Tag Archives: Travel

Poem: Travel

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I wrote this poem sometime in December of last year when travel had just seem possible. Then the Omicorn variant was detected and for a while, travel seemed to become that much harder and difficult.

Source

Travel

Oh what a joy it is to travel
To broaden the horizons, to gather souvenirs
With that first thought, the eyes have a twinkle
To discover new worlds, to conquer new frontiers

At home when you wake up, but across the continent by brunch
Perhaps for a meeting or is that for leisure you fly?
Then in another country to have a late lunch
Where you can finally take a deep breath and say goodbye

And when you come back, the trip still lingers within you
And suddenly when you least expect it, it happens
A memory will pop up once in a blue
Taking you back to that trip, nostalgic beckons

Travel makes one better, inside and outside
Travel opens your mind and makes you wise
Travelling shrinks the world makes it concise
That’s why it is said that travelling is the ultimate prize

In My Hands Today…

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The Same River Twice: A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel – Pam Mandel

Given the choice, Pam Mandel would say no and stay home. It was getting her nowhere, so she decided to say yes. Yes to hard work and hitch-hiking, to mean boyfriends and dirty travel, to unfolding the map and walking to its edges. Yes to unknown countries, night shifts, language lessons, bad decisions, to anything to make her feel real, visible, alive.

A product of beige California suburbs, Mandel was overlooked and unexceptional. When her father ships her off on a youth group tour of Israel, he inadvertently catapults his seventeen-year-old daughter into a world of angry European backpackers, seize-the-day Israelis, and the fall out of cold war-era politics. Border violence hadn’t been on the birthright tour agenda. But then neither had domestic violence, going broke, getting wasted, getting sick, or getting lost.

With no guidance and no particular plan, utterly unprepared for what lies ahead, Mandel says yes to everything and everyone, embarking on an adventure across three continents and thousands of miles, from a cold water London flat to rural Pakistan, from the Nile River Delta to the snowy peaks of Ladakh and finally, back home to California, determined to shape a life that is truly hers.

An extraordinary memoir of going away and growing up, The Same River Twice follows Mandel’s tangled journey and shows how travel teaches and changes us, even while it helps us become exactly who we have been all along.

In My Hands Today…

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Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other – Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish

From their faithful camper van to boats, kayaks, bicycles, and motorbikes, join stars of Outlander Sam and Graham on a road trip with a difference, as two Scotsmen explore a land of raw beauty, poetry, feuding, music, history, and warfare.

Unlikely friends Sam and Graham begin their journey in the heart of Scotland at Glencoe and travel from there all the way to Inverness and Culloden battlefield, where along the way they experience adventure and a cast of highland characters. In this story of friendship, finding themselves, and whisky, they discover the complexity, rich history and culture of their native country.

In My Hands Today…

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The Wrong Way Home – Peter Moore

When Peter Moore announced he was going to travel from London to his home in Sydney without boarding an aeroplane he was met with a resounding Why? The answer was perversity and a severe case of hippie envy – hippies had the best music, they had the best drugs, they had the best sex. But most of all, they had the best trips. Over the eight months (and twenty-five countries) that followed, Moore retraced the steps of many who had made the overland journey from London to the East circa 1967 with the knowledge that his funds were painfully inadequate and the chances of actually making it through places like the Balkans, Iran and China were, in a word, slim.

The Wrong Way Home is the hilarious account of this life-enhancing Grand Tour by means of bone-rattling bus rides, furnace-like trains and exorbitantly-priced taxis. Along the way, Moore took in the world’s most expensive disco in Albania; the bombed out villages and military checkpoints of Croatia; the opium fields of Laos; student riots in Jakarta, and an all-night beach rave on a small island in southern Thailand. He describes the places – and the people he encountered there – with a mixture of awe, irreverence and self-deprecation. Striking a chord with all those travellers, young and old, who have stood where Moore stood, The Wrong Way Home entertains and alarms those of us who love to read about off-the-beaten-track travel adventures but would never be fool enough to pack our rucksacks and go.

In My Hands Today…

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The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Denmark is officially the happiest nation on Earth. When Helen Russell is forced to move to rural Jutland, can she discover the secrets of their happiness? Or will the long, dark winters and pickled herring take their toll?

A Year of Living Danishly looks at where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, and how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves.