I had a special link to John Updike, the celebrated writer who died in 2009. I once served as his muse. It happened in 1983 when I was a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and sought an interview with Updike, whose publisher informed me never gave interviews. But a...
My family and I wanted to go on a short trip from New York City, to a place within a driving distance of 4 hrs. Having been to most destinations nearby, I chose Plymouth, Massachusetts, which seemed to fit the bill perfectly. There seemed to be enough museums to keep...
Havana Like an untethered live wire, Havana sizzles at a single touch. Rumba music serenades the city from the balconies of colonial mansions as mango juice cups are hawked from their first floor window sills. Fiery competitions of street-corner domino games punctuate...
I knew I had wanted to visit Peshawar before I even set foot in Pakistan. Part of my interest was due to the long and robust history the city holds, and the other part was because others had told me not to. As an offbeat traveler, a place like Peshawar was exactly...
There are plenty of places you can visit in Reno. Known for its gaming and entertainment industry, you can best explore the city by availing the best rental car deals available. To do this, you must do some due diligence in terms of research about the car agencies...
It was a boiling day in Hoi An when I was exploring the tourist attractions in the charming ancient town. After visiting a couple of them, I just wanted to get into an air-conditioning enclosure to escape the scorching heat. Even my shades and sun hat had not been...
I sleep in a treehouse, framed with bamboo and protected by walls made of clay. I wake to the fervent howls of the growler monkeys at 6 am. Bathing in the early morning sunshine, I brush my teeth over a clay sink. In the last few weeks, I have been living and working...
I like the northeastern cold. I live in Jersey City, but there is nothing like escaping it for some warmth in the winter. I decided to spend Christmas in sunny-shiny Florida. When the rest of the world flocked over to witness the Rockefeller Christmas tree and the...
I visited Hwange as part of an organized safari tour. When they told me that I was heading to this park, I was unsure about what was to come. I had never heard about Hwange National Park before and most of what I had seen in Zimbabwe previously, had been a...
Bagan Archaeological Zone More than 2,200 eleventh to thirteenth century temples and stupas pepper the forty square miles of Myanmar's plains of Bagan. Why are so many of these graceful, exotic structures clustered in this Southeast Asian country once known as Burma?...
Sunshine blazes through dense greenery and I wobble on one foot, trying to balance while tugging a wetsuit over my sweaty skin. The two big guys next to me also struggle, squeezing themselves into tight wetsuits and shaking sweat off their faces. It's very strange to...
