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Undocumented, and Riding Shotgun
Up until my early 20s, I rode shotgun. With my high school and college sweetheart, I flipped through the soft sleeves of our shared CD binder in search of the right music. I double-checked our...
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On Route 66, a Gas Station Is History Worth Saving
In 1964, my parents packed up our old Ford and took my brother and me on a cross-country trip from San Diego to Washington, D.C. and back. Part of our trip was along the famed Route 66. Even though I...
View ArticleIn Praise of Plain Old Truck-Stop Coffee
One June morning years ago, during a cross-country bike trip, my brothers, a couple of friends, and I sat in a diner in Sandpoint, Idaho, waiting for a drizzle to pass, eating eggs and drinking coffee....
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Chasing Holocaust Ghosts Down Route 66
When I was 9 my father, Jacob, uprooted me from my magical boyhood in Detroit to chase ghosts down historic Route 66. We were bound for L.A. Like Dust Bowl Okies, the entire family—my parents, two...
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When Rest Stops Were America’s Best Roadside Attractions
A picnic table shadowed by an enormous teepee; a covered structure in the middle of a vast red desert; a shady spot under the cover of a gigantic wagon wheel. These places once teemed with traveling...
View ArticleThe Fountain of My Youth
On the way to a new life in la Florida we made a stop in Saint Augustine oldest city in our America A side trip to visit la Fortaleza de San Marcos the striped lighthouse cobblestoned plaza and of...
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Is America Still the Home of the Brave?
On January 14, 2015, the world waited with bated breath as Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson came over the rim of a notoriously steep section of the rock known as El Capitan, the largest single block...
View ArticleThere Was That
This canal wasn’t grand but that didn’t stop you from photographing it for this was Venice, this was Italy, Europe, your first time, your honeymoon, a freight of meaningfulness, like a swing set...
View ArticleWant to Drive California’s Most Terrifying Highways?
Do you seek beauty and danger in California, but are unsure in which direction you can find it? West. Just drive west. Or east. California is sturdily and reliably connected from north to south by...
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How Living Abroad Brought Me Closer to Home
In the summer of 1997, days after my 20th birthday, I was making my first international trip alone. I was going to Kuala Lumpur for the summer to intern at a men’s lifestyle magazine that published in...
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Bogotá, My Home Away From Home
After finishing seventh grade, I found myself at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, where my mother put me on a plane headed to Bogotá, Colombia. It wasn’t as crazy as it might sound. I was...
View ArticleThe Purpose of Traveling
I hop on planes a lot because life is hard. I don’t mean that I jet off to Cancun or Bermuda to recuperate from the burdens of the daily grind. What I mean is that I often go to far-off places that can...
View ArticleLonging for L.A.
I ran away from home at 14 years old. I didn’t grab a backpack and go sleep at a friend’s. I didn’t steal away in the middle of the night. Rather, I convinced my stunned parents to send me to Spain to...
View ArticleÉcoutez Bien, Américains! Don’t Expect Paris to Make You More Sophisticated
I hate Paris. That’s what I was thinking a few mornings ago while I was brooding over a café au lait at a hipster joint near the Canal Saint-Martin. The coffee was perfectly roasted. The steamed milk...
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Manifest Destiny, That Atrocious Ideal
On the outskirts of Tularosa, New Mexico, I drove among sacred mountains. It was three days before Christmas, 2014, and it was over 70 degrees. With the A/C cranked, I passed the cookfires of...
View ArticleWhy I Won’t Stop Flying EgyptAir
“Yalla, go!” ordered an Egyptian girl behind me, pushing me into the security line mob. Just 20 minutes before departure, the gate for a direct TunisAir flight from Cairo to Tunis opened, setting off a...
View ArticleWhy We All Need to Leave the Country After This Election
Now that the election is over, are you leaving the country? If not, you ought to reconsider.I’m not kidding. Yes, a handful of our fellow Californians—prominent citizens from Samuel L. Jackson and...
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How the Passport Became an Improbable Symbol of American Identity
It was originally a European tradition, not ours. But in 1780, needing a more formal way to send former Continental Congressman Francis Dana from France to Holland, Benjamin Franklin used his own...
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Too Many Airline Passengers and Too Few Seats? Let’s Start the Bidding!
Last month, consumers around the world were disturbed by video showing a passenger being dragged off United Flight 3411 by at least three security guards.I don’t need to add my opinion to the millions...
View ArticleIf Californians Won’t Ride Trains, How Come Our Family’s Amtrak Trip Was Mobbed?
If any of the conventional wisdom about trains in California is true—that no one ever rides them, that Californians prefer to drive or fly, and that high-speed rail or other train projects are...
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