Category: Travel

The past few years, I’ve been able to visit Las Vegas for a business conference. On each trip, I’ve left the city to see something else, like the Hoover Dam, Death Valley, or Mojave National Preserve since most of Las Vegas’ attractions just aren’t my thing.

However, being able to see Las Vegas up close has been fascinating. Like most heavily marketed destinations, it’s not quite what I expected in person. Here are 10+ observations from visiting.

In August 2017, I got to visit & travel around Nicaragua for a week. Like all of Central America, it’s a lovely country with incredible landscapes, good food, and fascinating history – all within a short flight to the US.

It was the 2nd time that I’d traveled to the country (previously in 2006), so it was good to see some familiar sites along with some new ones. For this trip, I generally stayed south of Managua towards Granada rather than venturing up north like I did in 2006. Here’s a few observations from the trip.

My trip to India was spent primarily at my sister’s wedding and on the train to Delhi – but since we had the last few days in Delhi free, we got to see some of India’s Big Tourist Attractions.

India is an enormous country with more history than you could see in your lifetime. But – most of their world-famous tourist sites are all located in and around the Delhi to Agra corridor.

On our first day, we did a grand tour of Delhi’s attractions. The next day, we drove down to Agra to see the Taj and Red Fort.

When I traveled to India, we flew into Bengaluru for my sister’s wedding. But we also wanted to make our way to Delhi to see their house and do some sightseeing.

We could have simply flown. But when you only have a week in a country – what better way to see the physical country than a train?

Plus – there are few, if any, rail systems as famous as Indian Railways. They were the crown jewel of the British and India has used them to physically and symbolically tie the country together since independence.

And not only is there the romance of train travel – but Indian Railways has even more romance as the setting for a section of The Great Railway Bazaar and trains such as the Maharaja Express.

Either way – I wasn’t going to visit India without riding a train. So here’s how the experience went down.

In June 2016, I traveled to India with my parents and younger sister to attend my other younger sister’s wedding. Previously, my travels had been limited to Nicaragua, Guatemala, The Philippines plus a handful of US cities such as Chicago, Boston and New York.

So it was exciting to not only attend my sister’s wedding but also have a good excuse to visit the world’s second largest country – which also happens to be one of the world’s oldest civilizations and one of the most powerful countries in the 21st Century.

Our visit took us to Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) then to Delhi before flying back to the US. This post will cover general lessons on traveling to India while another will cover traveling on Indian Railways and yet another will look at my visit to some of India’s most famous landmarks.

During the last week of December 2014, my wife Shannon and I went to Boston, Massachusetts on a brief 5-day trip. It was my first trip to a major US city outside of my Atlanta home since my City Stereotypes post went viral last summer.

Boston is a big city for tourists, and you can find generic tourist information all over the Internet. You’ll find no shortage of people who have been to Boston who’ll tell you where to go.

I read all that information, talked to friends who had been there, and friends who live there before the trip. But here’s 11 things in no real order that still stood out to me once I got there, and makes Boston a really worthwhile visit (or home).

During our visit to Boston, we were able to take a day trip to Portland, ME via Amtrak. It was my first time to visit Maine. Despite the cold, the snow, and the early sunset, we had a great trip (thanks in part to solid recommendations from a Boston friend).

Here’s a few observations from the trip.