It shouldn’t be this hard to find the lava. Of this, I am convinced.

Randy and I have been wandering, somewhat puzzled, along the main streets of Goma for thirty or so minutes, with no sign of the molten rock that overran half the town in 2002 when the nearby volcano erupted. The DR Congo not...

At low tide, the white sands of Mombasa’s northern beaches stretch nearly half a mile out to sea. The shore is framed by palm trees, run-down hotel buildings, and wooden stalls selling fried cassava chips and cold Coca-Cola; in the distance, the vivid blue of the Indian Ocean is painted with the faded...

“If you haven’t flipped the boat, you haven’t really rafted the Nile,” said our guide, Phillip, as we floated leisurely downstream. The eight of us in the inflatable blue paddleboat exchanged glances that suggested perhaps we didn’t want to raft the Nile after all. But here we were in...

“Take care for the tree,” a boy calls out calmly as a gnarled branch whooshes inches from my head.

Good thing he gave me time to duck, I say to myself, readjusting my position on top of the truck so the next tree doesn’t cut it so close. In the ink black of this midnight desert, the waning...