Travelogues

Almost every year since 1997, I have taken at least one major international trip of at least three weeks. The choices of destination are usually little more than the result of my throwing a figurative dart at the map or having Chinese takeout for dinner and thinking, "It's time to go to Asia" -- it doesn't take much to inspire me to hit the road for a month or two. These are, of course, not all the trips I've taken, but they're the longest and most diverse holiday excursions.

Click a route on the map or select a trip from the list to read my account of that trip.

The level of detail in the travelogues has gotten toned down over the years -- for the first three trips I kept track of (and you can read about) every train timing, appetizer, and drink-stall refreshment -- but there should still be enough information in the remaining accounts, in the form of e-mail messages sent to family and friends from the road, to give you a sense of what I experienced and to enable me to recall the events years later.

• Trip 1: India, Nepal, and China (summer 1997)
• Trip 2: Southeast Asia (fall 1998)
• Trip 3: Mongolia to Eastern Europe (fall 1999)
• Trip 4: Middle South America (fall 2000)
• Trip 5: Southern Africa (fall 2001)
• Trip 6: Scandinavia, the Baltics, and Greenland (summer 2002)
• Trip 7: The Balkans (summer 2003)
• Trip 8: Morocco and Southern Spain (winter 2003-2004)
• Trip 9: Western India (winter 2005)
• Trip 10: Outer Indochina (winter 2006)
• Trip 11: Ethiopia and Dubai (winter 2008)
• Trip 12: Iceland (spring 2009)
• Trip 13: Japan (winter 2010)
• Trip 14: Caucasus (fall 2012)
• Trip 15: Central & East Asia (fall 2013)

There is also a travelogue of my experiences as a musician in the orchestra pit of the national tour of Fosse, from 29 October 2002 to 21 May 2004.