When I think of the current state of America, I am reminded of the Joni Mitchell song, California, where she says, “Sitting in a park in Paris , France reading the news and it sure looks bad…” That was in 1971! So here we are – 2025. More than 50 years on, and the world […]
I remember the day we moved. It seemed like we were moving to Australia. South London. The other side of the Thames. How could we? All from running water and a bathtub! It seemed so unfair. We were North Londoners. We moved to the Oval which was famous for its cricket ground. We lived in […]
I love London. I am a Londoner. Born near Chalk Farm in North London. I hopped on the busses and made my way to Hamstead Heath every day of the summer holidays In England, we had 6 weeks. Mum and Dad both worked, so we would disappear all day to the Heath. Ponds and forests, […]
A confession. I like maps. The old Michelin type ones. I like to see a country laid out on a table and figure out a route or an itinerary imagining I’m looking at it from way up high. Once I’ve done this I can plug in modern technology and figure out times, look at Google […]
Rome. Love letter. As if someone had asked for a collection of all the great monuments across centuries of change . A splash of bathtubs from Caracalla. An amphitheater at the end of the street, a few columns in the corner of a busy traffic intersection, the odd obelisk from Egypt, fountains fed by ancient aqueducts […]
STOLEN LUGGAGE? No, never! Firstly, I want to say, I am an experienced traveler but who would have thought that my luggage would be gone in the blink of an eye. So let me tell you how it happened. I prefer to take the underground in London to the airport. This day, I arrived early morning […]
Teaching is an art form. Vital for our “tomorrow’s world” people. Given the complexity we face… Climate change, the environment, sustainability, in addition to just being ourselves. Learning a language, developing an international way of looking at life. Being kind. Gifts we have can choose and gifts that are free! In Barcelona recently, I was […]
Fly and stay sustainable. Be energy efficient and travel responsibly. I live my life on planes. I love traveling. I sort of…confession…love airports! I know it’s not brilliant but how else do I move. There’s too much to see and too much to do and lots of it requires air travel as a starting point. […]
Our annual Tour Manager event took place in Rome, my favorite city. Over 100 tour managers descended on this beautiful place and we spent a day discussing the 2024 season and our 2025 vision. Our main themes were Global Travel, Sustainability and AI. Many tour managers were unfamiliar with Rome, so it was a chance for […]
The journey to the border from Samarkand took about 45 minutes. From Samarkand you can see the glacier cap mountains due east. Our journey was to take us closer across and up those mountains. Tajikistan is mountainous. With glacial lakes and narrow winding roads through the mountains scattered villages. There seemed to be traffic jams […]
We are off again on a high-speed train jaunt. This time to Samarkand. The train station in Tashkent was organized and well kempt and the train was on time. The Spanish have supplied Uzbekistan with their Ave trains. High speed with more luggage room than the TGV in France. More speed and efficiency than the […]
The train station in Tashkent was quite modern. We had assigned seats, and the boarding was pretty smooth. The journey was to be around four hours. It was quite exciting to be boarding an Afrosiyob built with Spanish Talgo technology and capable of speeds of 155 mph. Imagine, I thought, if the UK had such […]