Going “Dutch” on Holland America Unspoiled Beaches in Papua New Guinea Photo: Bill Wiatrak Papua New Guinea is one of the most remote islands on the planet and has often been described as “the last frontier” by travel aficionados. The first time I saw photos of this exotic country, I was instantly intrigued. It appeared to be a country untouched by tourism and time...
MY BUCKET LIST DIVE IN VANUATU WWII remains at Million Dollar Point Photo: Bill Wiatrak The waves lashed against brown bits of twisted metal that were almost indistinguishable from the rocks. I could make out a wheel, an axle, possibly the remains of a truck… 80 years of salt water had smoothed most of the WW II military equipment dumped by the Americans into...
You’ve seen the shorts, heard mystical stories about the triangle, but maybe you’ve still gotten Bermuda confused with Barbuda, Bahamas or Barbados. It happens. Unlike the other islands that start with a “B”, the oldest British colony in the world isn’t in the Caribbean. It’s in the North Atlantic a short flight from New York and it’s a very unique place worth...
I’m not a huge sports fan. I love watching a live football game or a little baseball, but I’ve never been particularly connected to a certain team, so when my travels brought me to Arlington Texas, I had no horse in the race so to speak and could really appreciate the mega complex brewing in the that little city between Dallas and Fort Worth. Live by...
Jul 24, 2018 | houstonia-magazine, Travel | I’m going to Mongolia. In a couple of weeks I’m hopping on a plane to fly to LA at the crack of dawn and lingering for 12 hours in California before I catch a flight to Shanghai. A couple days later I’ll jump on the Maglev high speed train and travel 800 miles to...
How did I end up at the Hippie Church? I’m getting to that. I’m back again in Austin this weekend. In retrospect, I probably wasn’t weird enough to appreciate the city’s charms when I first visited decades ago, but repeated trips have made me realize what a Texas gem our capital city really is. Whenever I tell anyone overseas I’m from...
There’s few places in the world that rival Utah’s natural beauty. Copper-colored sandstone arches, jaw-dropping gorges and dramatic geological wonders make up a good portion of the lower half of the state. At the moment, I’m visiting my fifth and final park in The Beehive State”. “Wow” is really the best way I can describe these natural wonders. Each vast preserve...
I had read a lot of blogs about visiting West Africa before I left for my travels and almost every story had recurring themes: Transportation was difficult, border crossings laborious, bus rides were unpleasant and the police stops were annoying. I had allowed myself two weeks to go overland from the Ivory Coast to to Nigeria. An ambitious trip like this requires...
