Author: Karen McCann

Next summer, Rich and I will walk out our door in Seville, stroll to the train station with our rolling luggage, and board a train to begin a journey that will last several months and cover thousands of miles. We won’t have reservations anywhere, just a Eurail pass and an iPad full of information about…

Next summer, Rich and I will walk out our door in Seville, stroll to the train station with our rolling luggage, and board a train to begin a journey that will last several months and cover thousands of miles. We won’t have any reservations anywhere, just a Eurail pass and an iPad full of information…

I am often gobsmacked by the highly personal and/or utterly impossible questions my Spanish friends put to me. It’s perfectly normal for Sevillanos to ask, “What a nice apartment; how much do you pay for it?” or “Have you gained weight?” or “Who do you think is prettier, me or my daughter?” They expect an…

Last week, my friend Victoria Twead wrote to ask if I’d like to take part in the Next Big Thing online event. She’s the author of the delightful Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools , which my husband Rich, who has trouble remembering book titles, calls “ Two Old Mules .” Vicky explained that the…

This is a guest post by Chris Brady, the NY Times bestselling author of A Month of Italy: Rediscovering the Art of Vacation and several other titles. You may also remember Chris as the man who penned the lovely words, “McCann’s writing is warm, inviting, immediately charming, and constantly entertaining. Her narrative was so good I found…

To my grandmother, the silent film actress Ramona Langley , a little white lie was as indispensable as a little black dress. Both, in her opinion, helped the world go around in a more agreeable, amusing and civilized way. Ramona Langley (1893 – 1983) My grandmother was once entertaining a group of friends for dinner…

And yes, I’ve included recipes! “I started your book yesterday,” one woman told me. “Just planning to read a couple of chapters before today’s gathering. And I couldn’t stop. I read the whole thing. Finally my husband’s asking, ‘Are we having dinner?’ and I’m saying, ‘Yeah, sure, fix whatever you want.’ I just had to…

I love living abroad and adore traveling, but even my hell-yes-let’s-go attitude seems downright stick-in-the-mud compared to the nomadic lifestyle of my friends Lindsay Lake and Ross Williams. Now in their late twenties, Lindsay and Ross are nomads. ​Since I got to know them in Seville in 2008, they’ve lived in Prague; Berlin; Amsterdam; Victoria,…

The times were pretty wild when I was at the University of California at Berkeley, especially for one friend who called himself after a popular cartoon character; I’ll refer to him here as “Roadrunner” (not his real nickname). By spring of our freshman year, the combination of the rigorous academic schedule, various romantic complications with…

I don’t know how you feel about books, but to me, the prospect of having nothing to read is right up there with being deprived of oxygen. So whenever I move, I immediately make a beeline for the public library. Sadly, Seville’s public library turned out to have a paltry supply of books, most of…