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.

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.

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.

If you can get conservatives to sit down for 20 minutes and listen to you on drug policy reform you might have a good chance to - if not convert them - at least respect your opinion.

Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colors.

I think that people don't realize that the sky will not fall when we legalize marijuana. My contention all along has been use will not go up when it's legalized. We'll just take the crime out of it. It's already a huge black market economy.

If you don't like a place, maybe you don't know enough about it... Give a culture the benefit of your open mind.