I pulled my Eagle Creek 22″ 4-wheeled suitcase off the luggage carousel at the Cyprus airport, set it upright, and spun it around to make sure everything was OK. I’d used that suitcase constantly over the past two plus years and it had held up incredibly well, so I didn’t expect to find anything unusual. … Read more
I’d come to Cyprus to wind down from my summer of travel. I was looking forward to a week of evening walks along the seaside promenade in Larnaca and days of lying on the beach under the warm Mediterranean sun. But I was soon diverted by the fascinating history of the island and the myriad … Read more
“Just call me Daisy,” she said. “You know, like in the movie Driving Miss Daisy.” Her name is actually Desislava Natzkova but, as she later explained to me, her Bulgarian name is difficult for most Americans to remember or wrap their tongues around. “So I just make it easy for them.” I met Desi in … Read more
My goal to travel to every country in Europe was upended a couple of years ago when I started researching how to visit Belarus. I was eligible for a single-entry tourist visa on arrival at the Minsk National Airport, but the $480 price was prohibitive. I could have gotten a visa at a Belarusian embassy … Read more
As I often do when visiting a new country for the first time, I asked a number of people I met in Kiev what one thing best describes Ukrainians. Without exception, they all proclaimed, “We want to be free.” My first foray into the city center reinforced what I’d been told. At Independence Square, a … Read more
