Don Pogreba is a current writer and retired teacher of English, Social Studies and Debate, and a loyal, if often sad, fan of the San Diego Padres and Portland Timbers. When he is not traveling, he is working on his classroom web site or dreaming about another adventure.
There’s always a sense of heartache when you leave a place you’ve traveled to and loved. It comes with the knowledge that the odds are you’ll never return and the memories will slowly fade over time. Like most heartache, though, it’s more a feeling that is more beautiful than painful, because it comes with the knowledge that, though...
When I got off of the bus after my six-hour trip from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo, I have to admit that my first thought was something like “I’ve made a terrible mistake.” The bus station was even worse than most, dirty and abandoned, other than the groups of young men lurking outside the station who didn’t exactly fill me with confidence as I...
There’s probably no more obnoxious a phrase than “I need a vacation from my vacation,” but there are moments when I understand the sentiment. When I travel, I am usually close to consumed with the thought that I will likely not see a place again and sometimes find myself rushing to see as many things and have as many experiences as I can...
I am certainly not a photographer, but tonight I was going to take an absolutely perfect photograph. As anyone who follows this blog or my Instagram feed can attest, I enjoy taking photographs when I travel, perhaps not so much to capture memories of the experiences but to potentially see them in a unique way and share them with people...
My initial reaction to Split was a bit cold. I drove into the city near the morning rush hour, found my way to an apartment that was not only entirely different from the one I thought I had booked online but was absolutely filthy, and I managed to time my arrival into the city’s famed palace at a moment that seemed to synchronize almost...
“…and every Allied government gave me a decoration — even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!” Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them — with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated...
Budapest was a perfect place to test my theory that it’s best to not look at photographs of a city before visiting. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived and was incredibly delighted by its beautiful river, grand bridges, and iconic, dominant Parliament building.
While Portugal was probably the country I fell most in love with during my sabbatical, Slovakia was a revelation. I booked nights in Bratislava without any idea what I’d find and discovered a city that combined brutal Soviet realism with scenes straight from a fairy tale. I can’t recommend wandering its streets enough, and I...
When I visited Prague and Dresden in October 2015, I was overwhelmed by the beauty and liveliness of the Prague and the recreated history of Dresden. One of my favorite photos of the entire trip is the one I took outside the Frauenkirche Dresden at a moment when the crowds seemed to vanish just long enough for me to capture the empty...