Sheron Long's Blog, page 18
July 11, 2017
A Wanderlust for Words
Daunt Books for Travelers, on the Marylebone High Street London,
is an original Edwardian bookshop.
© Joyce McGreevy
The Enchantment of
Reading While Traveling
If there were an award for writing and reading while traveling, Emily Hahn would have been World Champion. Early in her 92-year life of wanderlust, Hahn solo-traveled from the Congo to China. That was in the 1920s, and by 1997, Hahn had reported for The New Yorker from around the world, written 52 books, and read voraciously across genres.
She’d also enrolled at an all-male college, overcome opium addiction, carried out underground relief work during WWII, been the concubine of a Chinese poet, married a British spy, and become a pioneering environmentalist.
Books, like rafts, take us “drifting along ever so far away.”
This summer, as reading and wanderlust become one—when books hit the...
July 4, 2017
The Interdependence of Independence
A symbol of freedom
© VStock LLC
Crossing Cultures in Celebration of Independence Day
It’s July. Our thoughts are drifting to . . . beaches, heat-quenching thunderstorms, easy summer reading, lazy days, and, oh yes . . . freedom.
Independence is in the air. Especially for an American living in France. (C’est moi.)
America and France cross cultures in celebration of independence at the
American Embassy Residence in Paris.
© Meredith Mullins
I feel fortunate to divide my time between two countries that celebrate their freedoms. It’s rewarding to walk down both paths of history. And it’s gratifying to have two occasions to party in the name of pride and patriotism—July 4th and July 14th.
New York’s Statue of Liberty, a gift from France
© Stockbyte
France and the U.S.—Longtime Allies
America and France have much in common.
In the flag...
June 26, 2017
More Than a Travel Mascot
“Have pawsport, will travel,” that’s Bedford’s motto.
© Joyce McGreevy
To See the World Differently,
Take Your Travel Buddy
I have a confession. Although my posts for OIC Moments suggest I’m a solo traveler, that’s not the whole story. Truth is, I never travel without a guide. To some, he’s just a “travel mascot.” To me he’s much more, a travel buddy who helps me see the world differently.
Bedford, take a bow. And a bow-wow.
Testing the tartan in Scotland . . .
© Joyce McGreevy
. . . and the tea in Turkey.
© Joyce McGreevy
Gnome on the Range
Seeing the world with a travel mascot is nothing new, of course. In the 1980s, an Australian man decided that his neighbors’ garden gnome needed to get out more. Photos he sent back anonymously featured the gnome at famous landmarks.
Cue the surge in gnome-nabbings, elfin...
June 19, 2017
Traveling the World through a Single Ghostly Garden
Impressions of Indochina in the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale
© Meredith Mullins
Hidden Gardens of Paris
Sometimes the places that are hidden in plain view are often the most interesting—places where you can create your own stories as you wander or where you can dig deep into obscure research and weave threads of information into a rich history.
Such a place is the lost Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale (Garden of Tropical Agriculture) on the outskirts of Paris at the northeastern edge of the Bois de Vincennes.
The Torii gate marks the entrance to a unique world.
© Meredith Mullins
Paris Garden Life
Paris boasts more than 400 public gardens, some sweeping and formal and some tucked away in tiny courtyards. Each has its own character.
None more so than the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale. As you are welcomed into the wooded expanse through a Chinese Torii gate,...
June 12, 2017
Do Digital Nomads Have Homes?
A recipe for domestic happiness?
© Joyce McGreevy
When the Art of Travel Is Domestic
“Do you ever get tired of being a digital nomad? You know, living out of a suitcase, never having a sense of home?” The art of travel would fray around the edges if that were so.
“Are you constantly managing logistics? Always on the move?” I get questions like these since decluttering and pulling up stakes to travel full time—while continuing to work full time.
Happily, none of those circumstances apply. Neither does another stereotype of full time travel. As an online photo search shows, the stock image of the digital nomad is a Millennial with a Laptop at the Beach.
Who needs a laptop when you can monitor nature’s display?
© Joyce McGreevy
Surfing the Net?
Variations include stock images of the Millennial with a Laptop in a Hammock; silhouetted by a...
