I am just so delighted to announce a partnership with the folks at Overland Equipment. They have agreed to provide a Donner Bag or Madera Bag for every one of our 2013, 2014 and 2015 WanderTours group participants. Is that not awesome? Both the Donner and the Madera are shoulder bags in comfortable body-hugging design that are large enough Read More…
> Tours
Cargo Bikes in Vietnam ~ Photo of the Day
Vietnam has a motorbike problem. There are simply too many of them (a 2010 report suggests there are 25 million registered bikes). They’re a source for pollution in Saigon and Hanoi and the cause of more than 15,000 deaths/year due to lax traffic and helmet laws (oh, and really bad drivers). Still, it’s completely fascinating Read More…
Book a WanderTour (by January 15) ~ Get a Free Gift
Been putting off sending in your registration for one of our WanderTours? Wait no more… In case you missed this tidbit of info, book any of our tours on or before January 15, 2013, and you’ll receive a free coffee table book about the region you’ll be traveling to. Here’s a list of the tours, Read More…
Bagan, Myanmar ~ Photo of the Day
When I visited here during our tour in October, it was my 2nd visit to Bagan. With Myanmar (Burma) in its very early stages of tourist development, it’s one of the few places travelers visit. That means there are a lot of people there all trying to get the same spectacular sunset shots There were Read More…
Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar ~ Photo of the Day
Sitting atop a hill, Shwedagon Pagoda and its golden gilded stupa, can be seen from many locations around Yangon. By some accounts, this revered Buddhist site is the oldest pagoda in the world at 2,600 years (other accounts put it at 1,000 – 1,400 years old). The pagoda enshrines eight hairs from Gautama Buddha and Read More…
Papua New Guinea Cuisine – Nothing to Write Home About
You don’t go to Papua New Guinea for the cuisine. That is at least if you’re looking for tourist-standard fare. For sure, there are some restaurants and hotels that serve good food – meaning appealing to tourists. But often those establishments have terrible service. It took us an hour and a half to get served Read More…
Huli Fortune Teller ~ Papua New Guinea
One of the most interesting days for me (including all of my trips to Papua New Guinea) was the day we visited the village of Tari, where the Huli wigmen live. This is a tribe where the women and men live separately. In order to visit their village, we tourists had to duck through hobbit Read More…
Papua New Guinea ~ Huli Wigmen of Tari
Ever since seeing this video about the Huli Wigmen, I’ve wanted to go to the little village of Tari in the middle of Papua New Guinea. (Note – the video is of terrible quality, but the content is worth a view.) Like much of PNG, it’s unimaginable to me that people still wear elaborate traditional Read More…
Papua New Guinea Mt. Hagen Festival
The first time I went to Papua New Guinea, I could barely speak for 24 hours after I arrived home. I didn’t know what to say. What I had seen was unfathomable and 3 years and 3 trips later, it’s still sinking in for me. What makes PNG so remarkable is that the 850 tribes Read More…
Santa Fe’s Chocolate Trail ~ Photo of the Day
Ayup – we dipped those chocolates! During the Santa Fe Culinary Tour in June, we visited CG Higgins Confections, one of 4 stops on The Chocolate Trail. This little shop was packed with truffles, caramel covered popcorn and many other goodies. None of us could resist bringing home a bag of of our very own Read More…