The scenes from Minneapolis have been reminding me of the first weeks of martial law in Warsaw in December 1981: the snow, the cold, the armed militia, the bundled-up protesters. The difference is that Polish soldiers didn’t shoot their fellow citizens.

The excellent Travel Memoir Review celebrates books old and new. I recently wrote an appreciation of Etchings in an Hourglass by Kate Simon. travelmemoir.review/2026/01/22/etchings-in-an-hourglass-book-review

Two years ago this week my memoir Falling into Place appeared. But the read-by date hasn’t passed.

I was rooting for the Blue Jays because I thought it would be fitting for Canada to have the World Series trophy while Florida has the Stanley Cup.

There is no better illustration of the disdain editors have for travel writing than the appearance in the New York Times Magazine’s special Voyages issue of a story about a three-day retreat in an all-dark room.

Not sure why the City of Miami thinks it needs a lot of land for this.

At The Lynx bookstore in Gainesville.

A quick reminder that I’ll be speaking this Wednesday at 7 pm at the Kosciuszko Foundation in NYC.

I’m going to be speaking about my memoir “Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer” at the Kosciuszko Foundation in NYC on Sept. 24 at 7 pm.

My celebration of The Great Railway Bazaar - published 50 years ago - is also an examination of travel writing over the last 75 years. theamericanscholar.org/the-great-am...

Congregation Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery in Montreal.

Here in Quebec, it looks as if Trump is meeting with French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds.

I’ve been adamant that AI will never replace travel writers, but then I read this sentence from the Tribune News Service in today’s Miami Herald: “I visited some churches and cathedrals, of which Portugal has many.”

Six years ago I wrote about the problem of overtourism - and suggested a solution: lithub.com/standing-roo...

One of the obits for Tom Lehrer, who died this weekend at age 97, described him as “popular and erudite,” making him perhaps the last person to be depicted with those two adjectives.

Seeking relief from the heat? My memoir will transport you to winter in northern Greece; Providence, Rhode Island; and - most chillingly - Warsaw, Poland.

Went to see the Panthers lift the Stanley Cup at the Elbo Room and on the drive home, listening to an oldies station, heard Connie Francis singing “Where the Boys Are.”

The Herald’s story on Broward dining focused on upscale restaurants, omitting the ethnic. In The American Scholar (Winter 2024) I wrote: “Miamians were famous for never crossing the county line, but foodies drove north for our Korean and Vietnamese restaurants.” theamericanscholar.org/florida-man/

Watching the French Open this weekend I thought it fitting that the windy women’s final ended on an unforced error while the five-and-a-half-hour men’s final ended with a winner.

Habemus papam. There is something beautifully subversive about putting on the world stage right now a compassionate, multilingual American.

Cleveland friends: I’ll be speaking tomorrow (Apr. 26) at Appletree Books on Cedar Road at 2 pm.

Buffalo friends: I’m coming to town for Dyngus Day and, two days later, a talk at the Julia Boyer Reinstein Library in Cheektowaga (April 23 at 7 pm).

I hope Rick Steves’ new special about Poland will spark interest in what he justifiably calls “perhaps Europe’s most underrated and surprising country.” But I would, wouldn’t I?

Rally in Support of Ukraine (West Palm Beach, FL).

From the Rally in Support of Ukraine, held Sunday in West Palm Beach. It is a pastiche of the 1979 photo of Leonid Brezhnev greeting Erich Honecker. The photo was later immortalized by a painting on the Berlin Wall that carried the caption: “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love.”

I’m delighted by the Eagles’ victory in the Super Bowl but unfortunately now they’re going to be invited to the White House.

In his most recent Elliott Report, Christopher Elliott offers suggestions on how to become a more agreeable tourist - and includes one of mine.

One of my first drawings, done in 1979, shows Jimmy Carter sitting with a few other notables at a Greek taverna (from Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer).