Peru travel

“I like going on group tours because there are no surprises,” a traveler I met once told me. “I know the whole travel itinerary in advance and someone else is taking care of all the arrangements.” Oh, but how many things does she miss by aiming for a trip with no surprises? Travel surprises can …

I’m in Paracas, Peru right now, which is not exactly the prettiest place in the world. A red tide swept through recently, leaving a beach already the color of concrete covered with a carpet of dead crabs. The water is the color of algae, big ships are anchored offshore past the fishing boat fleet. A …

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” But what was going on in the Americas before that? If you know much at all about that time, much of what you have probably been taught is wrong. That’s the core point of this fascinating book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. …

Maybe it’s not fair, but some some places have to be budget-busters for shoestring travelers. A new article of mine is up on Transitions Abroad – Man vs. Man: Saving the Galapagos. It’s about all the behind-the-scenes efforts that a lot of dedicated people have been taking for years to roll back some of the …

The Eiffel Tower, the Vatican, St. Marks Square, Tower of London, Ankor Wat, Machu Picchu, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, Chichen Itza, the Great Wall of China: the images of these places are etched in our minds. We’ve seen a hundred pictures of each before we even hit an age where we …