Category Archives: travel

The TSA agent looked at Ben’s boarding pass. You been there before? he asked. No. It’s different. He looked almost pained. Just different. We followed impatiently the electronic map on the plane as it charted our course from San Francisco … Continue reading→

When you hear the phrase “the edge of America,” you probably don’t think of South Carolina.  The Wild West, with its ever-expanding frontier, or the Pacific coast with its infinite water, Alaska, maybe, or Hawaii.  Folly Island, outside of Charleston, … Continue reading→

There is nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing.  — Lawrence of Arabia Salah greeted me outside my hotel, wearing a small, brownish turban, a leather jacket and a thick, black mustache. Sleep deprived and fever addled, I … Continue reading→

“In the face of Petra’s riddles, reason becomes unreasonable, but magic grows commonplace.” Richard Halliburton, “The Enchanted City” It seems no work of Man’s creative hand, By labor wrought as wavering fancy planned; But from the rock as if by … Continue reading→

I woke up early, sick, in a sterile, cold room by the Red Sea.  I packed my backpack and trudged downstairs, leaving the key in the room.  An open-backed Jeep awaited me.  I pulled myself in as it took off … Continue reading→

  Tel Aviv, January 2012

We went out for a walk at night.  The bedouin tent village, with all the camels asleep in the paddock, faded behind us, the lights dimming past the dunes we crossed.  Looking back it was a glint on the horizon … Continue reading→

“[Jerusalem] exists in the past, as the capital of a lost civilization.  It exists in the future as the portal to the next world.  It exists everywhere but in the present.  It’s where the past and the future overwhelm the … Continue reading→

It took more than a day to get from California to Israel, which only heightened the feeling of being far away.  I was disoriented, as all travelers are, and we immediately boarded a bus that took us from Tel Aviv … Continue reading→

30 October 2011, 11pm, between Philadelphia and D.C. There is an intimacy to the last row of a tiny puddle jumper in the dark of night, the arm rest up, a loveseat.  Me and the boy with the big knees, … Continue reading→