Author: Karen McCann

I love all holidays, including those that were never part of my family traditions. Rich and I were once in India during the spring Holi Festival, where people celebrate the triumph of good over evil by throwing paint on one another. We wore old clothes and considered it a hoot to get spattered in honor…

Among the joys of travel are encounters with ordinary women living in extraordinary times who accomplish seemingly impossible things with minimal resources. Take the Kenyan village that Rich and I once visited on behalf of an American charity. Located close to ground zero of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the remote jungle village had lost half its…

​ “Being entirely honest with oneself,” said Sigmund Freud, “is a good exercise.” And to be entirely honest, the only time I thoroughly enjoy exercise is when it doesn’t feel like exercise at all. Tell me I’m on a weight-loss program that requires 10,000 steps a day and I immediately want to stretch out on the…

This Halloween, Rich caused a sensation dressing in a Cardinal’s outfit (the religious official, not the bird or Arizona’s football team). He looked splendid in his red satin robe, and as we walked through Seville, people roared with laughter, dashed out of bars to kneel and pretend to kiss his ring, and asked to have…

Last month I introduced a French friend to my favorite California dive bar, the Silver Peso , and it was clearly love at first sight. Smiling with delight, Sandra glanced around the dim room, slid onto the ragged bar stool, leaned across the sticky wooden bar, and said, “White wine.” Aghast, I tried to shout…

“Hey, the new SMART train is finally starting,” Rich said. The endless delays, over everything from technical glitches to permit issues, had become a local joke. “We should try it out.” I instantly thought of Petaluma , where we were scheduled to meet friends for lunch on Thursday. “How about an overnight stay at the…

“And that,” Mike told me, “was when I saw Bigfoot.” Wait, what? He’d actually had a close encounter with the legendary humanoid creature said to inhabit the local forests? You can see why I’ve had a lifelong love affair with California’s roadside attractions. You expect the unexpected, and even so, they always surprise you. Rich…

​Earlier this week I was rambling on about some of my favorite travel encounters — meeting musicians in a Trieste dive bar, dining with a dentist in Zagreb , the Stockholm “oops” party — to  Mary Rogers  , who was interviewing me for her podcast, Experience 50 . It was a morning interview…

“Your biggest risk isn’t failing, it’s getting too comfortable,” said Drew Houston, the guy who started Dropbox. “Every day, we’re writing a few more words of a story. I wanted my story to be an adventure and that’s made all the difference.” The story of this blog has been a far more exciting adventure than…

​Last Saturday, I had the astonishing good fortune to meet Betty Soskin , one of the original “Rosie the Riveters,” women who took on “men’s work” in the nation’s factories and shipyards during World War II. At 95, Betty is America’s oldest park ranger, and she takes pride in sharing her story, giving frequent talks…