Category: Travel Stories

The one rule that applies to all travel on or near streets in Manila is that any rules are to be ignored, with a vengeance. The careless disregard for the rule of law makes a seemingly simple thing like crossing a street a major accomplishment in the capitol city of the Philippines. Bipedal transportation, in general, is anything but simple in Manila. A person must learn when to walk on a sidewalk, if one exists, and when to yield the …

Honking, tire screeching, pedestrians dodging cars as they attempt to navigate non-existent crosswalks and cars, jeepneys, buses, tricycles, motorcycles and motor scooters ignoring all existing traffic laws. The only thing absent from Manila traffic is order.  Getting around Manila is often an overwhelming proposition for the city’s residents, and can be downright unfair to its guests. Visitors to the capital city of the Philippines may leave this wonderful city with a bad impression caused by their understandable inability to conquer …

A Catholic opponent dribbled the soccer ball past me and delivered a quick pass to his Protestant teammate on the other side of the goal. The Protestant swiped at the still approaching ball and delivered a screaming left-footer past my goalie. I’m not sure if the goalie attended mass or church or neither. Religious affiliation, contrary to the stereotype, didn’t matter to this group of Northern Irish friends who had gathered for a bachelor party (a stag do on this …

Driving in Manila is not for the timid or faint of heart. The conglomeration of cars on the streets, where anarchy reigns supreme, more closely resembles the atoms in a heated molecule than typical urban congestion. Cars are facing all directions and coming from all angles as laws and courtesy are ignored like a piece of food caught between a priest’s teeth at a potluck dinner.  Navigating the roads between intersections doesn’t pose an inordinately large problem. Minor annoyances do …

Standing in front of the Hotel Artemis on the Greek island of Mykonos, we breathed a large sigh of relief. My friend and I had just stepped out of a van that had shuttled us from the harbor to the hotel. “Shuttled” being a word, in this case, used to define driving as quickly as possible in hopes of dislodging the tourist’s bags that had previously been thrown on top of the van without so much as a hairnet to …

“In what college sport did Oscar Wilde participate?” the tour guide asked. The question was directed to a man from Nottingham, England and me. We were the finalists in the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl trivia contest. Whoever answered this question correctly took home a free t-shirt. It wasn’t the first time this question had been posed to me. I was living in Dublin, Ireland at the time and had taken the tour a few weeks prior.  I almost felt guilty …

If you go to Pamplona, Spain, during the Festival of San Fermín – most noted for the daily running of the bulls – be sure to wear all white and tie a red handkerchief about your neck. Get dressed, look at yourself in the mirror and laugh if you must. But if you don’t dress appropriately, you will most likely feel as self-conscious as a twelve-year-old child on his first day in a new school. An easy way to spot …

Argentina is the fifth largest wine producing country in the world, and the Mendoza province is responsible for 70 percent of that production. Not surprisingly, the roughly 1,200 vineyards in the province are a major reason 700,000 tourists flock to Mendoza annually. The city’s location near the Andes Mountains makes Mendoza one of the top adventure tourist draws in the country. The city center is laden with adventure tourism outfits catering to the more adventurous. My friend and I went …