I don't want to go and start trying to make jokes in places like India, Tanzania or Iraq. Afghanistan is not a funny place.

There seemed to be a mystifying universal conspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayed too near the realm of the mildly interesting and was always at least a long-distance phone call from the frankly interesting.

A significant fraction of thru-hikers reach Katahdin, then turn around and start back to Georgia. They just can't stop walking, which kind of makes you wonder.

A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing world.

Yes, U.S. travelers dress better. The British are always so conspicuous in hot climates. They don't seem to wear shorts. American men seem to be comfortable wearing hot-weather clothing.

You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.