Jack Kerouac’s On the Road ends, rather sadly, as Sal/Jack looks over the Hudson River in Chelsea and thinks of Dean/Neal heading west. He writes: So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old brokendown river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unblievable huge bulge … Continue reading
I’m more picky about what I read than what I eat, as I explained in this interview with MissAdventures (aka Melanie Renzulli). Well, more or less. (I don’t eat dog meat or McDonald’s.) I say this because in a travel writer’s life, reading is research, and research is work, and I’m selective in what information I seek out. I also get to prove … Continue reading
I grew up in Oklahoma and never heard of Boley, or 40 other “black towns’ that were formed in the early 1900s by African Americans looking for the “promised land.” Boley, 53 miles southwest of Tulsa, is one of a couple that are still there, and has — for decades — hosted a wonderful three-day Memorial Day Weekend event, Boley’s “black rodeo.” No one … Continue reading
A VIRTUAL PANEL to discuss people who take cafe tables before ordering Adults can be such children. If you don’t believe me, watch them. Go to a cafe in a busy city like New York — the Starbucks at the northwest corner of Union Square will do. There is always a line there, and few if any empty seats at communal or private … Continue reading
Hey, this happened! Months ago I recorded a segment for “Jamaica Bared” that’s been popping up on Travel Channel lately. Here’s a link to my snippet where I get to liken the touristy Martha Brae River — which I rafted once on a memorable trip at 15 — to Venice, but “without the canals… or the Venetians.” Glad the key detail made the … Continue reading
For years, Cleveland’s had to stomach that any article written on the city would put in the first two paragraphs some mention or joke that its river, the Cuyahoga, caught on fire briefly in 1969. (Like this one, or that one, and even this R.E.M song.) Sometimes that was followed with the dismissal that the city’s just “the mistake by the lake.” Turns … Continue reading
ROBERT REID is a travel writer (Lonely Planet, New York Times), travel expert (Today Show, CNN, GoogleTalks), travel videographer (his 76-Second Travel Show) and "travel artist" (staging the Manhattan Bridge's 100th birthday, training with Mounties). Read more...
