An online gallery of travel artwork featuring favorite iPad sketches and watercolors taken from the travel journal of Michael Hodgson during his world travels.
Travel Essays
Deep thoughts inspired by the world of travel
New Korean War Memorial Wall of Remembrance in D.C. is personal
A Wall of Remembrance was added in July 2022 at the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Therese was there to honor the memory of her uncle Capt. Ara Mooradian, USAF, MIA, at the family ceremony prior to the public dedication. She took that moment to explore her own relationship to her uncle and his memory.
Make travel important – transformative travel is life-changing
It is too easy to get stuck in a grind, in a life that sucks you into a day-to-day routine that leads to being unfit and unhealthy. But, if you make travel important, travel can be your lifesaver, leading you to a fresh start or exposing you to a mind-opening experience that affects you deeply and changes your life forever. Transformative travel is life-changing.
Solo road trip: How I fell in love with solo car travel
When the world came to a grinding halt in March 2020, the days began to melt one into the other. Until I discovered the joy of a solo road trip. This is the story of solo car travel as transformative travel and how it opened my mind and soul.
Why I Love Kenya – For 43 years I dreamed of returning
I fell in love with Kenya in 1978. It took me until 2021 to return. Despite the years between visits, it didn’t take long for me to remember why I love Kenya so much. Kenya still had much to teach me and so much love to give after all these years.
Top 10 stories of 2020 – Readers keep dreaming of travel
It has been a very long 2020 but through it all we found our readers still wanted to dream of travel, to think about travel, and to plan for travel. This was made clear with our Top 10 Stories of 2020 as selected by our readers and what they viewed. Local and regional U.S. stories, stories that highlighted adventures closer to home and ideas for road trips, sprinkled with a few topics drawn from our archives allowed us and our readers to keep dreaming of travel in 2021.
Learning night photography is a journey
Travel photography is a skill that takes a little focused diligence – but one that will come in handy for taking better photos on your next vacation. Learning night photography takes you and your photography skills to another plane – one that teaches you a bit about yourself and your camera too.
Remembering Little Charlie: My buddy Charles Baty the blues musician
Little Charlie wasn’t only a musician to me. He was a buddy, somebody with whom I had shared a passion for languages and travel. Most knew Charles Baty as an internationally renowned blues and jazz musician. He passed away on March 6, 2020. I will miss my buddy Charlie forever.
Life during the COVID-19 pandemic – Photos capture a world on hold
We put out a call to friends and colleagues around the world for photos to document how some of us are experiencing life during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Photos from Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, Innsbruck, Boston, New Orleans, London, New York, and California. Each of the photos capture a world on hold during the coronavirus outbreak — sad, strange or with humor.
Goodbye Berlin – Hello to a world forever changed
In two short weeks, we went from happy travelers to anxious escapees. Therese and I held hands and stared out the airplane window. It was goodbye Berlin. Hello to a world forever changed. From Tegel airport to London Heathrow to Los Angeles and then home, each airport provided a glimpse of a world turned upside down because of COVID-19.
A tearful goodbye to Berlin as COVID changes the world
The coronavirus upended the entire travel world seemingly in days. Hurrying out of Berlin, I felt like an evacuee – not that I really know what that feels like – but here I was being forced to leave somewhere I didn’t want to. I felt like Pac-Man scurrying away from the hungry ghost called COVID-19.
Fear of COVID-19 – traveling in the age of coronavirus
Should we be traveling in the age of coronavirus? We make our living as travel writers and photographers. For us, it’s either travel, or find another line of work. But the fear of COVID-19 is real. How do we travel and still stay safe from coronavirus? Read our personal essay on learning to stay calm and travel despite a fear of cornonavirus.
8 things we don’t do anymore when traveling: Thanks, technology
Times have changed a lot over the years, especially when it comes to travel, travel preparation, and things we don’t do anymore when traveling: Postcards? How quaint. Paper lists of addressees? Ah, adorable and clumsy. Paper maps? Why when we have Google?
