Category: Travel Writing
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The Faces We Remember
Some faces are impossible to forget. Squinting eyes, furrowed brows—these details sear our memories and attach themselves to moments in our lives. Like scar tissue, they heal lumpy and imperfect, and remind us of times when the world was beautiful, or when it all came crashing down. I remember his face hovering above me as…
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The Lessons We Share
What will you be in this world? What will life drop on your doorstep? How will you react when the world takes a swing in your direction? Will you be a man of character? Will you tower above the endless ignorance surrounding you? You’ll be forced to walk a large portion of life’s road alone.…
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Gimme Shelter
The sound ripples across the surface of the crowd, invading each ear as it moves. Waves pummel three small bones in the middle ear and ignite vibrations in the cochlea fluid. Ripples in the fluid kickstart 25,000 nerve endings, transferring the vibrations into electrical impulses and sending them to the brain via the auditory nerve.…
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Zen Camp, Poland
Along a winding dirt road in the Polish countryside rests a model Japanese village. Its wooden bridges connect manicured pathways, while its pools reflect images of clouds as they dance across the sky. A stream trickles below the bridges and feeds into the mouth of a man-made pond. Tadpoles wiggle their tails like rudders near…
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Vilnius, Lithuania
When I thought about Lithuania, only a few images sprang to mind. I imagined rolling hills of greenery and rural settings. I imagined glimpses of forests where trees leaned against the edges of potato fields. I saw old women walking along the roadside, hunched at the back, tired from shouldering sacks of onions. When thinking…
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Riga, Latvia
There’s an odd dichotomy that exists for many travelers and it often manifests as a type of illusion. The more one travels, the smaller the world becomes. Patterns emerge in human behavior, making distant cultures feel less like foreign enigmas. Landscapes group themselves with other landscapes; bucolic pastures have the same rural lull from England…
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Tallinn, Estonia
Tallinn, you magnificent bastard! Your streets transport me back to my early days in Europe, when, as a 20-year-old, the alleyways of Brugge and Bordeaux gobbled me up. Your facades and turrets cast medieval shadows similar to those in Prague and Dubrovnik. And your stone cellars, with their crumbling archways, lead into your bowels like…
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Helsinki, Finland
Raindrops plunge into the Baltic Sea, fusing together like infants returning to their mother’s womb. They’re fast and audible as they plop against the surface and dissipate. Tonight, their brothers and sisters will cool with the evening and morph into snowflakes. They’ll drift through the air and coat the rooftops and city sidewalks in a…
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Back to Europe
It’s been 12 years since my last visit to Continental Europe. To a Catholic, that sounds like the beginnings of a confession. For a traveler, though, it means a wider range of flavors have stolen my appetite. Visits to Iceland, Greenland, and England aside, my travel sights have been aimed toward sections of the world…
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Big Sur
The long stretch of highway hugs the red-rocked cliffside. The land plummets dramatically like a lone lemming into the sea. It’s grand; it’s overwhelming. My tongue forgets its purpose and my words return to the cloistered halls of the mind. The view requires capitulation and I’m here once more to submit. It’s been 18 years…
Stirring Point 