Sunday, February 28, 2010

Quote: Richard Bach ...

"The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly."

-- from Jonathan Livingston Seagull, 1970

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina ...

May 2003. A scary nightspot ...

Friday, February 26, 2010

Quote: August Strindberg ...

"Oh, no matter how far we travel, the memories will follow in the baggage car."

-- from Miss Julie, 1888

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Dubrovnik, Croatia ...

May 2003. The walled city ...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Quote: Jack Kerouac ...

"All of life is a foreign country."

-- from a letter to a friend, June 24, 1949

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Memphis, Tennessee ...

June, 2006. Travelers' neon ...

Monday, February 22, 2010

Quote: Bruce Chatwin ...

"I haven't got any special religion this morning. My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god."

-- from In Patagonia, 1977

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Cay Caulker, Belize ...

November 2004. Caribbean cemetery ...

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Quote: Paul Theroux ...

“True travel is launching oneself into the unknown. There is no excuse for it except that one offers oneself in a spirit of experiment.”

-- from "Paddling to Plymouth," in Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings, 2001

Friday, February 19, 2010

Malacca, Malaysia ...

November 2003. Buddhist temple ...

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Quote: Alice Meynell ...

"The spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name. It is recalled all a lifetime, having been perceived a week, and is not scattered but abides, one living body of remembrance."

-- from The Spirit of Place, and Other Essays, 1898

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

St. Paul, Minnesota ...

January 2008. Fine dining, Minnesota style ...

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Quote: Daniel J. Boorstin ...

"The modern American tourist now fills his experience with pseudo-events. He has come to expect both more strangeness and more familiarity than the world naturally offers. He has come to believe that he can have a lifetime of adventure in two weeks and all the thrills of risking his life without any real risk at all."

-- from The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America, 1962

Monday, February 15, 2010

Encarnacion, Paraguay ...

May, 2004. The only way to travel ...

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Quote: Charles Baudelaire ...

“For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes.”

-- from The Painter of Modern Life, 1863

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Singapore ...

October, 2003. Classy hotel ...

Friday, February 12, 2010

Quote: Dave Barry ...

"Remember the Old Traveler’s Saying: 'You may lose your money and your health and your sanity and some important organs, but they can't take away your travel memories unless they hit you hard on the head.'"

-- from Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need, 1992

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Bryant, Arkansas ...

April 2008. The quintessential south, part 2 ...

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Quote: Ernest Hemingway ...

"Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up."

-- from a letter to Harvey Breit, 1950

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Stockholm, Sweden ...

May 2000. The gamla stan ...

Monday, February 8, 2010

Quote: Martha Gellhorn ...

"You define your own horror journey, according to your taste. My definition of what makes a journey wholly or partially horrible is boredom. Add discomfort, fatigue, strain in large amounts to get the purest-quality horror, but the kernel is boredom. I offer that as a universal test of travel; boredom, called by any other name, is why you yearn for the first available transport out. But what bores whom?† ... The threshold of boredom must be like the threshold of pain, different in all of us."

-- from Travels with Myself and Another, 1978

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Calcutta, India ...

February 2000. Westbound train ...

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Quote: Thomas Coryat ...

"Of all the pleasures in the world, travel is, in my opinion, the sweetest and most delightful."

-- from Coryat's Crudities: Hastily Gobled Up in Five Moneths' Travels, 1611

Friday, February 5, 2010

Tallinn, Estonia ...

May 2000. Restored church ...

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Quote: Dennis Scott ...

To travel
is to return
to strangers.

-- quoted in Breaklight: An Anthology of Caribbean Poetry, 1971

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

North Conway, New Hampshire ...

May 2008. The railway station ...

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Quote: Robert Louis Stevenson ...

"Wealth I seek not; hope nor love,
Not a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

-- from "The Vagabond," in Songs of Travel, 1895

Monday, February 1, 2010

Tie Siding, Wyoming ...

September 2008. Roadside entrepreneur ...