One common knock against the Chicago area is that “real” nature seems far away. Apart from Lake Michigan — arguably the region’s best natural attribute — it’s sprawling suburbs and monotone fields of corn in every direction. I have subscribed to this idea for years. But it’s not actually true. If you’re looking for nature…
A Four-Bedroom Contemporary Home in Ecuador $550,000 Perched at the eastern edge of El Cajas National Park, a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve, this contemporary home sits on four undulating acres outside of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-largest city. With the 110-square-mile park as its backdrop, the four-bedroom, three-bath house “is isolated and surrounded by nature,” said Ashley Rogers,…
There was also a shock for me on Tangier Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, with James “Ooker” Eskridge, the mayor of the community. On paper, me and this guy don’t have that much to say to each other. He was in the Trump-iest voting district in America by some measures, and he’s very, very, very…
Some years ago, while exploring Bhuj, a small city in Gujarat, India’s westernmost state, I stumbled upon a beautiful and initially enigmatic structure: a column that supported an enclosure adorned with hundreds of holes. It seemed to me to be a geometric abstraction of a giant tree — until a pigeon peeped out from one…
When newly married Marissa, 28, and Sean Cavenagh, 31, of Chicago decided to spend their honeymoon in Southeast Asia this summer, they planned to stay in Airbnbs and modest hotels while wending their way through Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. But when they discovered the astounding bargains to be had at some of the most…
Last December, Charles F. Sams III made history when he became the first Native American to be appointed director of the National Park Service. He had his work cut out for him. The number of visitors to the biggest parks in the United States is at an all-time high, road repairs and other infrastructure upgrades…
Even for a city like New Orleans, which has been bouncing back from calamities viral, meteorological and otherwise for three centuries, the last couple of years have been rough. But today, the most freewheeling city in the nation is strutting forward with a sense of relief and renewed confidence, seducing visitors with time-tested charms and…
In the United States, gender is a required data field for flight bookings. The requirement was set by the Transport Security Administration in 2009 as part of its Secure Flight program, an initiative that arose from the 9/11 Commission. This enabled the agency to use additional passenger information, which included gender, in later stages of…
Of the many feats Harriet Tubman accomplished, none awe me more as an historian than the estimated 13 trips she made to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Each time, she stole family and friends from enslavement much in the way Tubman first secreted herself away to freedom in 1849. Born on the Eastern Shore, Tubman grew into…
With a map in one hand and a cold beer in the other, I sat alone at the bar of the Baobab Beach Backpackers Lodge in the coastal town of Vilankulo, gazing out at the sweeping sandbars and vivid turquoise waters that surround Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago. I’d planned to leave the following morning for Zimbabwe,…