The winners of the 2011 Society of American Travel Writers‘ Central States Writing and Photography Contest have been announced and yours truly won five awards, including “Photographer of the Year.” According to organizer Kelly Earnest, the contest had “a record 399 entries, including 147 writing submissions and 252 photography submissions.” The judges were Dr. Thomas…
On our last day in The Gambia, I thought it might be a great idea to rent bicycles. The advantages were two-fold. First, we’d get to see a lot more of the Atlantic Coast. Second, we’d be able to outrun the hordes of touts trying to devise ways to relieve us of our hard-earned dalasis….
I could have spent a week exploring Bogota on foot, but I never would have seen as much as I did on the six-hour bike ride I took. Cruising around town on two wheels, I visited popular sites on the must-see list, but also many out-of-the-way spots. Bogota Bike Tours is owned and operated by…
Welcome to the new and improved (I hope) Far-Flung Travels. I spent a few days migrating my blog posts from Blogger to my own domain using WordPress, which has provided a better platform for adding photo galleries and nested pages. If you are receiving this via email subscription or RSS feed, I encourage you to…
Tune into “Rudy Maxa’s World with Christopher Elliot” on Sirius Channel 152 this weekend to hear me speak about Competitours, the travel competition I participated in last summer. The nationally syndicated travel talk show is broadcast on more than 95 stations coast to coast every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern time. The…
I have come to Lisbon, and Portugal in general, with no expectations and no agenda. I spent the first day wandering the steep cobblestone streets up and down the seven hills that make up the city. With me are Chris, who has a fever, and Lauren who is coming down with a sinus infection (I’m…
Editor’s Note: Competitours is not your typical vacation; it’s a team-travel contest that takes place in Europe and anyone can sign up to take part in the fun. It’s Friday, it must be Germany. We came back to Munich for a couple days-worth of challenges in this large, cosmopolitan city. We definitely saw quite a…
Have you thought about where you’re going on vacation this summer? Yeah, I know . . . the economy. Some travel companies are trying to sweeten the deal to be more enticing to travelers, but the best offer I’ve found is with Competitours, a travel competition that offers the chance to win a worldwide travel…
The equator lies about an hour’s drive north of Quito. But until the invention of GPS navigation, the true “line” between the north and south hemispheres was as scientific as someone building a monument and claiming it was located at the equator. Various markers have come and gone in the modern age, but only one…
What do you get when you cross three Brits, four Americans, one Arab and a minibus? A cross between an iPod commercial and the film “Little Miss Sunshine.” Our trip to the Sahara Desert got off to a good start with Rock the Kasbah blaring on the van’s speakers. One of our fellow travelers had…
