In general, my advice is to seek out people and new ideas when you travel.

To travel best requires some time preparing for your visit to a particular location - that you don't travel anywhere without spending a few nights reading about the culture and history of the place you are visiting. This is what most of us don't do - we fling ourselves on an exotic destination hoping that someone will tell us what we are looking at, but by that time it's too late, and all the lectures and tour guides simply add to our confusion.

In general, my advice is to seek out people and new ideas when you travel.

Once abroad, I eat one meal a day picnic-style: Ive learned that no mature stomach can tolerate an endless routine of rich restaurant meals.

At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to rethink our assumptions, shake us a bit, make us broader minded and more understanding.

I'm somewhat antagonistic towards these various projects that charge $250,000 per person for the ability to be weightless for 3 minutes after being brought up from earth. I think there are such better uses for that money that i seriously question the ethics of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on space flights for extremely wealthy people.

What a treasure of awesome sights and attractions our country has.