The super jumbo A380 to Paris on the evening/morning of December 31/January 1, semi-empty, as we hoped. A second (much smaller) plane, to Nice. Pick up a car at the airport. Drive for 90 minutes to the little apartment with the fine view of the Mediterranean. Had we thought it through we would have expected […]

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We are at Los Angeles International airport, headed for France. Flying on New Year’s Eve may seem a little anti-social, but December 31 also has a reputation as one of the least expensive days to fly. And here we are.

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The San Clemente Pier reaches 1,296 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The concrete benches along each side of the pier’s length have messages written on them, with text provided by the people who donated that bench to the city. One of them reads: “Welcome to paradise.” That would seem presumptuous, nearly anywhere else in the […]

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A few cultural concepts don’t travel well outside the United States. Barbecue. “American” football. Country-and-western music. Pie. Pie doesn’t seem that difficult, does it? A fruit filling. A flaky pastry crust. A glazed top-crust. A pie tin. But it just doesn’t seem to work out, most of the time, if you are outside the borders […]

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This is a weird and memorable flight. I now have done it twice, once in coach and once in business. But we did encounter one apparent change, between the first journey on EY171 (last summer) and the second (yesterday) — the route became something that stretches our understanding of the planet. There it is, above, […]

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Muscat is one of those names that seems to say “exotic city”. A place quite unlike Main Street USA. The name does not quite reach the level of Timbuktu or Samarkand, in terms of connoting images of Old World trade, and caravans and spices, but it’s not just another town with a souq. It did […]

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On the map, driving to Muscat looks straightforward. Get from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain, cross over into Oman, go through the Oman “border” post about 30 clicks inside the country … and make a right turn at Sohar. Eventually Muscat; can’t miss it. “On the map”, however, gave us no indication of possible delays […]

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Everyone who does a road trip of any significance knows … if at all possible, you want to return by a route different than the one you took for the first half. Not a lot longer, but a little longer is OK … because you don’t want to see the same stuff twice. Obviously. What […]

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(Above, the sunrise in Fujairah, over the Indian Ocean.) This is a pretty easy question to answer. If you live in the UAE and prefer to stay in-country for vacation … but want something not at all like home … where do you go? Fujairah. This is the emirate unlike the other six.

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Six years here, and we had not seen all seven of the emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. Which was a wasted opportunity. Because the UAE encompasses only 32,278 square miles (a little smaller than Maine, a bit bigger than South Carolina, which are 39th and 40th among the 50 U.S. states) we […]

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