When travel goes wrong: Sidelined by injury on the road
When travel goes wrong you are rarely as prepared as you’d like to be. I had made my way to Berlin two weeks before a long-planned photo trip to Morocco that I was beyond excited about. My plans were about to go sideways.
Transformative travel – learning while traveling
I arrived at my photography workshop eager and excited for learning while traveling, but also more than a bit nervous. “Why?” asked one of the instructors earlier when I mentioned that I was a bit anxious. “We don’t bite.” Transformative travel is a marvelous thing for learning.
The art of slow travel: becoming part of a place
There is an art to slow travel. It doesn’t come easily, this crashing into a place. I like to sit, to wait for moments to come to me, to feel a country from the inside out.
Poignant Korean War Memorials: Honoring Uncle Ara
Korean War Memorials are always on my list to visit when traveling. My Uncle Ara disappeared on Oct. 23, 1951, less than a year into the Korean War. A part of an air mission with nine Super Fortresses, his B-29 bomber was one of six attacked by Soviet MIGs.
Remembering Christmas in Germany far from home
It was my first Christmas far away from home. I was 21 and an exchange student experiencing Christmas in Germany – with its Christmas traditions, markets, and more.
Airline acts of kindness do happen – more frequently than you imagine
Because we do fly a lot, and talk with so many other passengers and frequent travelers, we think it is worth pointing out there is another side to the story: Despite the avalanche of news regarding despicable behavior by some airline employees and by some passengers, there are always two sides. We would like to humbly point out that airline acts of kindness can and do happen, on an almost daily yet too often unreported manner.
Fear of Flying: The cockpit is no place for loud bangs
BOOM!!!… The unmistakable sound of an explosion or other impact came from the cockpit. Immediately the plane began to shake and, within seconds, we were executing a very tight turn and initiating a steep descent heading back toward Salt Lake City … and, I hoped, for the airport. She looked at me with very wide eyes. “You have an explanation for that, right?” Her fear of flying was real.
A Road Trip: Refuge of the roads
A travel essay on the power of leaving home, hitting the road, casting oneself into uncertainty and danger, discovering the unknown, seeing one’s reflection in the landscape and the sky. These have been the stimuli and the “itch” that have propelled writers, artists and thinkers to abandon home, family and security and set out alone, across the seas, over the mystic mountains or out on a road trip.
Cruise ship boarding near miss: twice in two days!
Diane Benton and Jerry van Heeringen traveled for several weeks throughout Asia, hopping a cruise ship for part of that journey. They experienced a cruise ship boarding near miss, two days in a row, no less. Not what you normally plan on…but it does make for some great stories and lessons for us all.
Calling Sweden. Talking to a ‘random Swede’
Calling Sweden? You mean the entire country? Yes, you once could call Sweden and talk to a “Random Swede” and ask this random person picked randomly in Sweden about some random thing. We bit on the Swedish Tourist Association’s new promotion, The Swedish Number. We’re all over random. And it was randomly funny! Listen in.
A Traveler’s Shanghai – We are the people
Rain slick streets of Shanghai lie worn but resolute under two millennia of bare feet, sandals, hooves and wheels. The people run to work, hurry to school, linger in produce shops; peddling bikes, racing scooters, driving beat-down cars and over-stuffed delivery trucks. We are packed onto buses, waving for taxis and queuing for the metro.
Messing About in Boats: White water rafting on the Green River
“Hang on,” yelled our river guide Kevin with a grin. Leaning hard against the river’s pull, the oars bent slightly and the raft heaved to, taking a line that would carry us clear of the rocks, but right into the heart of the maelstrom. Heartbeats kept pace with the increasing speed of the raft as Kevin launched us into the jumble of waves. The raft bucked and heaved, so much so that in the middle of the rapid I managed to execute a nearly perfect back flip with a twist, landing smack in Kevin’s lap.
Western States 100 Endurance Run: What it was like to run 100 miles
The Western States 100 is a 100-mile ultramarathon that takes place on California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains trails each year on the last full weekend of June. Therese Iknoian completed the run in 2006, her first attempt and during the hottest race on record. This is her account of the challenges she faced.
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