Author: Karen McCann

My globetrotting friend Liz recently showed up on my doorstep bearing a packet of Weasel Coffee as a hostess gift. “They say Vietnamese weasels eat the coffee beans,” she shouted to me over the hubbub of arriving guests clustering around the front door. “And then the beans pass through the animals’ digestive tracts, which adds…

​One of the things I love about Spain is that nobody can agree on anything — and everyone seems fine with that. Take tapas, for instance, those delicious small plates of food that are so popular here in Seville (and just about everywhere these days). The word comes from tapar , “to cover,” but does…

“Why not write about how you handle money?” a reader suggests. “Credit cards? Rail pass? Cash and what kind of cash?” “Uh, oh,” I said to Rich. “I think you’d better take this one.” ​After 29 years of marriage, we’ve worked out a division of labor. I’m the wordsmith who acquires travel phrases in every…

With Black Friday now extending from Halloween to New Year’s, the holiday season has become, if possible, even more overwhelming. In a rare demand for sanity, American consumers pressured some huge retail chains into closing on Thanksgiving Day , like they did way back when (two or three years ago). Well done, American consumers! But…

There’s nothing quite like basking in the afternoon sun, sipping sangria, and knowing that back home your family and friends are trudging through knee-deep snow, stinging sleet, and/or the bitter winds of serious winter. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t enjoy the idea of my loved ones suffering. It’s just that after 20 years in…

​“How do you deal with fights with your husband while you’re traveling?” It was the first question asked by a member of a book club I was Skyping with last week, discussing my latest memoir, Adventures of a Railway Nomad , about our three-month train odyssey. “You don’t write about any arguments in your book,…

My husband — as he’ll be the first to admit —has a serious luggage fetish. Over the years, our closets and attics have become jammed with suitcases, backpacks, daypacks, duffle bags, satchels, stuff sacks, and zippered pouches of every configuration. In times of stress, I can always divert Rich’s thoughts to a more cheerful direction…

As you may have noticed, I’m a big fan of quirky travel adventures. To me, there’s nothing more exhilarating than taking a step into the unknown – even if it’s simply poking my nose into some unexplored corner of the city I’ve lived in for more than a decade. I recently stumbled across a kindred…

​​In place of a welcome sign, the tiny French village of Rennes-le-Château has posted a stern warning against digging, and in case you don’t get the point, they’ve locked the cemetery gates. The residents – all 100 of them – are fed up with people disturbing the tombs of their dear departed, and who can…

​​“Bags? We have no bags.” Each time I said it, I stood back to enjoy watching the stunned disbelief bloom on the face of our host at the hotel or B&B. This would invariably be followed by a hard stare at the floor beside my feet to see if this absurd story was an attempted…