The Practical Nomad

Moscow (Russia)
The travellers on The Amazing Race 13 continued to struggle this week, making mistakes and showing a surprising lack of basic travel skills for teams that made it to the penultimate...

KCBS called today to ask about whether the decline in the economy has made bargain airfares available for holiday travel -- and if so, how to find them. For my answers, you can download the mp3 pod...

Almaty (Kazakhstan) - Moscow (Russia) - Zhukovsky (Russia) - Moscow (Russia)
Travel continues to have many common features throughout the countries that once constituted the "Soviet Union". Dual pr...

(I was on an Amtrak train to Los Angeles during this week's brooadcast, en route to the PhoCusWright conference and Travel Bloggers' Summit . Watch this space for my column on the race to be posted...

I've been getting too many questions to answer individually about the regulations issued last week for the so-called Secure Flight program to require ID and permision for air travel in the USA: Wha...

Delhi (India)
Why do so many foreign visitors have such extreme reactions to India?
Some visitors stay in India for months at a time, and return again and again. At the same time, I suspect that mo...

Sodomy and gratitude
Nine perfect ways to prepare for the End of Bush. Can you believe it?
by Mark Morford, SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle) columnist, 17 October 2008
1) Make new travel plans....

Angkor Wat (Cambodia) - Delhi (India)
This week The Amazing Race 13 went to India once again. In Delhi, they encounter, the "dhobi", long an object of curiosity and sometimes amusement for tourists...

Exit Strategy: Why You Need a Real Vacation
(by Holly Morris, "National Geographic Adventure", November 2008):
Q. I’ve been at a desk job for eight years and need a change. I want to break away ...

Te Puke (New Zealand) - Siem Reap (Cambodia) - Angkor Wat (Cambodia)
Should The Amazing Race 13 have gone to Cambodia? And should they have sent the racers to search the vast Angkor Wat complex for...