By Joshua Baker I pull my luggage around the side of an international market where the gurgling of a diesel engine stirs. Parked there is an obviously over-used white bus. The fenders over the tires are blackened with miles and it looks like it hasn’t been washed since the Van Hool C20’s were introduced circa […]
USA
The Best Of Times
By Sallie Lewis Longoria It’s coming on Christmas, and up and down my street, twinkle lights glow softly, like summer fireflies. While my own home will soon be decked for the holidays, the house next door remains dark and shuttered, a lingering reminder of what I lost. My grandparents – who I called Honey and […]
There are Bridges (Cape May, NJ, USA; China)
By Ingrid Anders A canal dredged from Cape May’s harbor to the Delaware Bay separates the old seaside resort from the rest of New Jersey. This is the kind of island Brooke wants to be—man made and cut off, so separated from the mainland she can forget she was ever part of it. The open […]
Living Local: On Home Exchanges and Friendships
By Stephanie Schroeder I arranged my first home exchange in 2006. The deal was that my partner at the time and I would give up our Jersey City, NJ, apartment for a couple who had a house in Alkmaar, North Holland in The Netherlands. It was all very new to me, this home exchange adventure, […]
A Good Book Is Hard to Find…Until It’s Given (Savannah, GA)
By Kelly Murray The only way to read Flannery O’Connor is while taking a hot bath in a clawfoot tub in an old Victorian home on a warm night in Savannah, Georgia. That’s exactly where I was when I read her for the first time. I was staying at an Airbnb in Savannah’s Eastside district; […]
Camaraderie On Wheels: Traveling with the Tucson Roller Derby
By Irene Jagla Not many Tucsonans willingly go to Phoenix, especially during the summer. The running joke is that Phoenix is nothing more than a giant parking lot in the desert. So when I found myself standing in a Phoenix parking lot on a sweltering July afternoon, enveloped in waves of heat emanating from the […]
Algae Blooms in Nahant
By Madeline Gressman Nahant’s algae was rotting. The entire town reeked of sea decay, with countless fish and one seal washing ashore, dead. There wasn’t an escape from the odor; it seeped through our walls and weaved in with our clothes. Fans blasted at all hours, swirling the air in circles in a hope to […]
Great Blue (Washington, DC)
By Stewart Lawrence Strolling recently in Washington, DC’s, Rock Creek Park, I had a rare close encounter with one of the Park’s dwindling number of Great Blue Herons. While joggers streaked by, oblivious to its presence, and rush-hour traffic passed noisily overhead, I sat in wordless wonder as the Great Blue, clinging to a half-submerged log, […]
Taking the Waters at the Greenbrier (West Virginia)
Editor’s note: Marsha B. Wassel visited the Greenbrier in West Virginia in May. She gives a review and some background on the curative waters of the area. by Marsha B. Wassel History of the Springs There is a history of seeking wellness high in West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains, where mineral springs flow deep in the […]
My Favorite Fishing Villages
By Adria Carey Perez Why visit a fishing village? A combination of history, character, and amazing seafood. Here are my Top Five Fishing Villages to Visit: Rock, Cornwall, UK I don’t know how many of you are watching Poldark (and if you’re not, you should be), but the show has put Cornwall on the […]