After riding the rails up the edge of the Pacific, starting in Los Angeles, the Coast Starlight dropped me off in the verdant state of Oregon in May for three of my favorite things – hiking, winery visits, and spending time with friends (not necessarily in that order – the first two were greatly enhanced by the third!) Jeanne and Sally, friends I met in La Manzanilla, Mexico, were kind and generous hosts, sharing their homes and...

Make your reservation for a seat with a view, or better yet, just stumble upon one. While long term travel isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, the world does offer up a spectacular array of beautiful views, and I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you from over a dozen countries around the world. You might not always be able to find or afford a room with a view, but you can usually find a seat with one, and more often than...

Part 1: Hopping House Sits in Northern California After 18 months outside the US, it was time for a brief return. Leaving Thailand when my six months of visas were up, and with the first draft of my book manuscript completed, I made a sweep through California to renew my passport, and more importantly, to see family and friends. Keeping with my backpacker’s budget, this included house and pet sitting, a cobbling together of places to...

Just the words, “World Travel,” sound romantic. What’s it like to really chuck it all and travel around the world for a year? After visiting over a dozen countries on a shoestring-budget, I thought I’d do a little visual re-cap of some of the highlights. First stop, on my world travel adventure – Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns, where I took a leap of faith as well as a leap in the ocean, and...

Castles in the sky, or at least close – my house sit in Fort William, in the Highlands of Scotland, came in the form of a Victorian manse, complete with a lively companion… The Highlands have long been high on my list, and I had two weeks to enjoy the fall, with free accommodations in exchange for keeping an eye on this lovely home and entertaining my new furry friend, Hamish. Little did I know that he had 100 times my energy, and...