Is Albania A Safe Country For Tourists? And What Were The Most Dangerous Countries In 2009?

About as dangerous as it gets in Gjirokastër, Albania Simple answer about Albania: yes, very safe. On the other hand, when George W. Bush vi...

Albania-- Second Impression: Shqipëria Has Plenty Of Room For Improvement

We've been out of Tirane, traveling around the country on buses. If the capital was all energetic/optimistic hustle and bustle with eve...

Albania-- First Impressions

After living in cold, wet Rome for a while, the first thing you notice on arriving in Albania's one airport-- named for Mother Teresa, o...

Is Rome A Safe City To Visit?

That's a bizarre question and the obvious answer is that it's as safe-- or unsafe-- as New York or London or Paris or Chicago or Ban...

The Sad Death Of The Queen Of The Skies

When Zagat first started their consumer-driven restaurant guide, I was one of their very first reviewers. I ate out a lot-- and in a lot of ...

Google's Offering Up Free WiFi At Dozens Of Backward U.S. Airports

When I travel outside the U.S., airports seem to all have free WiFi. And they have it at Oakland and in Jacksonville, though it doesn't ...

Is Yemen A Safe Place To Visit-- Or Live?

The drive from Sanga in Mali's Dogan country to Timbuktu is not for the faint of heart-- and not even possible without a solid 4 wheel d...

Meaningful Hotels

The Taj in Mumbai Aswan was the end of the line for our 1997 cruise up the Nile. One of Egypt's periodic anti-tourist atrocities , this ...

Uganda-- A Dangerous And Savage Place To Be Avoided At All Costs

Whenever I talk about my long drive through Asia to Afghanistan and Nepal I try to explain how it was as much a journey through time and it ...

World Cup South Africa 2010-- Guest Post From Robert Tuchman

Meet Zakumi, the official mascot for the 2010 World Cup I'm planning a trip to Rio for the spring-- way before the Olympics make it unb...

Albania-- A Guest Post From Evil Jesus, The Man Who Brought The Internet

My trip overland from Europe to India and back took a couple years. I made one phone call-- from Agra when I found a free phone I could use-...

Peace Without Borders Concert Rocks Havana, Roils Miami Wing-Nuts

Havana, yesterday; maybe Glenn Beck can use this pic next year When I woke up yesterday morning and checked Twitter I noticed that mad dog M...

Is Right Wing Extremism Threatening Tourism In The Palmetto State?

Since South Carolina secessionist and radical right Senator Jim DeMint is the Senate's most ardent obstructionist and votes "no...

Preparing For My Trip To Rome-- With Penn And Teller And Sabina Guzzanti

I may have mentioned how I'm planning out a trip to remote, mysterious Albania in a few months. In all honesty, most of the vacation wi...

Will We All Be Visiting Cuba Any Time Soon?

My travel-bud Roland loves Cuba. He's been there three times and every time I bring up some groovy place for us to go, like Myanmar, Ma...

Warning From Frommer's: Arizona Too Dangerous For Americans?

Some people check the State Department's website for their list of the most dangerous countries , places they're suggesting American...

Boycott Travelocity For Underwriting Racism And Bigotry

I try not to mix this blog too much with my political blog Down WithTyranny but sometimes... it's just hard to resist. Americans are bo...

Healthy Eating In Bangkok and Bali

I was happily surprised to find so much health food consciousness in Bali. Wherever you looked, at least in Ubud, restaurants had signs that...