Sometimes I am a voyager in time. I do not need a hotel for this, or a bag that's full of miniature mouthwash and shampoo. Memory is a landscape I can run to fairly easily -- and since we are talking travel, I will admit it: I go and go.

It's like a cut that won't close. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and, in spite of the space between now and that November 1963 day, echoes of the shock and hurt remain. I'm still trying to make sense of this, but...

It is early morning in the MS Oosterdam's Vista Lounge. Passengers cluster. Curtains sway with the sea. I am awake, but thanks to the softness of the lounge's velour chair, I keep remembering sleep.

"You on the Kickin' Corfu tour?" asks a man with a backpack and an aluminum-and-rubber cane.

Heading somewhere far off means running smack into a spectrum of new sights, new sounds, new tastes. But along with these comes the inevitable oven-fresh batch of eye-rolling, mind-blowing, completely incomprehensible Mysteries of Travel.

For years, I've racked my brain trying to unravel puzzles like the ones just below. I've...

In my last blog, I raised a travel question that's been bugging me for years: What do tourists from abroad think of traveling here? Are they keen on American food? Are they comfy in our hotels? Do they think we're friendly? And, okay, time for the unvarnished truth:...

Someone very smart once said that, when you boil things down, the world has only two basic stories: "You go on a journey." Or: "A stranger comes to town."

We travel journalists and travel bloggers are forever writing and re-writing the first kind of story. We do it online...

The Rio Negro, I am told, is a river like any other.

This is Brazil, the jungle, so it keeps tropical fish. It's an air force base for brightly colored birds. And like the Amazon, which it empties into, it supports our boat.

But the Negro that I know...

It was the freeway leading to LAX that reminded me. Airports used to make you feel like an astronaut on your way to the moon. Drive here at dusk and you see columns rocketing up on both sides of your car, a flying-saucer bar and eerie, meteor greens that flash...

Ask a man who is dying what is precious, and he will tell you "time."

A city such as Paris or Buenos Aires doesn't seem any nearer death than, say, Detroit or Atlanta. So how come those who live there respect the hour, the month, the year -- the way...

Even if you haven't ever been to Vermont, you've got some Green Mountains in your mind. I know you do. There's that image of a town with candles in windows. There are those trees tapped for sugaring. And there's that swirling nighttime snow.

Up-north country store images pop to mind...

We frequent flyers and veterans of coach are pretty tough to impress. We've earned our stripes. We've taken lump after onboard lump. Our rumps are hardened; our knees are knobbly; our digestion shot.

Got an "industry-changing" hot-off-the-line new jet? Sorry. We're gonna wait and see -- wait for its inevitable...

Travel is supposed to spread out a fandex of beautiful destinations. You arrive somewhere far off, you do your best to take in the sights there and soon you are ready to flip to the next card. The airplane flights that do the grunt work of your trip, that allow...

I am told there may be jaguars in this jungle and I'm keeping an eye out.

This is Panama, the capital of summer hats and slow-moving air. We explorers are trying to keep feet out of mud, mighty ant mounds and trap-like knots of vines. We get buzz-bombed by flies,...

Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Thoreau. Some green tea? An organic protein bar? Given the demands of your cabin and garden, we're grateful you've agreed to test out the prototype of PodPad -- the exciting new Internet platform, phone, writing slate, security camera, and baby monitor. All in one.

HDT:...

I don't enjoy good luck with ships. I happen to love being at sea maybe more than anything. But when I'm on board, a cruise ship is in a zone of danger, whether the Captain knows this or not.

One North Atlantic crossing I took, the ship caught on fire....

The Internet is, as far as I can tell, a nearly infinite universe of things I do not want to know. I can usually ignore the boasts, the shards of opinion, the superfluous stuff that swirls around on my laptop. But there's one online fact that simply sticks in my...

If you are like me, your best shot at end-of-a-hard-day escape isn't TV. It's a book.

Fiction, in particular, is what you run to when you're up to your ears in what's thought of as "real life." It's where you go to wander around in a very different world...

It is July, a few summers back, at Paramount's Kings Dominion theme park near Richmond, Va. And as Patrick the Starfish, SpongeBob SquarePants' best cartoon friend, I am the goofy hero of the afternoon.

Kids are lining up to shake my pink fleece flippers and -- hey,...

Let's get it out on the table, right up front. I am a guy, and not apologetic about this. I'm a person with a paunch, with bristly whiskers that my wife wants shaved (I won't), and a tendency to talk about myself. A lot. And I can be loud.