Have you ever read a memoir that you couldn't put down? They are rare, but I've found one: A World Erased: A Grandson's Search for His Family's Holocaust Secrets. Author Noah Lederman (we've shared his book, Traveling the Cambodian Genocide, here) delves into his family's past - both in the United States, and at different concentration camps and towns in Europe.

Israel has much to offer curious visitors - from sacred and holy churches to buoyant city landscapes, there is a plethora of things that will intrigue and satisfy. 

Tel Aviv is one of the many cities in Israel that will amaze you. It’s more than just the country’s financial center and technology hub. It has so much more to offer. The annual MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index once ranked the city as fifth among all the visited cities of the Middle East and Africa in 2012. 

Would you like to know more about Florence than many Florentines?

Allow me to share with you my second installation of The Secrets of Florence.

For the first time, the original Magdala Stone will be exhibited at St. Peter’s Square and in the Great Synagogue of Rome. 

Motown the Musical is a thrilling story that takes place throughout the history of one of the greatest record labels in history. Motown Records was responsible for countless hits, innumerable cultural influences, and was an important avenue for social activism and black culture. 

The Via Francigena (fran-CHEE-jee-nah) is a pilgrimage route from the Middle Ages that starts in England and crosses France and Switzerland before entering Italy at the Gran San Bernardo Pass. Less known than the Spanish pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena was revived in the 1990s and is becoming more traversed each year. 

In 2009, after a divorce and a traumatic illness, I undertook a solo pilgrimage on the Via Francigena, inspired by a desire to purge emotional demons and achieve more of a heart-mind-body connection. 

Our friend Lisa Morrow, a long term resident of Istanbul, used VoiceMap to create an audio tour of Kadikoy, tracing back though the history of this once multicultural neighbourhood on the Asian side of the city. Kadiköy is where she regularly shops, walks, and socialises, so researching and writing about its forgotten secrets in order to produce a tour sharing her discoveries was an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

The weather gods sent us a flawless day to wander San Francisco. Bob and I targeted the historic Ferry Building to enjoy the sun and warm, and indulge a bit of browsing.  It’s a destination easily combined with a trip to Alcatraz, Sausalito, or Fisherman’s Wharf.

If I were to dance these words, I would dance the drops of rain falling on parched earth. 

If history, tradition, and whales are your thing, New Bedford is an ultimate travel destination! This town was the East Coast’s principal whaling harbor from the 1800‘s until the very end of the industrial whaling industry in America, and remains one of the primary fishing towns in the U.S.