June 5, 2017
Quaintness, Rudeness, and Bad Food
Beyond quaintness and cottages: This, too, is Ireland.
© Joyce McGreevy
A Travel Guide to Cultural Stereotypes
“Do people in Ireland talk normal?” the 13-year-old girl asked me. “You know, do they say things like cowabunga?” As cultural stereotypes go, this was one of the more intriguing. I’d never thought of cowabunga as a barometer of normality.
Cowabunga is a bundle of cultural stereotypes. Considered surfer slang, it’s a word no real surfer would utter. But actors playing surfers on Gidget, a popular ‘60s TV show, used it frequently. In the ‘90s, animated series like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons resurrected cowabunga.
In Co. Clare, Ireland, surf’s up, but stereotypes are out.
© Joyce McGreevy
It began in 1953 as cowa-bonga, a phony Native American word used by a phony Native American character called Chief Thunderthud...
May 29, 2017
Travel Adventures with a Heartfelt Focus
The beauty of a cheetah in motion in Namibia
© Suzi Eszterhas
Wildlife Photography that Makes a Difference
Focus is a word that comes to mind when talking about Suzi Eszterhas. Not just because it’s a clever— albeit overused—pun that pops up in photography circles, but because Suzi was focused at an early age on what she wanted in life.
Not too many six-year-olds know what their future will hold. Suzi did. Travel adventures were her destiny. She knew she would be a wildlife photographer.
Suzi Eszterhas: Patience, Drive, and Passion
© Jak Wonderly
Obsession Can Be a Good Thing
Her family lived a suburban life in Northern California; and, she remembers, her parents weren’t that interested in nature, although they were devoted to rescue animals so the family had a menagerie of dogs and cats.
Since Suzi felt a magnetic and magical pull toward wildlife, she set...
May 22, 2017
Best Trips: Zagreb
Zagreb’s details delight the eye.
© Joyce McGreevy
Lingering in Croatia’s Capital
Do your neighbors include dragons, Romantic poets, and the ghost of Nikolas Tesla? If so, you must be in Zagreb—one of Europe’s most underrated travel destinations.
Croatia’s capital is one of the best trips you can take without dreaming. A place where you exit a museum on a three-story slide, check the time by the noon cannon, and stroll through a traditional market that featured in a Jackie Chan movie.
Zagreb is not your average city.
Not average for Europe, or even Croatia. In a country the size of West Virginia, yet adorned by fantastical islands, parks, and villages, Zagreb is a singular sensation—a zany, zingy experience that specializes in zest for life.
Often rebuilt and renovated during its 800 years, iconic St. Mark’s Church outlasted
...
May 15, 2017
Travel Adventures in the Friendly(?) Skies
Travel adventures of the aerial kind
© Artem Tryhub/iStock
Air Travel Stories to Remember
Air travel customer disasters have peppered the news lately.
A passenger was dragged off an overbooked United flight, a fist fight erupted between two Southwest Airlines passengers, a woman was hit with her baby’s stroller as an American Airlines flight attendant tried to wrestle it away from her. The flight attendant later said “Bring it on” to a passenger who tried to intervene on the woman’s behalf.
We tend to remember the horror stories—the headline makers as well as the travel adventures we have suffered through personally.
Haven’t we all felt this way at one point in our air travel lives?
© Eyecandy Images
There is no shortage of such tales in a world where millions of people fly each day. There are bound to be some hitches.
What comes to mind when...
May 9, 2017
All Aboard forAha Moments!
Catch a train in Salinas, a town made famous by John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden.
© Joyce McGreevy
Time-Traveling on Trails & Rails
Unsteadily hiking the path, I meet a National Park Service guide. She tells me that “Spanish explorers traveled this historic California trail, named for Juan Bautista De Anza.” This was the land of the Chumash, Pima, and Quechan peoples. Wait—I’m in a moving train. But as I’ll discover, I’m “right on track” for aha moments.
“Believe it or not, you’re in a national park right now,” says guide Kathy Chalfant, as the Coast Starlight rolls southward. We’re following California’s coast and time-traveling to the 1700s. Oh, I see: Sometimes a train commute becomes a journey into history.
This serendipitous Anza Trail tour is part of Trails & Rails, a nationwide partnership between the...
