For the first hour after I arrived in Skagway, I couldn't stop thinking about Boomtown.

As a young kid in Saskatoon I made a few visits to the Western Development Museum, and Boomtown was far and away my favourite exhibit. Consisting, as I recall it, of a reconstructed main street in a faux-frontier...

That needs to be said right off the bat. Nobody's on a weekend jaunt, here. On my first afternoon after landing, I flop in the hostel common room and ask the British man on the couch across from me what's he's up to. Turns out, he's just hitchhiked up from Vancouver, road-tripped the Top of the World...

It's been a catching-my-balance couple of weeks here in Ontario. I'm back at my folks' place outside Kingston again, crash-landing between trips as I've done on and off throughout the year since I gave up my apartment, and the tasks and the vibe are familiar. There are errands to be done -- the pharmacy,...

I've spent days trying to peg Saint Lucia, to fit it into the incomplete jigsaw puzzle that is what I've seen of the world so far, but the island stubbornly refuses to be defined.

It is less British, by far, than Barbados, its Commonwealth neighbor -- nicknamed "Little England" -- a half-hour flight east....

The first boat was a ferry: big, workmanlike, painted bright orange and green with rust showing through. It was already rumbling away from the dock when I arrived by taxi at the Kingstown shipping terminal in Saint Vincent. "Hurry, hurry!" my cabbie shouted as I hustled down the pier. "Come on!" the...

Dear Sir:

I am so glad to hear that you're enjoying your Caribbean vacation -- however, I have one small complaint. Is it really necessary to shout "FUCK ME! FUCK ME!" at the top of your lungs when whoever you are speaking to is quite clearly already fucking you?

Don't get me wrong: as I said, I'm...

I'm on the phone with a mid-range, mid-size, non-branded resort in Saint Lucia's busiest corner, Rodney Bay.

"Hi, I'd like to make a reservation?" I say to the woman on the line. "Really?" She replies. "Have you stayed with us before?"

"No -" I start to answer, and she cuts me off with an "Omigosh!...

The old lady in the blue parka starts talking almost before I set down my bag behind her. "You know," she says, like she's sharing something confidential, "I'm retired, I live alone, I got a big ol' apartment, and when those four walls start closing in on me..."

"Time to get out of town?" I finish for...

Yesterday, "Rescue Me" filmed all night outside my building. Tonight, I'm woken up by real sirens. This is nothing unusual, and I roll over planning to drift off again -- until the shrill wailing, flashing lights and grinding engines come to a halt, uncomfortably close by. I get up, haul on the string...

Today marks exactly one year since I decided to quit my "day job" and dive into full time freelance writing, roughly six months ahead of the schedule I had devised for myself. (Funny how life never quite wants to obey the plan, huh?)

I was in New Orleans, 3+ weeks into a two-month sabbatical from my job...

It's not often that the "travel" section of my blogroll truly, legitimately shocks me. (The "news/politics" and "gossip" sections are another story entirely...) But this morning, I came across a travel blog post that sent me into a genuine spiral of confusion and anger; the post was called

No, that's not it exactly, the way I'm feeling. It's more like this: yesterday I saw myself heading forward to new friends and new adventures, and today I'm focusing instead on everyone and everything I'm always leaving behind.

It's day 55 for me here in NYC, I have about 35 more left -- and, now that...

I've got it bad for the post-industrial urban landscape -- it hooks me in, the same way some people can't get enough of the mountains looming over them, or the prairie stretching away to forever -- and for awhile now, I've been trying to figure out the why and how of my fascination.

After all, my two...

... and was reminded that even on a simple errand, you can learn something. Or be puzzled by something.

Either way, you can become more aware of the place you find yourself, and how different it is from home.

1) On the way to the post office, I passed a sign on the exterior wall of an apartment building:...

I've followed some of the discussions on Matador in recent months with a mixture of interest and extreme annoyance. Yes, it's true that some people don't realize how accessible travel can be. Yes, it's true that some people are put off by unfounded fears about travel's supposedly sky-high costs. And...

I got my first taste of that storied NYC indifference the other day.*

I was on a half-full subway train, and as we pulled into Grand Central an elderly man shuffled up and out of his seat, towards the door. Most eyes turned towards him as he moved; at least 15 people saw his Metrocard slip out of his...

Today is Day 10 in NYC. In a way, I'm amazed that I haven't written about my stay here sooner, but hey -- sometimes you just can't put your finger on what, exactly, needs to be said. You know?

I've been busy: watching the inauguration in Times Square, attending a firecracker ceremony to kick off Chinese...

It's funny, the little things that can take you back to your last trip.

I was just back home from the gym tonight, and realized my shampoo bottle was empty; a quick dig turned up a relic from the summer, a small near-empty bottle with lettering in Swedish.

Huh?

Oh, right. The two Swedish sisters I hung...

Tonight was the grand re-opening of Ottawa's Mayfair Theatre, a 1930s moviehouse gem complete with red velvet curtains, canopied balconies and ornate molding. In other words, a relic from the glory days of cinema-going, the days before the word "multiplex" entered the dictionary.

The Mayfair had finally...

I've never been big on New Year's resolutions -- I figured out a long time ago that I wasn't likely to suddenly become someone I'm not, just because I made a wish at midnight on December 31 of any given year. But recently I've decided that within the right framework (read: the right combination of...