Adventure

(Adventure Category winner in the 2010 WanderWomen Write travel writing contest)

The air was moist and musky and my eyes were glued to the immense green of the rainforest. If it wasn’t for the humming of the Yamaha engine that was pushing the dugout canoe, a cacophony of old and new combined in a practical way, it would have been a perfect moment. Read more >>

(Family Fun Category winner in the 2009 WanderWomen Write Travel Writing Contest)

The view through the single paned window mimics a typical family meal, perhaps a small celebration or birthday party. Steaming, clay dishes and golden logs of crusty bread cluster the table’s center while wine bottles and decanters of chilled juice pass from hand to hand. Read more >>

(Food & Drink Category winner in the 2009 WanderWomen Write Travel Writing Contest)

“You don’t want to go there,” Si told me with authority—as if we had known each other longer than the twenty seconds it took me to ask about the Kim Hoa fish sauce factory. Read more >>

My first crocodile encounter came courtesy of the popular 1980’s Channel Ten mini-series, Return to Eden. Curled up on the couch I watched, terrified, as a woman was thrown into a crocodile-infested Northern Territory river by her husband and mauled within an inch of her life…..Read more >>

It’s a cold winter day in Yellowstone National Park, and the coyote in front of me is clearly enjoying the spot of sunlight he has found on a hillside, his eyes taking on a dreamy look as if he is nearly asleep. Suddenly his posture changes….”….Read more >>

Minutes after departing, Mr. Steckhan initiated a valiant effort at small talk which included an inquiry about our residence in Berlin. In reply, we stated that we were staying with a woman through CouchSurfing. At this point, I watched our driver’s eyebrows furrow, while the girl in the front seat summarized the CouchSurfing Project in German. Within seconds, his mouth curled into an impressed smile, and the social scale seemed to balance almost immediately…”….Read more >>

We marvel at how small the world is and as I feign brave enthusiasm about meeting Gwynne, my heart pounds faster and sweat beads under my arms. All I can think of is the old adage (or maybe it was a fortune cookie), “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”….Read more >>

In exchange for a few crumpled Kunas, I received the literal key to my dreams from a man with enough oil in his hair to fuel my moped for weeks. Despite my near inability to hold his jalopy of a scooter upright, this slippery fellow made no attempt to disguise his utter indifference for my physical well-being….Read more >>

I thought driving an ATV was going to be like driving a golf cart. Not that I’ve ever driven a golf cart, but when I plunked down several hundred dollars just outside Big Sky, Montana for my 16-year-old son Ben and me to ride, I had in my head vague images of a Mrs. Arnold Palmer in nicely pressed slacks and a halter top…Read more >>

I’m standing in a snow-filled clearing in central Washington watching as one dog’s bark becomes a fervor, spreading until 20 plus dogs are howling, whining and tugging on leashes, clawing excitedly at the snow…
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“Are you alone?” It is the first question anybody asks, invariably followed by, “Aren’t you scared?”…..
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“Quick, put the fish back in the water!” I yell to Bill. A Botox-lipped fish, called a Burrito Grunt, is flopping around at my feet, covered in sand, fighting for its life. A few minutes earlier, high in the horizon, I watched a cormorant pluck the unlucky fish from the Sea of Cortez. A large frigate bird with forked tail feathers then gave chase to the cormorant. It was like a Discovery Channel scene come alive. Read more >>

I took the advice of the baby-faced young man with the dentist’s dream smile standing nonchalantly behind the bookstore counter. “If you are going to do anything in this town, make sure it is the Canyon Swing. Read more >>

Shangri-La isn’t just cold, it is bloody cold. I sit next to the fire, hoping that one day my hands will thaw out. My handwriting on the check-in slip looks like it has been written by a five-year old child who has fallen behind the others in his class. Read more >>

I stink and I’m tired. Even though the three months in Moscow passed quickly, I’m ready to return home. Moving up in line at Sheremetro’s outgoing customs line, I lament Moscow’s rotating water shutdown program. Read more >>

Every detail you observe, every person you meet, every fact you learn, makes it that much more difficult to generalize, to presume, to stereotype, to say anything at all. For the more you know, the more you own that knowledge and the more its contradictions confound you. Read more >>

I could tell there was trouble brewing when I arrived at the Nicaraguan border. It wasn’t just the fact that I had to fill out (and pay for) paperwork in Spanish. For that, I had the help of a local teenager whom I couldn’t understand. Read more >>

I felt a prickly tickle scurry across my face. Instantaneously, I ripped myself from sleep and fumbled for my tiny flashlight all the way at the head of my bunk. Read more >>

The thirty-seven foot raft dived over the edge into the center of a churning, boiling cauldron of white foam. Brad Newman, our boatman, muscles taut, tan arms straining as he gunned the motor and grasped the heavy tiller, bellowed… Read more >>

I was once on-duty in Peru as a freelance tour manager. I had exchanged my high heels for knee-high irrigation boots that I  sported while I gingerly walked on extremely muddy trails deep in the Amazon rainforest. Read more >>

In a loose sense, I like to call myself a flexible pescatarian. Not truly a vegetarian since I eat fish and seafood, and always willing to adapt to meaty situations that arise when traveling. Read more >>