Taos is a small town of about 5,700 people in the high desert of northern New Mexico. It’s home to artists, ranchers, naturalists, vagrants and the oldest inhabited indigenous community in the U.S.—the Taos Pueblo, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, a National Historic Landmark and thousand-year-old residence of the Tiwa-speaking Puebloan people. Not many people… Continue reading Taos, New Mexico
Tag: travel writing
Travel recommendations in USA Today
A few months ago I spoke with writer Matt Alderton providing some not-for-tourist travel destinations in Chicago for USA Today. Read the full piece here and read my contributions below:
Two-week trip to the Balkans? Count me in
World Nomads is currently running a travel writing contest for a two-week trip to the Balkans. Comes with free flights, €1000 for a 10-day tour, apparel, a train pass and mentoring with travel writer Tim Neville of Outside Magazine. I’ve entered in past WM competitions, with no success…but maybe this year will be different? Either way, go here to… Continue reading Two-week trip to the Balkans? Count me in
Colorado
Over the past two months, I found myself headed out of Chicago every two weeks, first to see family in Boston, then for a long weekend in Venice Beach, and finally, to visit my brother and his girlfriend at their new place in Colorado, about an hour north of Denver. It was my first time in… Continue reading Colorado
Venice Beach
I recently took a long weekend to hang out in Venice Beach, the Land of Lebowski. No itinerary. We ate some good food, rode some shitty bikes, stayed in an AirBnB along the canals, hiked to the tallest peak in the Santa Monica Mountains and caught our last dose of Pacific sun before heading back… Continue reading Venice Beach
Full of fine sable
While waiting for one of my favorite restaurants to open on a recent Saturday in Evanston, I killed some time in Market Fresh Books, a used book store that sells by the pound. Buried behind the travel shelf I found a battered copy of Farley Mowat’s The Siberians, which you can get for a penny +… Continue reading Full of fine sable
Babson Boulders
As a native Midwesterner, New England has always seemed full of secrets to me. But none as surreal as the Babson Boulders, a seemingly random collection of massive boulders with inspirational all-caps etchings scattered around the forest of an abandoned inland settlement in Gloucester, Massachusetts. I first learned about the boulders six or seven years… Continue reading Babson Boulders
Porcupine Mountains
To ring in the end of a busy summer, and get away from the familiar noise of the city, I recently went north to Ontonagon (on-tuh-noggin), a small town of around 1,500 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (the UP), near the Wisconsin border and the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, about 400-ish miles straight north… Continue reading Porcupine Mountains
The Iceland Ring Road: Part I
I took an eight-day drive with my wife and partner Sarah around Iceland’s famous and rugged Ring Road. It was like a weeklong movie filled with mountains, swamp gas, lucid dreams and horsemeat. In these posts, I explain how we did it and what we saw along the way.
The Iceland Ring Road: Part II
I took an eight-day drive with my wife and partner Sarah around Iceland’s famous and rugged Ring Road. In the last post, I explained how we did it. In this one, I explain what we saw and ate along the way. Against popular currents we took a counterclockwise route around Iceland’s 830-mile Ring Road, starting and… Continue reading The Iceland Ring Road: Part II
ben van loon 