If there is more fun to be had on four legs, then I would like to know about it. During a work trip to Swedish Lapland and the Arctic Circle town of Kiruna, reindeer sledding was on the itinerary. I imagined it would be sort of like a pony ride except, well, with reindeer doing the slow plodding. Not even close. Reindeer are deeply intertwined with the culture of the Sami people – indigenous people of the Arctic living primarily in Norway, but also in the northern reaches of Sweden and Finland. While certainly less to an extent today in wealthy and modern Scandinavia than in times past, many ..read more

This fall has been full of adventures, but a Norway sailing adventure is always the best kind. In early September, I headed back to Stavanger for a sailing trip with Andreas aboard his Jeanneau, the beautiful Barba. Landing in Norway is always a very visual experience, and last time I was in Stavanger we didn’t have time to look around as we were headed straight out for Shetland and the Faroe Islands (see some photos from that excellent adventure here). What a welcome change of scenery it is, taking off in Frankfurt and touching down just 1.5 hours north with these views that we’d s ..read more

Over the last few years, I’ve fallen madly for the cold countries.  Places like Norway, Swedish Lapland and Greenland have captured my heart in a way a tropical island no longer can. And this past June I got to add a new Arctic destination to my list of favorite frozen places during an expedition with Black Feather and Canada Goose to Pond Inlet, a tiny village of 1,500 people located 2,000 miles due north of Montreal in the Canadian Arctic territory of Nunavut. Our group traveled from Pond Inlet by qamutik, the traditional wooden sled of the Inuit pulled by ..read more

The French have the word dépaysement for “the feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country,” and I suppose that could be a launching point for what I am feeling right now. Only it’s tied more to people than place. This term, from what I can tell (apparently there’s no translation for it in English) is different from being homesick. And it can be neutral, positive or negative. So I can relate to it because I am not exactly missing home, nor the US, per se, since I have not rented a place there for quite some years. I don’t have a lot of things, and I start to wonder if I ev ..read more

I met Andreas a few years back in Bergen, where I had a short stop on a work trip in Norway. He’s a sailor, a marine biologist, a diver and a dreamer. The kind of person who’s not afraid to jump in the water with orcas (only friendly ones, he says, marine biologists can apparently discern these things) or sail his boat among Greenland’s icebergs – all the while making you stretch your ocean dreams a bit further too. And ever since I met him I’ve been begging (and grossly overstating my galley cooking skills)  to join one of his sailing expeditions on his sailboat, Barba. Maybe it’s his V ..read more

Travel writers can get spoiled. After a couple of days in an overwater bungalow in Moorea in French Polynesia, I’d definitely had my fill.  So my sister and I ditched the honeymooners and hopped a plane filled with folks wearing fragrant floral leis and straw hats and  toting empty coolers they’d later fill with fish to reach the Tuamotu Archipelago. On Fakarava, the topside views were the tropical cliche – sun-bleached sand, electric blue water, palms for skyscrapers and frangiapani-lined lanes. It was underwater where things really got interesting, particularly in th ..read more

Two years ago at this time, I was on a Hurtigruten cruise with my dad in Greenland. It was the first trip we’d taken alone together, I’m quite sure, in my entire life. And already on the first day, I got distracted by a charming photographer from Stockholm who snapped this photo of me chilling under the midnight sun one lovely white night. The three of us – my dad, me and Daniel – wound up spending a lot of time together that week, along with a fun German couple we met. Daniel was a center-of-attention kind of guy, funny and with that special male Scandinavian fashion ability to pull ..read more

As humans, I get it that we’ve got it pretty good. But whenever I see dolphins in the wild, like these spotted Atlantic dolphins that were riding our bow off Bimini in the Bahamas, I find myself kind of wishing reincarnation is real.  This pod included a few sprightly juveniles – apparently they usually do in Bimini, which is famous for its resident dolphins. And I don’t think there’s anything more adorable than a baby dolphin. They’d venture brazenly under the bow of the boat, zip around at a frenetic pace then rejoin their elders near the stern as if to say, “Did you see me, did you see ..read more

Sometimes it takes reading a laundry list of All-American highlights written by someone else (an Australian who’s currently roadtripping from Florida to the northeast, in this case) to realize just how exotic my own country looks through an outsider’s eyes. So I’m cutting and pasting said Aussie’s random, rambling and spot-on impressions below. It made me smile and brought back some fine memories of my own US roadtrips this morning. In true stream of consciousness style, she writes: “The US to date..! Grits, Biscuits and Bacon, pancakes in Deleon Springs (Florida), Country Fried steak &am ..read more

The man’s name was Gary. He approached me at a hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, beer brewing on his breath. “So you’re a travel writer,” he said, “I’ve got some stories for you.” He was denim all over, jeans rough with wear and a well fitting jacket lined with fuzzy lamb’s wool. He was drunk and nostalgic. Back in the 90s, after he’d saved some money working hard in the bison business, he’d treated himself to a dating tour in Odessa and Kiev. The women weren’t sincere, he didn’t have much to say about them. They were beautiful and young. But he didn’t bring one back. What he remembered most from ..read more