Travel is intensified living … and one of the last great sources of legal adventure.

By day, Venice is a city of museums and churches, packed with great art. Linger over lunch, trying to crack a crustacean with weird legs and antennae. At night, when the hordes of day-trippers have gone, another Venice appears. Dance across a floodlit square. Glide in a gondola through quiet canals while music echoes across the water. Pretend it's Carnevale time, don a mask - or just a fresh shirt - and become someone else for a night.

I have a New Year's tradition. I lay all my travel dreams on the table, sort them out, prioritize, and begin the process of turning those dreams into reality.

I would like travelers, especially American travelers, to travel in a way that broadens their perspective.

It's just in Washington we're talking about equal rights for gay people, civil liberty to smoke marijuana, taking care of the environment, and it's all just decency and common sense and patriotism. And in other parts of the country that would be, like, inconceivable.

As a traveler, I've often found that the more a culture differs from my own, the more I am struck by its essential humanity.

It's going to have to come to a point where politicians in their own political self-interest think it's safe and advantageous to come out on the side of drug law reform. Right now, they don't care about drug safety. They just care about their standing with the electorate.