With my guided tour of Sicily coming to an end, it is time to head to part two of my 2024 Europe trip. I’m flying from Sicily up to Manchester, England to spend several days before moving on to a month in Scotland. I’ve never been to Scotland at all, and even within England I’ve…
Last summer, I spent a bit over two months in Italy. But the entire time was spent on the mainland, ranging from Naples in the south to Milan in the north. I loved my time, loved Italian culture, loved the food. I loved the chaos less. But all in all, it was amazing. So when…
It’s that time again. Time for me to be off to Europe. This year, you’ll notice that my trip is earlier than in years past, basically only spending summer abroad. The basic reason for this is to have July in Scotland. But it’s also nice to have most of fall back home in California. So…
It was bound to happen eventually. I love Canada, and have been to our neighbor to the north dozens of times, but I have never been to Toronto. I may have driven through on a Niagara Falls trip as a kid, but I certainly didn’t spend any time in the city. But I’ve always wanted…
In 2020, my family planned a trip to Japan, a cruise around the islands. That was obviously canceled when the world closed. The trip was tentatively rescheduled for 2022, but Japan didn’t reopen, so it never moved forward. Here we are in 2024, and the trip is booked, finally. I was in Japan once before,…
Sometimes one winter getaway to a tropical paradise just isn’t enough. This winter, I have two amazing tropical trips back-to-back. Literally, they are back to back as I am home for five days between. So I decided for the purposes of the trip introduction to combine them into one, my Tropical Winter. The journey begins…
Editor’s note: I’ve long said that Chicago is one of my favorite American cities, and written all about different aspects of the place. Click here to read my Ultimate Guide to Chicago. It’s always nice when others have similarly wonderful experiences, and this article from Jackie illustrates some great parts of Chicago that I haven’t…
Let me start by saying that intra-European flights are among my least favorite ways to travel. I much prefer trains, and tend to plan my trips to have reasonably short distances between stops, ones easily traversed via rail or bus. It’s cheaper and more convenient, liquids are acceptable to bring (as is whatever weight my…
Shockingly, with all of the European travel I’ve done, my experience with Italy is limited to a few days in Venice, and a day each in Rome and Naples. That’s it. Given that I’ve spent months in France, Spain, Portugal, the UK, and Germany, that’s pretty sad. So when it came time to plan my…
It’s time to head back to Europe! Of all the places in the world, I probably like Europe best, so I am very excited to have about three and a half months there this summer and fall. As I mentioned in my introduction to the trip, I’m dividing it into three for the purposes of…