sunshine pouring through my open bedroom windows. Normally my windows wouldn’t be open in December, but we’re having a mild spell (it got up to 75 degrees today) so I took advantage of it to enjoy the [...]