More people died in the U.S. last year from “accidental discharge of a firearm” than died in the whole world from airplane crashes. Guatemala’s crime rate is higher than Mexico’s by a wide margin. Eight of the top-10 worst cities for pickpockets are in Europe. (And all of the top 5.) The top-selling beer in …

Gary Arndt of the the Everything-Everywhere blog put up a nice post recently called All I really need to know I learned from traveling around the world. It’s a play on the bestselling book about the wisdom gained in kindergarten, with some great quotes on living simply, being observant, keeping your cool, and walking in …

In the big scheme of things to complain about, I’ll admit that dumb and annoying travel advertisements don’t rank very high on the scale. But after looking at these two ads for months across multiple publications, I’ve realized that they represent a black hole of stupidity, millions of dollars turned over to some ad agency …

A few months back I met Benny Lewis, the man behind the Fluent in 3 Months blog. A year before I cited him in my Travel Writing book as someone running one of the 10 most popular independent one-person travel blogs on the web. His expertise is language learning, but of course foreign travel and …

The first time I visited Las Vegas I was in awe. It was actually before I had even traveled internationally, so I was blown away with what I could get for my money. Super-cheap meals, free drinks at the $2 bet casino tables, room prices too low to believe—it was cheapskate heaven. I returned with …