Alesund: A Lively Seaside town Full of Yachtsmen and a Loud Concert
Alesund, Norway. A cultural center and beautiful town, perched on an outcropping off the west coast of Norway.
Valley Voices Story Slam: Have You Got a Good One to Tell?
Valley Voices Story Slam brings together bold people with funny stories to share, it’s stand up comedy club with stories instead of jokes.
South Deerfield, Mass: The Joy of Small Town Living
South Deerfield Mas. is a perfect place for someone who wants everything they need to be within walking distance, including shops and doctors.
Travel South: Immersed in Southern Culture and Flavors
Travel South in Myrtle Beach: I’ve been here since last week and I have learned some interesting things about life in the Southern States.
Wild Thing Pits Gila Against the World
Wild Thing, a play written in 1613 by Luis Velez de Guevara, was performed for the first time at the Rand Theater, Umass. Here is a review.
Snow Spiral Works, Kinda, If Snow Isn’t Deep
I am just in from snow shoveling. I was using an ingenious old Yankee device that I saw on Facebook, then remembered I had one just like that in my garage gathering dust. I took the red snow spiraler machine and began to try to use it to clear about five […]
Dinner in Goreme, Turkey
Dinner on our last night in Turkey really captured a lot of what I loved about the country. It was in an exotic setting, we climbed a tall stairway to get into this cave house, and on the walls there were many square cut-outs that were once used for pigeons. […]
February, 2019 Begins A New Era
It’s officially February, and the Superbowl has come and gone with a familiar result. The Pats win it….again, for the sixth time! Anyway, now that football is gone from my life for the next eight months, I see life unfolding differently than it has in the past. I am determined […]
January Fun When the Furnace Runs Out of Oil
We’re in the midst of the deep freeze, and this time we got snagged in the crossfire. I noticed it was a bit chilly, what with the minus four degrees outside, and when I went down to the cellar, I saw an ominous sign on the high-tech boiler’s screen. Heating […]
New York is the Center of the Travel Universe Next Week
My annual pilgrimage down to the Big Apple starts next Wednesday when I hit the Moxy Hotel on Times Square. I’ll get there late and probably order Chinese again from a wonderfully exotic joint where no one speaks English. That’s the best. Then on Thursday morning I’ll join about 300 […]
Delta Scores Big in the WSJ’s Best Airline Awards
Every year, the Wall Street Journal’s airline columnist, Scott McCarthy, rates the Best and Worst Airlines for the year. This year’s winners were trumpeted in a slick video featuring the bow-tied journalist sitting in the traditional Middle Seat, giving out the awards. The categories covered the things that travelers all […]
Some Random Thoughts about Traveling in Turkey
Random observations after a week of traveling in Turkey. One of the things I heard from some people who I told I was visiting this country was fear. To date, I can’t see why, since this country gets 34 million tourists a year and is very well set up for […]
Skiing in Turkey
Turkey’s newest and largest ski area at Mount Erciyes outside of Kayseri. With a vertical drop just below 5000 feet, it’s almost as big as Snowmass in Aspen. And there are no trees anywhere. We met with the managers of the new slope, which has been under construction for five […]
Istanbul: I Got Lost and I Liked It
I was pleased, tired and somewhat stunned when I checked my iPhone and saw that we had walked 8 miles, 18,107 steps, as we walked to all of the top attractions in the sprawling city of Istanbul from 8:30 until 4 pm. We toured the Topkapi Palace, home of the […]
Flying to Istanbul and Skiing in Turkey
On Tuesday night, I’ll fly out of JFK all the way to Istanbul, Turkey, where I will join a group of travel writers for a press tour that will include the big city and the resort area of Kayseri. This is a large city, in fact, one of the fastest […]
Get Ready to Dance to African Music at Union Station Friday Night
Another Collider is on its way, and that’s a good thing for anyone who loves dancing to highly energetic music from Africa, as two great bands are coming to Northampton’s Union Station on Friday night. BCUC , from South Africa, plays fast-paced Soweto stylings and what can be described as “afrobeat+afropunk+afropsychedelic […]
Letters that Helped Make Me a Man
I have kept a box of letters up in a drawer in my office closet for decades. The last time I put a personal letter in that box was when I got a nice note from a writer last year. Pretty much nobody has written personal letters, on stationery, in […]
Christmas Cocktail Party a Super Success
It’s time for my post-party wrap up and look back. I am very, very happy with how the Christmas Cocktails party worked out for everyone. I sweat and anguish over party details and so often I think that there isn’t enough food, or not enough booze. The crowd was just […]