If Mexican cuisine ranks as one of the world’s great cuisines (it was the first cuisine to receive UNESCO culinary heritage status), it’s certainly aided in part by what goes on in the kitchens of Oaxaca. Oaxacan food: roasted, subtle, rich, layered. Moles, chocolate, tiny avocados that taste faintly like licorice, giant balls of quesillo cheese ribbons, … [Read more...]
North America Travel Articles, Photos and Panoramas
It Happened In Monterey (Or, How We Met)
This is a story about finding love just when you'd sworn off looking for it. In early September, Audrey and I co-presented at a conference in Monterey, California. Monterey just also happens to be the place where we'd first met almost exactly 15 years before, where our joint approach to life on the road got its start. In the driveway, the exact spot where … [Read more...]
A Turtle Liberation: A Sad Story with a Happy Ending
This is a story about a baby turtle and how we helped to set him free. It's also a tale of working together and conservation gone right. … [Read more...]
Mayan Ruins of Palenque, Mexico
Tucked into the folds of the jungle in Mexico's Chiapas region stands the mostly buried and only very partially exposed Mayan ruins of Palenque. If you haven't already experienced this place or you've come to feel ruin fatigue in this part of the world, consider a visit. For us, it's become one of our favorites. … [Read more...]
An Amazing Scene We Were Forbidden to Record: An Indigenous Easter Celebration in Chiapas
Have you ever experienced something exceptional you’d hoped to capture and share, but you were forbidden to photograph or record it? That was the Easter celebration in the village of San Juan Chamula in the Chiapas region of Mexico. This was no ordinary Catholic church, nor was this an Easter celebration like any we’d ever seen. … [Read more...]
A Long Weekend on the Riviera Maya: 14 Memories
Mexico has ruins, Mexico has beaches. But the only place in the country where you'll find them both? That's the Riviera Maya. Our visit to Riviera Maya was short -- only five days – but it was chock full, not only of beaches and ruins, but of tasty local cuisine, lush jungle, psychedelic jellyfish, and even some afternoon karaoke. When I think back, here are … [Read more...]
A Yucatan Afternoon in Four Courses (or, How I Finally Found My Puerco Pibil)
This is the story of a perfect afternoon in Yucatan, including relaxing in the ruins of a hacienda, eating a traditional Yucatecan lunch, swimming in a lush collapsed sinkhole, and perhaps most importantly, satiating my six-year long curiosity about something called puerco pibil. “For lunch, everything is local,” Julia, our host, explained as she walked us about … [Read more...]
Keep Tickin’: Life Inspiration from Nonagenarians
Last weekend, I arrived in Asheville, North Carolina to visit family. And boy, was I tired. The last two months have been chock full: traveling from Central Europe to Crete to Istanbul to Iran, back to Istanbul, Germany and finally to a series of family visits up and down the east coast of the United States. But I’ve been feeling a little spent. It’s not only … [Read more...]
Gross Eats, Fearless Leaps and Lemonade Stands: Kids Being Kids [Audio Slideshow]
![Gross Eats, Fearless Leaps and Lemonade Stands: Kids Being Kids [Audio Slideshow]](https://s23886.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/4674876275_b7649b3fd2-150x150.jpg)
Ah, kids these days. The list runs long of their digital addictions: texting, gadgets, Facebook, internet, and video games. But during our visit to the U.S., we bore witness to a few fleeting moments that reaffirmed that kids are still kids. That is to say, kids as we knew them: little girls leveraging the lemonade-stand model to raise money for an afternoon trip … [Read more...]
The Inauguration, He Said: Of Mobs and Men
Think a press pass to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration meant that crowds parted at security gates like the Red Sea did for Moses? Think again. … [Read more...]