Ahhh…the European cafe, a focal point of any great Europe adventure. With nice weather you can sit outside on the patio and watch people walk through the town square while sipping a foofy latte of some sort. Or, you can proceed inside and stumble your way through the tables scattered like land mines in front of the entrance. I am convinced this is done to see who is a tourist and who is a local. Tourists trip, blunder and crash through the entrance while locals already know the best route through this cafe land-mine. European cafes embody everything that is notable about European culture: simple pleasures, portion controlled coffee, the company of others that you …
Travel Frustrations: On Standing Just A Little Taller
View PostWheels to the City
What do you do when you’re in a city with a population of 8 million people, and you don’t have time to visit all the attractions by foot? Obviously, you find some wheels! Bike tours have taken over every major city as a modern way to see the attractions. Horse and carriage, buses, taxis, rental cars or even mopeds are modes of the past. They may be faster than a two wheeled bike, but you can’t get up close and personal on a double decker. A leg powered bicycle, on the other hand, puts you right in the middle of the action. So why has this modern mode become so popular? 1.) Travelers want more …
30+ Essential Travel Books
There is nothing I enjoy more then escaping from the world and into a good book. When you bury your nose into the pages of something special you find yourself transported to a different world. Some books inspire. Some books take you around the world. Some books even help you put life in perspective. When I moved home from Italy I filled one of my suitcases not with Tuscan Wine, Limoncello, or Disaronno, but books. For a college student this was a bizarre thing. But, I have always loved books. A good book can change your life. Here is a list of books that have changed mine. They make excellent travel companions, and were compiled …
Traveling as a Vegetarian
I tear open the package to find that it smells good, like sugar cookies. But, I’m still leery. Can this freeze-dried meal really serve as an adequate substitute, or will it give me stomach pains for the rest of the day? But my hunger outweighs my fear of spending the next eight hours in the car with unbearable stomach cramps. It’s noon and I have subsisted on only a doughnut, which I ate four hours ago. This experiment was simple. Drive 860 miles over the course of 2 days and maintain a strict vegetarian diet. My aim was to test how difficult it is to travel and avoid eating meat, as well as form some …