Travel With Reason

Following is a tale of the wildest business trip ever, wherein your intrepid reporter tries freshly slaughtered goat, battles rude monkeys, conducts a formal presentation to his clients in remotest Africa, participates in a tribal hootenanny, boils an egg in hot springs, and visits the client’s mama in the bush! Most links will take you [...]

Only after booking a five-week trip abroad for business (and a little vacation) did I realize I was going to miss my mother’s birthday, April 22. A milestone. Turning 70. Yikes! What to do? How to arrange something special from halfway around the world? For some occasions, ordering FTD just doesn’t cut it. I put [...]

If you are like me, you easily confuse the names of cities in Kenya with planets in the Star Wars© universe, resulting in awkwardness in many social situations and political or sci-fi movie discussions. Eldoret? Kamino? Trans-Nzoia? Who can tell them apart? In addition, it’s quite easy to mistake Star Wars© characters with personalities from [...]

The captain of our hot-air balloon reassuringly announces he is professionally trained and has hundreds of flights under his belt. I’m just hoping he’s not the driver of an Egyptian cab on his days off. I’m surprised the basket of a balloon can (more or less comfortably) hold 20 passengers and several crew. The views [...]

My friend Cathy remarked, when I said I had booked a last-minute Nile River cruise: “I’ve always wanted to do that, but the tour boats always look like refitted barges.” Which is sort of true, they all seem squatty and workmanlike. I guess the Nile isn’t deep enough to handle traditional cruise ships, so you [...]

For better or worse, the American abroad is often called on to be an ambassador of sorts, sometimes called on to represent our entire diverse nation. (Which reminds me: I should probably get better shoes.) People are curious, concerned, fascinated with the role of Americans in the world, and in our own country. Here are [...]

In advance of a last-minute trip to Cairo, partly to see the Great Pyramids and Sphinx, a number of people – including the chairman of the company I’m consulting with in Kenya, suggested: “Make sure you ride one of the camels, to the base of the Pyramids! It’s not to be missed!” Seemed to me [...]

Destination: Giraffe Sanctuary, Nairobi, Kenya, Africa Why: My mind was reeling from spending the previous day touring the Kibera slum (see previous blog entry), so I decided to relax a bit and take a shorter excursion, and just play tourist and have a driver take me to the Giraffe Sanctuary which turned out to be [...]