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.
While I love to travel by rail in Europe, my last experience until this weekend on a train in the United States happened when I was five or six years old when my entire elementary school got to ride the Amtrak from Shelby to Cut Bank, Montana and back for a field trip. That trip was a big deal. The local newspaper covered it, and I...
I have always wanted to visit Joshua Tree and Route 66 and finally got the opportunity on a trip last March. The park has grown in popularity over the years, but still provides some opportunities for excellent scenery and starry skies. I saw less of Route 66 than I hoped, as the road was closed at Roy, and seems to have been for some...
Stockholm, we need to talk about your airport. In the midst of a sea of travel challenges this summer, Stockholm Arlanda stands out as a model of dysfunction and disinterest in the well-being—or even travel—of passengers. On my trip to the Balkans, I booked my flight through Stockholm for three nights, both because it made the ticket...
While there is certainly some truth to the idea that you can—and absolutely should—follow your nose and gut when looking for food on a road trip through the Balkans, there were a few spots and suggestions from my recent three weeks there that I can’t help but mention. If I took nothing else away from this trip, it would be a...
When you arrive in Tirana, you may find yourself wondering exactly what made you decide to visit Albania’s capital. The traffic seems to only vaguely exist in a world of laws, with the lanes often closer to imaginary than marked by lines or logic. And that first major traffic circle as you get close to the city? Abandon all hope, ye who...
The list of frugal habits I didn’t acquire from my grandmother is embarrassingly large. As we—and I—seem to embrace the idea of a more disposable society today, the idea of collecting bacon grease on the stove for future use, for instance, seems awfully quaint, even if probably eminently sensible. One element of her frugality was that I...
I love the idea of planning an itinerary before I travel, even though I know that once I land in a place, the odds of my following the agenda aren’t great. I have always felt the tension between the desire to explore freely and having at least a broad agenda to minimize the time spent planning while I am traveling. For this trip...
As I find myself wanting to focus on the promise of travel and not the despair of politics, I thought I’d go back and look at some of my favorite travel posts from this site and perhaps inspire myself to write more on my next journey. Thoughts from a 33 Hour Layover In Reykjavik Thoughts on Prague: A Raid on the Inarticulate A Few...
