Taking a hot air balloon ride over a magical foreign landscape is easily in most individuals top 5 travel dreams. If a thirst for unique travel experiences lives within you, it can most certainly be realized immediately after gazing over one of the world's most scenic vistas, in a mode...

Hotels come in myriad distinct flavors: Luxury or Budget, Modern or Rustic, Remarkable or Forgettable, Hot or Not. Assuming good value for one's money, travelers seek out those unique accommodations that, in a city like Cape Town, South Africa, rate as one of a kind. In Africa's "Mother City," the...

A good friend of mine once forced me to pull over alongside an enormous dune in Oman so he could leap from the car and run as fast as humanly possible up the sand slope. When he returned to the car after I'd collected the necessary blackmail photos of the event, he exclaimed with the largest of smiles, "I've always wanted to do that!"

What triggers our fascination with the desert? It's without a doubt one of the most inhospitable places you can venture to, yet desert safaris and dune adventuring are all the rage. Namibia, a country that's essentially an enormous desert, is one of the world's hottest new travel destinations, no pun intended.

I received dozens of postcards from desertscapes all over the world encouraging me to experience the pristine geometry, prismatic sunrises, unrivaled stargazing and comforting solitude for myself, and while filming 30 Postcards in Morocco the opportunity presented itself.

This episode of The 30 Postcards Project follows the recommendation of a postcard from Merzouga, Morocco. After driving to a remote village on the western edge of the Sahara, I hitched my wagon to a camel caravan and set off into the world's largest desert. And I too was able to experience the thrill of running into a wide expanse of dunes with total abandon. My friend was absolutely correct; it is something we all secretly long to...

If you're anything like myself, you prefer not to set foot in a foreign land without some sort of plan, an idea of what's possible and what's interesting.

I've received many "TOP 10" postcards during the last two years of The 30 Postcards Project and although a lot...

Israel can usually be found on the Top 10 travel wish-lists of most all serious adventurers, and for good reason. In a country no larger than New Jersey a treasure trove of one of kind activities await your discovery.

In the recent filming for The 30 Postcards...

Have you ever given some thought to how easily you can be removed from an airline flight, told to gather your belongings and leave the plane immediately because you've been deemed a "risk to the flight." It's easier than you might think for it to occur. Flight attendants have the...

Morocco is a country with everything you'll find in the more typical Mediterranean destinations of Europe with many African extras thrown in, and a price tag that's much more forgiving to strained wallets. I'm going to let you in on five of my top Moroccan favorites along with the hotels...

The Japanese Macaques of Nagano Prefecture have made quite a splash in recent years with appearances on the Discovery Channel's Mutant Planet and critically acclaimed mini-series: Life. What most travelers might not realize is that these fascinating creatures, the northernmost primates in the world aside from humans, can actually be...

In this episode of The 30 Postcards Project, I was able to spend a truly magical day with one of nature's most impressive creatures, an animal whose future is unfortunately in question.

It's estimated that there could be fewer than 3,000 Thai elephants left in the wild today, and unfortunately there are many disreputable organizations in Thailand exploiting captive elephants in order to guilt travelers and tourists into parting with their money.

The complete opposite is true of the Patara Elephant Farm just outside Chiang Mai, Thailand. Patara has constructed a unique and unforgettable program for visitors known as "Elephant Owner for a Day," a pairing of one traveler with one Thai elephant which gives you the opportunity to bond one on one with the world's largest land animal.

A visitor is responsible for learning all aspects of elephant care and management so that he/she can become an advocate for the cause of Thai elephants. In this episode you'll see that not only do you care for the elephant, but it also cares for you -- these animals have a form of empathy that must be experienced first hand.

Proceeds from Patara's Elephant Owner for a Day go directly back to the breeding management and future preservation of Thai Elephants, "to produce happy elephants to live on Earth," says Pat, the owner of Patara Elephant...

When I set out to take James up on his postcard suggestion to dive with great white sharks, I was certain it was an activity for hardcore adrenaline junkies. Heart racing, chest pounding and the world's scariest shark a mere few feet away; it was certain to be intense and...

Chances are you've never heard of Jurien Bay, Australia. Before receiving a postcard from the tiny coastal town, neither had I.

Located 140 miles north of Perth in Western Australia, Jurien Bay is known for its endless beaches, emerald green ocean waters and delicious rock lobster (crayfish if you're...

Some travelers savor every opportunity to try all manner of foreign cuisine on their adventures, no matter how unusual or outside their everyday experience the dish may be. Others cling to the universal choices of worldwide fast food chains like a lifeline to the familiar.

I'm in the former...

I can already sense the sneers and rolling eyebrows from the traveling naysayers when I express my admiration for Kansas, but I refuse to buy into any of that. While traveling this patch of North American for a segment of The 30 Postcards Project, Kansas Postcard in hand,...

A little over five years ago one of my closest friends asked me why I'd never learned to scuba dive before. I couldn't provide him with a good answer. I'd seen lots of travelers in every part of the world get really excited about the potential to spend a few...

I'm starting this piece with a full disclosure of my current state of mind: I'm angry, refusing to remain silent any longer! I'm not here to talk about gorgeous unspoiled beach hideaways or the new "must see" far-flung destination that should be on top of your travel radar (that'll be...

When I was younger, I always wondered why there were chapels built into airports. "You don't go to the airport to pray, you go to fly," I thought. As a seasoned traveler I now know exactly why it would be critically important to pray during the modern airport experience, something...

Is it possible to keep 'Paradise' a secret? Evidently not, since I'm writing about it in this post, and since tourists have starting flocking there by the thousands. This tiny little piece of the Philippines used to be an unknown hide-a-way for locals and people in-the-know. That was back in...

The world is currently gripped in a struggle to see who has the biggest Jesus Christ. This "tourist envy" battle began in the late 1920s with this famous Art Deco Jesus featured in this postcard from The 30 Postcards Project. It is of course the artistic and powerful...

In 2001 the Indian government changed the official name of one the world's largest cities from Calcutta (in the Eastern state of West Bengal) to Kolkata, as the city is known today. Calcutta had been the political capital of India during the initial stages of British occupation until 1911, and...

Over 3 billion postcards made their way through the U.S. Postal Service last year. That's a lot of Hi Mom! Wish you were here's, and it gives you an idea of how ingrained those little picture cards have become in the travel culture, in human culture. The idea behind a...