Four Locals: the USA’s Northeast Corridor

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Travelers like to champion locals a lot, I’ve noticed. And “travel like a local” has become the new “off-the-beaten track,” a well-intentioned mantra that’s now sort of a cliche. Still, it has a point. I’ve just finished a humbling opportunity to follow Andrew Evans’ shoes as the National Geographic Traveler’s Digital Nomad, going by train between Boston, New York, Philadelphia and DC. I … Read on

Photos from a Philadelphia prison

I go to a lot of museums. The biggies are great, but I tend to prefer the pleasures from bite-sized portions of more out-of-the-way, unexpected ones like Bucharest’s National Museum of the Romanian Peasant (hand-written signs about how to love your grandma), Oklahoma’s Woolaroc (largely for nostalgic purposes) and Hanoi’s bizarre Ho Chi Minh Museum, with Soviet-inspired exhibits of winner detergent boxes. I’m … Read on

My New Travel Role: The Daddy Traveler

A year ago at this time, I was paddling in a homemade kayak in remote Kamchatka, Russia’s volcano-filled peninsula dangling in Alaska’s face. I traveled with a crew of five locals far crustier than I am. We hiked along bear trails, swatted away thousands of mosquitoes, and dove into breath-takingly cold streams we drank from. We ate freshly caught fish filets and packed … Read on