How do you approach a polar bear? I confess, it’s not a question I spent time contemplating until I began exploring my options for a polar bear expedition. Canada’s Churchill in northern Manitoba, otherwise known as the polar bear capital of the world and possibly...
It all started with a polar bear just outside the compound fence. It was a large male; close enough for me to see snow piled on its nose, but only when it peeked around the assortment of steel drums between us. I was clearly on...
For an entire week of travel in Africa, we had heard nothing other than how the wildebeest migration wasn’t happening. Rains had come to the south, grasses were dry in the north, and prescribed burns in Tanzania were said to be dissuading these famed antelope...
It started as a rustle in the carpet of dried leaves, a distant whisper in Rwanda’s foothills barely audible above the squeaks of towering bamboo as woody neighbors rubbed against one another in an unsynchronized symphony. One of our guides paused, staring intently into the...
It was my second day gorilla trekking in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and I thought I knew the gig. My first hike, in the medium difficulty category, had been an easy stroll through bamboo and montane forest into an open glade where our assigned gorilla...
On land the town of Steinhatchee offers visitors little more than a food mart, gas station, and a smoked mullet stand, but on the river things are different. Marinas are well-equipped, the public boat ramp runs like clockwork and every accommodation is booked from June...
I wanted to visit Dry Tortugas National Park long before I understood what or where it was. It sounded exciting - a tropical island far removed from the rest of the Florida Keys and an oasis for marine and bird life. It sounded like my...
An olive branch decorated in cheeses and sweets for Palm Sunday in Positano, Italy. Olive branches on Palm Sunday? I was intrigued by the concept even before I discovered that the branches were to be festooned in small salamis, miniature cheeses, and occasionally a fresh fish....
Our goal was to see 100 bird species in and around Everglades National Park by the end of the day - The Fifth Everglades Century Day by a core team of Floridians and Marylanders. We’d succeeded on our last venture, eking out a couple of...
My first post-Hurricane Irma trip to the Keys was in early December. There were still a few signs of the storm in Miami - walls crumbled by giant trees whose roots had gathered the surrounding earth and raised it to the sky in their sinking;...