by Cheryn Flanagan Deep down I knew I didn’t belong there-I wasn’t at the monastery to live an ascetic life, gain a greater spiritual understanding of the world, or to learn Gung Fu (known to us in the West as Kung Fu). I was simply there because I thought it would make a cool story, […]

by Mary Jean Pramik An hour before sunrise on a June morning, Puglia beckoned. Stepping out into the dark, the blackened narrow meandering streets of Alberobello opened like a labyrinth before my trullo. I was determined to maintain my marathon training schedule. Often when traveling, my resolve to keep up my running fast dilutes with […]

by Kathleen Kelly Truth is, I only signed up for that 5K because my husband tricked me into it. Stretched across the bed, he was the picture of innocence as he watched TV and flipped through a running magazine.  I was deeply submerged in some online reading when he sent out the first ping. “There’s […]

by Lola Akinmade “You this idiot man!” Seyi yells at Samson. “Why are you listening to Fashola?” Samson is leaning in close to a parked car, listening to the governor’s latest decree about motorcycle taxis called okadas. The governor’s voice blasts from the radio through the driver’s open window, the driver himself fast asleep on […]

by Barbara Cunliffe Singleton TENGENENGE, VILLAGE OF STONE SCULPTURES Zimbabwe A cassette of Zimbabwe’s top singer, Thomas Mapfumo, vibrates the dashboard and his rhythm muffles the bumps of the last five miles. Having delivered a load of stone sculptures in Harare, Tengenenge’s driver is giving me a lift to the village of sculptors, two hours […]

by Bonnie Smetts The specter of a transatlantic flight without a book drove me into the airport bookstoreand into the unfamiliar arms of a lusty romance. With the final boarding call for my flight blaring overhead, I grabbed a book and ran to the gate. For the next twelve hours, the steamy affairs of a […]

by Stephan Morrow Prologue – some thoughts on traveling. looking back: They say that Lawrence Tierney (who played the original ‘Dillinger’) had T-Rex in his genes but he was always surprising me with the things that he knew. Like quoting from yes, Emily Dickenson poems. Or like the fact that he knew about ‘The Saragossa […]

by Kathleen Spivack For many years I was alone and I found that-but I am already putting it in past tense, please note.  So-for many years I’ve been alone and I find-what  Find that it doesn’t get any easier   Find that I’m writing my way right into another cliché  Let’s try again. As follows: For […]

by Tom Miller He came to my Quito residence for dinner that equatorial night in 1982 wearing blue jeans and a recently washed button-down work shirt. I had delayed meeting the amiable white-haired Moritz Thomsen until I’d finished reading Living Poor (1969) and The Farm on the River of Emeralds (1978) , two books that […]

by Catherine Watson To the end of his days, my father insisted that my travels were nothing more than “escapism.” Whenever I said I was going somewhere alone, he accused me of running away, of being “avoidant.” It didn’t matter whether it was Europe or the movies. “What is wrong with you?” he once snarled […]