Category: Travel

Categories
Travel

The Right Attitude!

The San Francisco Chronicle’s great travel editor John Flinn shares his thoughts in today’s paper about vacations — and cellphones, PDA’s, laptops, etc.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the net result of all this is that we’re committing karoshi — we’re working ourselves to death. Health care studies consistently show that by failing to take time off we’re shortening our lives.

…

So listen to the good doctor’s advice. Force yourself to take that vacation. Leave your cell phone, PDA and fancy new wi-fi laptop at home. Wiggle your toes in the white sand of a Kauai beach. Listen to the trade breezes rustle the coconut palms. Feel the stress slide off your shoulders.

There, now — ain’t life truly grand?

Amen!

In that spirit, here’s a new album of photos from a few days spent this weekend near Pacific Grove, California.

Categories
Norway Travel

Ramblings from the Road

Seeing John Patrick’s post from Oslo tonight reminded me of the wonderful visit to Norway we has two years ago — at this same time of year. I’ll never forget our days exploring Oslo and Bergen followed by the Midsummer celebration at our hotel along the Sognefjord — what a night!

We spent this weekend in Mendocino, exploring a bit of the northern California coast we’d not visited in a few years. A wonderful getaway it was! Some pictures from the trip are in the newly uploaded Stanford Inn and Navarro Vineyards photo albums.

Tonight I’m in Minneapolis on business — where outside it was a delightfully sunny and breezy midwestern day. I’m liking how high speed Internet access is becoming so pervasive at hotels these days. Would make a very nice adoption curve graph, I’m sure. The Stanford Inn in Mendocino has recently installed free wireless access in its rooms and my downtown major chain hotel tonight has STSN Ethernet — still being among those who charge extra ($9.95) for the service. Dial tone or web tone — both should be standard equipment!

Meanwhile, it’s good to read about some tentative optimism coming out of Silicon Valley in Gary Rivlin’s Silicon Valley (Version 2.0). Also, congratulations to Andrew Anker on his move back into the real world at Six Apart.

Categories
Travel

Heading East

Heading for the east coast this morning on business. Should be fun!

Using airline club wireless while waiting for the flight (why isn’t this bundled into the exhorbitant annual membership fees?) — along with HotSpotVPN for a little added security over the wireless link.

Categories
Travel

Travel Writing

I enjoy reading good travel writing — maybe it’s because my own wanderlust has cooled a bit over the years and it’s become more enjoyable to curl up in my favorite armchair and read about these places than schlepping to them myself?

Anyway, just came across Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding site and, in particular, his series of monthly interviews with the best of the travel writers. I particularly enjoyed the Thomas Swick and Rick Steves‘ interviews.

Categories
Travel

Big Island

Sunday’s New York Times Travel section covers what’s doing on the Big Island of Hawaii — one of our favorite places on the planet!

Categories
Norway Travel

On this day two weeks ago…

A picture named Bergen-062102.jpgTwo weeks ago today I was in Bergen, Norway — a simply delightful city on Norway’s west coast.

Weather, as you can see from this photo, was fabulous — in spite of Bergen’s rainy day reputation.

I got to Bergen on the train from Oslo — about a 7 hour trip through the most amazing scenery across Norway’s interior mountains.

I found a beautifully done photo by Kjell Heggestad of some Bergen rooftops on photo.net last summer — and have been using it as one of my favorite desktop backgrounds.