Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s a city full of music, but don’t worry about ordering concert tickets in advance. Prague has concert venues like New York City has Starbucks — on every other corner and ready to welcome you.

Click here to read the full story on the Huffington Post.

Ties between France and Turkey are unraveling after the French National Assembly passed a bill making it a crime to deny the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, known as the Armenian Genocide.

Click here to read the story on ABC News, which includes interviews with Mark Geragos and Peter Balakian.

After a long day in Pucón, Chile — exploring the region’s rainforest, fly-fishing its rivers or hiking its smoking volcano before skiing down it — nothing is more relaxing than cozying up in front of a fire at the Hotel Antumalal.

Click here to read the story and view the slideshow on the Huffington Post.

“What should I say, Pilar?” José Saramago, the Portuguese writer, asked his wife, when asked to give a Christmas greeting during a television interview.

“That Christmas should last all year,” Pilar del Rio replied, always knowing what to say when the Nobel Laureate couldn’t find the right words.

“But I hate Christmas. How can I say that?”

Click here to read the full story on the Huffington Post.

When I told my parents I was going to Egypt, they freaked out. My dad, who was sure I’d come home in a body bag, threatened to steal my passport. Such are the views of a conservative father with only one daughter. Even when that daughter is 24 years old.

I made it to Cairo, one week after the attack on the Israeli embassy there, and while I wasn’t afraid of violence, I was worried — well, curious — about being a woman in Egypt, not to mention an American one. I looked for information on what to wear and watch out for as a female tourist in Egypt, but couldn’t find a comprehensive guide. So, ladies, here’s what you need to know.

Click here to read the full story on the Huffington Post.

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile may be one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

“You would have to be mad to live here,” said Fiona Martin of the Tierra Atacama, a hotel in the area. Climatologists call it the driest place in the world, and some areas have not seen rainfall in recorded history. But the sights the region has to offer more than make up for having chapped lips and dry skin.

Click here to read the full article in the National.

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees,” wrote the Noble Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in his poem “Every Day You Play.” Cherry trees are in bloom for a week or two at most. They come and go so quickly that if you’re not careful, you might miss them. Neruda was like that. An ardent lover of women, he had three wives and countless flames. And he came and went from Chile so often that many thought of him as a nomad before a Chilean.

Click here to read the full article on the Huffington Post.

My first job out of college was writing a travel column for an American newspaper as I backpacked through Southeast Asia, China, and Korea. I took my assignment seriously and wanted to write once a week, taking time to edit each piece.  But the newspaper had a different plan for me. When a week passed after my first entry and I told my editor I was still editing my second, he patiently advised, “Olivia, this is a blog. We would rather you write less well and more often.” I was reminded of a shrill late-night television commercial for used cars or cheap electronics — “How do we do it? Volume, volume, volume!”

Click here to read the story on the Huffington Post, or join the debate at PolicyMic.

Featured at the top of the Drudge Report and on the front page of the Huffington Post!

Click here to read the story on ABC News.

When Maw Keh was 34 years old, he asked the question so many of us ask ourselves: What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

A lieutenant for the Karen National Union (KNU), a rebel group in Burma, Keh had his leg blown off by a landmine while rushing a Burmese Army camp in 1986. He had been fighting the Burmese for 11 years. The Karen, an ethnic minority living in Burma’s much-contested Karen State along the Thai border, have been fighting for their independence from the Burmese government, a military dictatorship, for over 60 years.

Click here to read the full article on the Huffington Post.