Meg Pier

After paying our admission to Montezuma Castle National Monument, Mom said "I don't know how far or fast I'll go, so you go ahead." I was both peeved at her lack of enthusiasm for seeing the historic marvel and secretly relieved at being able to wander.

I left her...

Throngs of people milled about to the strains of rousing music blaring through loudspeakers, and the atmosphere pulsated with anticipation. Bright-eyed toddlers sat atop their fathers' shoulders; gray-haired women leaned on their elbows at open windows and extended families filled wrought-iron balconies. Teenage boys...

In the golden glow of late afternoon light, the six women filed through an aged, arched wall and toward a wooded area behind the church. I followed at a distance, admiring their exotic costumes and intrigued by their purpose. They reached a grove of aspens, evergreens and birch, through which...

I got hygge in Skagen. Admittedly, my resistance was low. I was vulnerable, susceptible to it. I was jet-lagged and traveling alone, carrying the baggage of flying solo on a trip I had planned to make with my mother, who had subsequently been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was unable...

My husband Tom and I sat in the running van, straddling the border between Belize and Guatemala, waiting for our guide George to complete the paperwork in the concrete immigration building. As he jumped in and shifted gears, George warned us it...

On a misty morning last summer, in a French village with the motto Sempre endavant, mai morirem or "Always forward, we'll never die," I found myself in an ancient cemetery.

In an unusual burst of early morning ambition, I had...

I swerved off the road, slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car, sending dust flying up from the desert floor. Squinting in the hard sun, I stood transfixed by the horizon, where a yin-yang performance of earth and sky played out. Against the backdrop of a cornflower-blue...

If seen from the seat of an airplane, Malta's outline resembles that of a fish, and Marsaxlokk Bay is at its "mouth." Home to about 70% of the Maltese fishing fleet, the harbor is...

Lisa and I pulled off Highway A 92 at the foothills of Spain's snow-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains and headed east on a rural route into a sparse and unforgiving landscape. Within just a few kilometers, we saw signs emblazoned with "