Bulgaria Secret: UFO Building

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Bulgaria is one of Europe’s great roadtrip secrets. In places like Veliko Tarnovo, you can rent cars for as little as $25/day. Roads cross mountain ranges, and buffalo yogurt stands and woodcutter towns and weird monuments like the one below. Years ago I bought a great old Soviet 35mm camera for about $20 at a flea market in Sofia, Bulgaria. Sometimes I remember … Read on

Talking 2011 on ABC News Now

Yesterday I appeared on ABC News Now to discuss some of the lists made in Lonely Planet’s new Best in Travel 2011. Talked about Albania’s Ottoman-era houses, Japan’s $40 guesthouses, the notion of ‘communism travel’ and re-enactments from the upcoming 150th anniversary of the Civil War (here’s my video on how they decide who dies first). Yes, I squeezed out a Will Ferrell … Read on

Of the Power of Travel Writing

Three American ‘hikers’ were detained in Iran after, apparently, straying across the Iraq-Iran border into a country that’s surely paying attention to their writing records (one has reported from rebel-held territories in Sudan) as well as the pains the US went to to free journos in North Korea. The subject came up Thursday on NPR’s On the Point, and I was feeling a … Read on

Six Great European Discoveries

Part of what makes travel so rewarding is finding things on the ground don’t exactly fly with outside perceptions. Be it lessons learned from buttoned-up French professionals stopping to help me and my floppy haircut fumble with a pay phone, or frowning Russians accepting me as family just because we booked the same train compartment. Here’s my favorite European finds while traveling around … Read on