My blog has migrated to a new host and is being painstakingly reconstructed here. Please bear with me as I iron out wrinkles, hammer out the dents, and apply enough spit and duct tape to hold it all together.— Karen
“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…
I still can’t believe Rich got me to agree to this crazy travel experiment. “Remind me again why it will be fun to travel without any luggage whatsoever,” I said recently. “The freedom to move through the world unencumbered,” he replied, growing a little starry-eyed. “To get on a train with nothing but a toothbrush…
“I’m not kidding,” Rich said. “I think this carpet is made of cardboard.” I bent down to take a closer look. “Could be some sort of plastic. Or maybe ridged asphalt covered in vinyl? Whatever it is, don’t put your bare feet on it.” We were standing at the entrance/entire floor area of the smallest…
Right after we got married, I went down to Kmart to replace my diamond wedding ring with an inexpensive gold band. “It’s just for the duration of our trip to India,” I reassured Rich. “In a place where people have so little, it just doesn’t seem appropriate — or safe — to wear good jewelry.”…
“I just can’t take any more close-ups of blood dripping on snow,” I told Rich recently. At home or on the road, we love spending lazy evenings watching mysteries and thrillers, matching wits with unorthodox but brilliant detectives and the ruthless master criminals they’re hunting down. But after a glut of bleak Scandinavian suspense dramas…
“Why would you want to go to a stranger’s home and eat with people you don’t know?” a friend asked incredulously. “The hosts aren’t picked at random off the street,” I protested. “They’re professional chefs and fabulous cooks who open their homes to small groups for private dining. It’s a pop-up restaurant, like a small…
CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBORS These days I’m writing about Good Neighbors, exploring how the people around me are working to help each other get through these challenging times. My weekly posts appear on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my travel and research schedule.
THIS BLOG IS A PROMOTION-FREE ZONE. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful.
