TRAVEL THE WORLD (WHILE STAYING AT HOME) BLOG

What is it about Ethiopian food? Once I have it with someone and I suggest trying another country’s food, they say, "Let's have Ethiopian...

There’s a country called Eswatini? Will they forgive us if we forget they changed their name and call them Swaziland? Will I be able to...

Densely forested fairy tale Europe still exists in Estonia along with the highly competent developers of Skype. The fun part, of course,...

My brother is adopted. Reading My Father’s Daughter by Hannah Pool kept bringing me back to his story and the way I felt when he found...

The movie or the book? This universal question applies also to Palm Trees in the Snow, a multigenerational novel by Luz Gabás based on...

If scalpel and suture are the only surgical instruments you know, you need to meet my friend Karina. She manages a hospital sterile...

My husband Allan’s first memory is from Egypt. He was three years old and the Bible boy in his adopted sister Norma’s wedding. He...

Missionary work in Ecuador reminds me of car crashes in Orlando, Florida. Here’s why. Kristen, Kaitlin, and I went to Orlando for a...

Caribbean restaurants are easy to find, those specific to the Dominican Republic are more rare. I was thrilled last February to discover...

The madwoman in the attic and the gaslighting of the indigenous, the descendants of the enslaved, and those who refused to be enslaved...

Intelligent, thoughtful, pushing back against the idea that Djiboutians are any less than others, the literature from Djibouti is...

Land of genius detectives with terrible personal lives, funny musicians, serious authors, Legos, fairy tales, sweet pastries, and...

Both my daughters have been to the Czech Republic, Kristen with her high school symphonic band and Kaitlin in college, but I, needing to...

My husband Allan’s childhood home in Lebanon became too dangerous and his entire high school moved to Cyprus for six months in his...

When the new Porto’s bakery opened in West Covina last year, Gladys, Lidia, Ed, Clark, and I waited in that insanely long line and then...

I had been away from my phone for twenty minutes and when I returned, there were three text messages from Kaitlin - a map location in...

Who has been to Costa Rica? The Kardashians, The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Amazing Race, Househunters International, and even...

Almost twenty years ago my young daughter lost a tooth in the Ituri Forest, the home of the okapi, a quiet Congolese relative of the...

The hosts for our visit to the smaller of the two Congos are justly proud of their country’s beauty and its people’s intelligence and...

Fish and marriage ... it’s a good thing we’re traveling virtually because although I have seen fish and had a beautiful wedding, the way...