ITKT Blogs

South Sudan Is Africa!

by ITKT Featured Writer | Mar 17, 2023 | Africa, ITKT Blogs, South Sudan, Spotlight | 4 Comments

South Sudan is Africa's wild Wild West. It's also the world's newest country, fairly recently independent from its northern namesake. If you are looking for a real adventure truly off the beaten path, then South Sudan might just be a fit for you. I spent 4 full weeks...

Alcatraz to Pitcairn: An Island Odyssey — 3

by Ed Rampell | Mar 10, 2023 | French Polynesia, ITKT Blogs, Oceania, Spotlight | 0 Comments

Part 3: TAHITI Paradise Lost – and Found At San Francisco Airport I enjoy a filling lunch at the comfy United Club lounge. Relaxed, I then board a United Airlines nonstop direct flight for my 15th visit to Tahiti since the 1970s. I luckily have an entire aisle to...

Travel in Place: The “Sonoran Dawg”

by Steve Smith | Mar 3, 2023 | ITKT Blogs, Mexico, North America, Spotlight, United States | 1 Comment

I haven't experienced the taste of a Sonoran hot dog since my first baby-steps into international travel -- a hot dog elevated to a culinary experience. That was in the early 80's, but in all these years since I've yet to find a match. Since travel and food are so...

Alcatraz to Pitcairn: An Island Odyssey — 2

by Ed Rampell | Feb 24, 2023 | French Polynesia, ITKT Blogs, North America, Oceania, Spotlight, United States | 0 Comments

Part 2: THE ROCK The Big Lockup After Ranger Benny’s presentation about Alcatraz’s political prisoners, I climb uphill (trams are available) past cannons, barb wire and beneath a water tower to the main facility where audio equipment for “Doing Time: The Alcatraz...

England to Iraq Overland

by ITKT Featured Writer | Feb 17, 2023 | Asia, Croatia, Europe, Georgia, Greece, ITKT Blogs, Spotlight, Turkey | 0 Comments

Returning to England in 2021 after six years in China was a bit of a shock to the system. After spending one year catching up with friends and family, working on various projects and securing a couple of permanent freelance writing gigs it was time to hit the road...

Alcatraz to Pitcairn: An Island Odyssey — 1

by Ed Rampell | Feb 10, 2023 | French Polynesia, ITKT Blogs, North America, Oceania, Spotlight, United States | 0 Comments

Part 1: THE ROCK Islands as Refuges, Prisons Separated by water from continents, islands have always represented freedom to me. When I graduated from Hunter College as a film major in the 1970s, I realized the Age of Aquarius was experiencing technical difficulties in...

Living Quite Local in Mbale, Uganda

by ITKT Featured Writer | Feb 10, 2023 | Africa, ITKT Blogs, Spotlight, Uganda | 0 Comments

Before I was set to start a new job in Morocco, I had just enough time to find a meaningful way to spend two months. Determined to explore more of sub-Saharan Africa, I found a small Ugandan NGO advertising for volunteers in exchange for “free room and board”....

Port Townsend, Washington

by Steve Smith | Feb 3, 2023 | ITKT Blogs, North America, Spotlight, United States | 0 Comments

It was snowing as I left home. Not sticking but slick and windy and cold. Definitely not ideal roadtripping weather. But my destination is in the so called “Banana Belt” of the Pacific Northwest, an area on the shores of the Salish Sea where the PNW’s famous rain and...

The Famous Hanoi Train Street

by ITKT Featured Writer | Jan 27, 2023 | Asia, ITKT Blogs, Spotlight, Vietnam | 0 Comments

I visited the energetic city of Hanoi, one of the most popular holiday destinations, last summer. Hanoi Train Street is one place that will never disappear from my travel memories. I had put Train Street at the top of the list of to-do attractions while planning the...

Crevasses and Ice Caves
A Hike Up Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

by ITKT Featured Writer | Jan 20, 2023 | ITKT Blogs, New Zealand, Oceania, Spotlight | 0 Comments

I awoke early on a warm January morning. The sun rose, colouring the sky with washes of pinks and oranges. The streets were deserted apart from a few intrepid travellers who were heading towards the Franz Joseph glacier store. It was from here that our adventure...

Now for Something Completely Different: Hiking in the UK

by ITKT Featured Writer | Jan 13, 2023 | England, Europe, ITKT Blogs, Spotlight | 0 Comments

Actually, I’m not sure you’d call it hiking—maybe trekking, or even … well … walking. Sure, it sounds pretty tame, as in no rugged trails or big ups and downs. But for me, hiking in the UK was a revelation: fun, ever-changing, an adventure. On the west coast of the...

Finding the Bogs Outside of Riga Latvia

by ITKT Featured Writer | Jan 6, 2023 | Europe, ITKT Blogs, Latvia, Spotlight | 0 Comments

It's not often that there are more highlights outside of a small country's capital city than there are in it. Latvia's capital city Riga is quaint in an ex-soviet, medieval, tourist-hot-spot, type of way. Quite a lot like Estonia's Tallinn, and Lithuania's Vilnius,...