What has happened to Uzbekistan? Recent headlines note it is “one of the 12 happiest places in the world”. Lonely Planet lists it as one of the three “must see” destinations of 2018. Another notes it is “one of the ten safest places to travel”. Fred recently traveled to Uzbekistan with a small Seattle/Tashkent Sister-City… Read more »
Mountain Music
This blog, unusually, is about a US trip, not an international trip. In June we went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in the high mountains of southwest Colorado. This festival at 9,000 feet has been attracting bluegrass music fans for 45 years. Fred’s college roommate Bill and his wife, Marsha, have gone to Telluride many… Read more »
A Trip to Remote Antarctica
A trip to Antarctica is on every traveler’s “bucket list”… and a trip that takes you south of the Antarctic Circle is an even finer “bucket”. Such cruises are not for the budget traveler, but who could resist when we kept hearing that the place was melting? We thought we had better get down… Read more »
The Dzongs (?) of Bhutan
Our earlier blog talked a bit about Bhutan and how to get there. The latest government pro-tourism project is called, “Why not Bhutan?” The tiny country is now pretty well set up for “high value” (or high cost) and low-impact tourism. A variety of tour companies run treks in the country, though no mountaineering is… Read more »
The Last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom: Bhutan
Our trip this October took us back to South Asia to visit old friends in both India and Nepal and to make new friends in Bhutan, a country we had never visited before. We found Delhi and Kathmandu as chaotic, bustling, polluted and wonderful as ever, and this made our stay in bucolic and unique… Read more »
The New “Great Game” on the Silk Road
The 19th century “Great Game”, the subject of Kipling’s classic book “Kim,” referred to the geopolitical jousting between Czarist Russia, busy expanding into Central Asia, and Great Britain, long established on the Indian subcontinent. The two great powers almost came to blows along their common border in the high Pamir Mountains. They finally agreed… Read more »
The neatest place you have never heard of: Tajikistan
Why go to Tajikistan? In the 1990’s Fred served at the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan, while Sharon served at the Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. Sharon’s country seemed like a happy Dr. Seuss country, while Fred’s was embroiled in a nasty civil war. This conflict had transformed the USSR’s best mountain adventure destination into a no-go zone… Read more »
Argentina’s Clever Orcas: Part Two
Seeing the clever Orca “Killer Whales” of Peninsula Valdes has long been on our bucket list of things to do. Our last blog talked about visiting the Southern Right Whales’ breeding grounds around Peninsula Valdes, and this second part centers on another fascinating whale-watching reason to stop here – – its unique Orca population. In addition to Southern Right Whales… Read more »
Whales in Patagonia – Part One
We love whales. We live in Langley on Whidbey Island and regularly see both Orcas (Killer Whales) and Gray Whales from the deck of our house. We are involved in Orca Network’s Langley Whale Center, and haven’t hesitated to travel to see whales in Maui, Mexico, Oregon and Maritime Canada. So it will be no surprise… Read more »
Patagonian Cowboys and their Rodeos
Argentina’s vast plains–the green pampas in the north, and drier steppes in the south–are similar in many ways to the American west. They have spawned a historic horseman culture not unlike our own. Before we visited Patagonia, we knew a little of the Argentine gaucho culture, horsemen who herded cattle and other animals, using weighted… Read more »