When young Anne McGilvery refused a marriage being forced on her, she was kicked out of the family home on the fair Isle of Mull and sailed for Canada to work as a nanny. After a decade, the itch returned and she was once again high-tailing it – this time aboard a west-bound train, where…

For most people, taking a break from normal life means going somewhere different, away from the usual people and foods and ways of meandering through life. In our inverted reality, it means returning to the land and people we’re usually away from. After the mountain-top dragons of Vietnam and the Komodo Dragons of Indonesia, what…

At 2:00 Thursday afternoon we walk barefoot across the sun-sparkled sands of Le Pirate Island. It’s going to take a healthy tolerance for bland movies and a clever credit card hack to survive this upcoming 34 hours door-to-door odyssey to Chicago (well, doorless beachfront Indonesian cabana to door-full seniors’ residence in Chicago north suburbs). First…

It was never my intention to see a Komodo Dragon, let alone a 3-day “liveaboard” boat tour followed by a deserted tropical island. Heck I didn’t even know they were around until a random Balinese batik-shirt salesman invited us to “come to my island.” Four hours later we traded plans to end our Asia trip…

A month in Ubud has given us a delightful case of Bali brain. Relaxed, rhythmic, flowing. There’s a long Typical Tourist list of retreats and temples and waterfalls that we never bother to visit, opting instead for a life of good food, workouts, swims, easy outings. We work out at our fancy gym every day.…

Sarah’s left me for a solo 2-night work retreat, so I go to my happy place – wandering. Ubud is like a giant Edward Scissorshands hand with parallel fingers shooting up North and South out of the town, each separated by deep river canyons. I’ve already travelled down our finger to town several times, so…

Our little baby done grow’d up and graduated. With a B.A. in city planning and urban design from Haverford College, and now a summer internship with the City of Philadelphia’s bike-share program, he’s well on his way to realizing his incredible potential. But thanks to a clever 3+2 partnership with UPenn, he’s also already halfway…

I’m not hallucinating – not quite – but in this steamy 180 degrees Russian “Banya,” memories of old friends I’ve shared saunas with are blurring my eyes as much as the sweat pouring off my forehead. We’ve lucked out on an Aufgussing ceremony at our fancy gym/spa here in Ubud, Bali. In preparation, the leader…

Our host mother sits against the wall of the open-air living space in the middle of the compound. Legs straight on the floor, bamboo and flowers and leaves at the ready, she cuts and staples a different type of offering every morning. A set of several dozen each day that will be placed on the…

At age 22 I backpacked around the world for 18 months on $7,000. A key to doing this was thinking in local currency – a fancy dessert might sound cheap at $2, but an inexcusable excess at 1,000 Costa Rican colones. Ordering in a restaurant was easy because I always chose whatever’s cheapest (no drinks…