Category Archives: Uncategorized

White lights and blue streamers hang across narrow, serpentine streets in Alfama, the old quarter of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Couples dance on cobblestone to Fado music. People empty pitchers of red sangria and drink sour cherry liqueur out of edible chocolate shot glasses. Sardines blacken over charcoal, waiting to be enveloped in bread and devoured by the Portuguese who love the salty taste. Dancers in pink parade down Avenida da Liberdade.

This is the Santo Antonio Festival, held every year on the eve of June 13. The first of several saints days celebrated in Portugal, it marks the beginning of the city’s many summer festivities.

Click here to view the photos on the Huffington Post.

An old port of call nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Bocaina Mountain Range, Paraty is the kind of place where you could write your memoirs, lying in a hammock overlooking a waterfront dotted with wooden fishing boats in bold greens, blues and oranges.

Click here to read the article on the Huffington Post.

 Haroon Hamdard edged toward a suspected explosive device lying in a field in western Afghanistan. His job as a demining worker was to identify such devices and figure out how to render them harmless. But the young worker stumbled. His foot hit a rock that tumbled forward and detonated a small bomb.

Click here to read the dispatch on the Christian Science Monitor.

Secretly crossing the Thailand-Myanmar border, sneaking past military checkpoints and landmines, is not something most people would call a vacation. But Dr. Pierre-Louise Olland and Serge Israel make the trip whenever they have time off work.

Click here to read the story on the Huffington Post, with photographs by Arthur Nazaryan.

A future-focused cultural district made up of four museums and a performing arts center will be built on a manmade island off the coast of Abu Dhabi by 2017.

Click here to read my first dispatch for the Christian Science Monitor!

The beat of the samba drum spread through the streets and beaches of Rio like a disease, infecting all those who flocked to this city for the festivities with the spirit of Carnival. Wings made of brightly-colored feathers glittered on the backs of women wearing little more than jeweled bikinis. Bronze men in lipstick and coconut bras downed cans of ice-cold beer, called cerveja. Tourists looked on in amazement, stunned to see the biggest street party in the world sprawled out in front of them.

Click here to see the photos on the Huffington Post.

If you’re looking for an adventure through largely unknown territory, Nagorno Karabakh, a landlocked autonomous region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, is the place to go.

Click here to read the article on the Huffington Post.

The Volvo Ocean Race, a yacht race around the world, began in Alicante, Spain in October, stopped in Cape Town, South Africa and was redirected to a secret port due to potential pirate attacks in the Straight of Hormuz. The six participating boats raced into Abu Dhabi, and embarked Saturday for Sanya, China.

Click here to view the slideshow on the Huffington Post.

If you’ve been to Paris, London and Florence and are ready for an adventure, check out one of these top destinations. Go horseback riding through the Atacama Desert, slide down a waterfall in Laos, swim through underwater caves off the coast of Thailand or hike through the mountains of Nagorno Karabakh. From the desert to the jungle to a conflict zone, there’s something here for everyone.

Click here to read the story on ABC News.