Archives
I am a traveler. On land, sea, air. In books. On film. It’s the film travel that’s gotten my attention lately. How could it not? First with Virunga (documentary) and Ida (Foreign Film nominee) in preparation for the Oscars. You can’t visit the contemporary Democratic Republic of the Congo and post-WW2 Poland without understanding there is a very diverse world out there to explore. While movies alone won’t make you a world… Read More
There are many stages to making and implementing a travel plan. Idea. Excitement. Fear. Disbelief (that you’re contemplating this really dumb idea). More excitement. More fear. Deciding not to go. Deciding to go. Paying money. Waking up in the middle of the night worried about money. Waking up in the middle of the night worried about getting sick on the Trans-Siberian Express. Feeling the fear subside. Paying money. Fear Gone. Excitement Back…. Read More
2015 saw the first of the seven BIG trips I intend to take before retiring. It was truly Around the World, designed to set the parameters for all to follow—in other words any place on our fragile planet can be on the list; and yes, the Arctic and Antarctica are there. Here’s the actual mileage: 18,287, shorter than the almost 25,000 it would have been had I exactly followed the equator. All… Read More
Preparing to publish the book of Time and Place 2013 and 2014. A small explanation is in order to account for the inclusion of the next few posts—all written in 2015. Confusing I know but here’s the reason. Through January and February, 2015 I was still writing mostly about past travels (although not entirely) so it seems logical to go ahead and include them here…then to launch the next volume of these travel… Read More
THIS WAS FALL 2013; NOW AT THE END OF 2014 I AM FINALLY FIGURING OUT WHERE I WANT DANCE IN MY LIFE—WITH FRIENDS. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” Thank you Susan Sontag. My sentiments exactly. Time and Place (mneset.me) is my favorite blog. The oldest and, even to me, most interesting. The sad thing is I cannot travel all of the time so how to write interestingly about… Read More
Travel out among the glaciers and to the outlines of those original Viking farms, hiking among mountains, sheer walls of ice, not a Starbucks in sight. AND. Out onto to the steppes, ride a camel, spend a night in a ger, walkabout among the mountains and Mongolian ponies and a sheep or thousand. No Starbucks here either. AND. Norway. AND. Lapland. AND. Beijing. AND. South Korea. AND. A stopover in Latvia for… Read More
Little souvenir I picked up in Estonia. Seems right as I plan a Siberian train trip. In Minnesota, on VERY cold days, we always said, ‘my god, it’s just like Siberia out there today.’ The only other thing we knew about Russia was that it was a VERY big and VERY scary place. Now it’s 2014 and Russia is still very cold, big and could be considered just a little bit scary…. Read More
I am writing a book called “Up North.” Really. But more about that later. Today’s Up North is about next summer. Minnesota, Greenland, Lapland, Norway, Siberia. When I feel even a little disgruntled or worried or bored during the course of the day—I sneak a few minutes on a web site named “The Man in Seat Sixty-One,” the Trans-Siberian Railway section. It is brilliant site. It is inspirational. It is the stuff… Read More
The lime green suitcase still decorated with a sticker from my first trip to Rwanda is open and waiting for me to load the essentials of life on the road. Small suitcase, almost five weeks, a challenge. There is nothing more detrimental to the journey than a big awkward bag. Granted, I will not be traveling alone, but no need to burden my fellow travelers with Granny’s suitcase! My too-heavy backpack with… Read More