About Me

News, feature and travel writer

My first major road trip was a cross-country journey from New York to California in a green Chevrolet with no air conditioning. We went to the Corn Palace, Mount Rushmore and the little city of Las Vegas. I was seven. I let my parents do the driving.

My family of five made it through that trip with only minor scrapes, bruises and whining. So my parents decided to try it again a few years later. We drove from New York to California on a different Interstate, again landing in random roadside motels and campgrounds, as the mood struck.

Those journeys instilled a love of travel in one of the three kids. Yes, that would be me. When I was a teen, I went on two AYH (American Youth Hostel) bike trips, first in New England, then across Wisconsin. For my junior year of college I applied to the University of Exeter in England and lived on a hall with all British "freshers," as first year students are called. After my first term, I did the typical "stop every two days in a new country" European train tour. I thought it would cure me of my travel bug.

Nope.

Sometimes I travel with friends, but mostly I set out solo and join groups. I'm not the type to plan a long solo trip on my own. I'm too social. I'd rather fly somewhere and meet up with a group, then take some days on my own before and after. I've found that if I go too many solo travel days without serendipitously meeting someone new to talk to, I tend to get lonely.

I started thinking about writing about my adventures way before I ever did. My first travel story was published in 1991 in The Washington Post. I continue to travel several times a year, looking for great adventures and quirky things to write about. I've now been published in the newspaper travel sections in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Miami, St. Petersburg and perhaps some others I'm forgetting. And in the recent National Geographic book called, "Journeys of a Lifetime." And the road still calls.