Of all the places urban and rural I have wandered in Japan, the island of Shikoku remains my favorite. The smallest of Japan’s four principal islands, about the size of New Jersey, and situated between Kyushu and the main island of Honshu on the Inland...
“Elephants!” I don’t recall who shouted it first but it was a cry that I would get used to in the coming days. Maybe the six of us in the safari vehicle shouted at once, but it really didn’t matter, since we all seemed to see...
A recent spike in graffiti on public lands coincides with the rise of social media. Is a quest for instant fame causing many people to behave badly—and dangerously—in the outdoors? ...
Attend a festival in Latin America and you’ll be transported directly into the culture of the place with a front row seat to learn about its traditions during the happy time of celebration. Many of these festivals combine religious and secular beliefs as well as...
I arrived in the Valley of Roses, six hours east of Marrakech by bus and more than a world away. Gone were the crowds and cramped spaces; in their place, the landscape opened...
Editor’s note: Candace Rose Rardon is an American writer, photographer and artist who sketches as she travels. These sketches, combined with the stories behind them, poignantly portray those moments of encounter and illumination that become the stepping stones of adventure, inner and outer. We are...
Two decades ago I enjoyed one of the most memorable meals of my life on a sun-swept terrace in the village of St-Paul de Vence, in southern France. Today, on a similarly sun-swept day in northern California, I’ve been perusing my journal from that long-ago...
Life coasts at a lovely, simple suburban pace in Hattingen, Germany, situated on the south bank of the Ruhr River close to the Netherlands border. My time was mostly spent strolling about the old town among the charming half-timbered homes, appreciating landscapes tucked between rolling...
Oops. I fell in love. Maybe it was the wine, maybe the locals, or maybe it was the cerulean sea…but after spending ten days on the grey and golden-shaled Vermilion Coast, which runs between Argelès-sur-Mer to the border village of Cerbère, I decided to call...
Bay Area-based writer and editor Amanda McKee didn’t know what to expect when she embarked on her first trip to Bhutan. The Himalayan kingdom is famed for its policy of Gross National Happiness, but beyond that, it’s a blank on most travelers’ maps. In this...