After a fairly insane start to 2025 that saw me visit Guatemala, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Morocco, Tunisia, and Canada within the first six months, the summer is mainly about catching up on life. Part of that is seeing friends, and lucky for my travel schedule, some of them live domestically in some places that I get to write about!

Visits to see people are a great excuse to travel, and to go places that I might otherwise not. And with those friends having full-time jobs, I get to take a day or two – typically – to go do something that interests me, and that I hope will interest all of you, while they are stuck at work.

This August, I have two back-to-back trips (with only a few days at home in between), so for the sake of only writing a single introductory article, I’m calling it “Domestic August.” It’s a lousy name, but my attempts at something better came up even worse, so it’s what we are going with.

The first trip is a return to Northern Virginia, where since my friends live just off the DC Metro, I get to do some stuff in the District. Last time I was out, I visited the National Museum of the American Indian, one branch of the Air and Space Museum, and the Library of Congress. (All of those links will take you to my articles about those experiences, and I do hope you’ll read them.)

This time, my DC fun will include a tribute to Abraham Lincoln from Ford’s Theatre, and a story about art from around the world. That latter article will take us to three different sites, the Smithsonian Museums of Asian Art and of African Art, and the Art Museum of the Americas which is run by the Organization of American States and is located just off the Mall.

If I have an extra day, I may try to walk a portion of the Washington and Old Dominion trail, a regional park that is 44.6 miles long but less than a hundred feet wide as it follows the path of the now-abandoned W&OD Railroad.

Following my time in Virginia, it’s a couple hours of transit up to another friend’s home in Baltimore. I used to be in Charm City fairly regularly since it is where my college girlfriend’s parents lived. That was a long time ago – please don’t do the math – and obviously well before I began writing, so as far as The Royal Tour is concerned, it is a brand new destination.

It is my hope that we spend a day at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. I’ve already been to the incredible National Aquarium there, so I doubt I’ll do that again, but perhaps an Orioles game at Camden Yards would be a possibility. Or maybe a harbor cruise. We might go to Fort McHenry for a day of history. And is crab in season? I’d love to eat some crab.

After returning to Los Angeles for a few days, it is off to visit another friend in a place that is totally new for me: Boise, Idaho. I’ve been to Idaho before, but never to Boise. So I’m excited to write a couple stories there over my few days.

One will be my default whenever I visit a state capital. I’ll visit both the Idaho Capitol and the State Museum, and talk about the history of the state. I know almost nothing, so it’s going to be a lot of fun to learn some things and pass them along.

Second, did you know that Boise has one of the largest Basque expat communities in the world? Well it does! So I get to combine my love of ethnic-cultural neighborhood exploration with learning about an immigrant community I haven’t really been exposed to. Can’t wait!

So that’s the basic August travel schedule. Please don’t hold me 100% to the planned writing, as things have a funny way of changing, both from an itinerary standpoint and from one of story inspiration. Articles will come out toward the end of this year if my projections are on, so if you want a more timely take on what I’m doing and seeing, you might want to follow me on Bluesky. (It’s also a great social media platform that is 100% fascism free, a rarity today.)