Thanks for joining me on the journey.
I’m an American travel writer dividing my time between Seville, Spain and California. I travel the world seeking intriguing people, quirky places, and outrageously delicious comfort food so I can have the fun of writing about them here. — Karen McCann
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We Are Not Yet a Lost Civilization
“One day if I do go to heaven,” wrote columnist Herb Caen, “I’ll look around and say, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.’” I don’t know if he’d be pleased or outraged by the headline, “ Much-Maligned San Francisco Ranked 7th Best City in the World . ” Clearly Mr. Caen would vote…
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Predictions to Live by in the Year 02024
So Rich and I are racing back to the San Francisco Ferry Building in hopes of catching the early boat home when we are stopped by an old, shaggy curmudgeon who wants to pick a fight with our Waymo driverless taxi. First he stands in its path, glaring furiously at the empty driver’s seat. Strict…
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What? Why Is My Library Sealed with Crime Scene Tape?
No matter how often you see it on TV, it’s still shocking to come home IRL (in real life) to find your street blocked off by cop cars and crime scene tape. When it happened to us the other day, I craned my neck searching for clues while Rich drove slowly past our street and…
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My Cozy Lunch with a Short Story Vending Machine
When I first heard about the Short Story Vending Machine I was horrified. “Is this AI? Are robots plagiarizing published works by legitimate authors to compose cookie-cutter mini-novels while you wait? What fresh hell is this?” But no; I was charmed to be proven completely wrong. It turns out these stories are composed by actual…
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Grit & Wisdom in the Tenderloin
“The Tenderloin isn’t always easy on the eyes,” says the museum poster, in a massive understatement. “But what the neighborhood is missing in polish, it makes up for in grit and soul.” Thrill-seekers that we are, Rich and I decided to take a walk on the wild side this week and visit San Francisco’s most…
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My Driverless Taxi’s Meltdown on Telegraph Hill
Waymo’s driverless taxis move through traffic like my high school driver’s ed teacher: maintaining the exact speed limit, meticulously obeying all laws, showing an excess of caution and courtesy at all times. Unlike some human cabbies I’ve known, my invisible robot drivers are never drunk, stoned, lecherous, lost, or seething with road rage. They never…
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A Surge of Sea Lions in Crazytown
“It was crazytown here,” recalls one San Francisco resident. I know what you’re thinking: isn’t that always true of San Francisco? Yes, of course it is. But things got much nuttier than usual during the jittery aftermath of the 1989 earthquake, when hundreds of 800-pound sea lions began swarming the city’s docks, sending boat owners,…
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Could Kindness Save the World?
Remember how good it felt when the Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain lifted, and the Cold War melted away? For younger readers, 1991 marked the official, peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, which meant we could finally go to bed at night without worrying about nuclear war breaking out before breakfast. It was…
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“Creativity Is Intelligence Having Fun”
As part of her ongoing (and largely futile) efforts to civilize her six children, my mother would occasionally round us up and herd us into San Francisco’s de Young Museum to appreciate Art. The museum opened in 1895 to show the snobs back East that we Westerners had culture. Yes, we did, dammit! And we…
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Finding the Words That Let You Live Out Loud
“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.” ― Jack Kerouac Much of the blame — or credit — goes to WWII, an event that obviously already has a lot to answer for. During the war years, millions of Americans — soldiers, sailors, and shipbuilders, including…
TRAVEL with CURIOSITY
These days I’m cultivating curiosity, which science says will keeps my brain agile. I figure spending more time on the road and indulging my natural nosiness about the world will be good therapy and a cheerful counterpoint to today’s headlines. And I will never run out of quirky stuff to write about.
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