Tag: travel
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5 Hours in Oaxaca
The café is quaint and quiet. Powder blue walls are lined with dark shelves, displaying white teacups painted with pale pink and lavender flowers, filled with eclectic books—Dune in Danish, The Moon Guide to Pacific Mexico, and a copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile,—or On Education in Spanish. There are only three small, wooden tables, pressed…
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Common Trees of the Sierra Norte, Estado de Oaxaca, Mexico
Overview of the Sierra Norte. The Sierra Norte of Oaxaca is located about 40 miles north of Oaxaca de Juárez, in the eponymous state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The region extends across nearly 3,300 square miles, and is bordered by the regions of Papaloapam and Cañada to the North, and Valles Centrales, Sierra Sur, and Istmo…
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Punta Gorda, Roatan, Honduras
Author’s Note: Please note that this post was reviewed and corrected by Nerissa Webster, referenced below, and published with her permission. We arrived at Punta Gorda — a village founded by the Garifuna people after being exiled from nearby St. Vincent Island and being deposited on Roatan, Honduras on April 12, 1797 — that sits…
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Öskjuhlíð, Iceland
We woke up and took a taxi to Öskjuhlíð with a driver named Viktor. We walked the waters edge, stepped on a sandy beach, climbed rocks to photograph Campions. We explored the edge of a runway, catching sight of a Whimbrel and Meadow Pipits. We turned around, tracing our steps along with shore and walking…
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Vigur Island Heritage Farm & Nature Reserve, Iceland
People have been living on Vigur Island for over 1,000 years. It’s been the site of a working farm since 1650. It’s the home of Iceland’s only historic windmill, built circa 1840/1860 and operational until 1912. The island’s house, called Viktoria’s House, was built in the mid-1800s as an engagement present from goldsmith, Sumarliði Sumarliðason,…
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Roman Volubilis, Morocco
Situated among the fertile agriculture fields outside Moulay Idriss, one stumbles upon the ruins largely from the Roman 2nd and 3rd centuries, a place where olive-oil based wealth funded high-status homes and decorations. Once the home of Juba II, husband of Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra Selene II, 10,000+ Romans, and 20,000+ Moroccans, the region then as…
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Ontario Gallery of Art: Lawren Harris & the Group of Seven
The Ontario Gallery of Art is housed in a beautiful building with soaring wood beams, curving like the bow of a ship and filled with light from large-paned windows. The Gallery is home to the Thomson collection and many of the artists that comprise it would have appreciated the architecture. The Thomson collection includes 130…
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ROADTRIP: The Galapagos Islands, Santa Cruz edition
More than 2,600 miles from North Carolina’s Triangle—and nearly 700 miles from the nearest continent—the Galápagos Islands rise like uncut gems from the cerulean sea west of Ecuador’s coastline. At first glance, the volcanic archipelago’s fifteen major islands can look rough and spare, some only lightly painted with a thin crust of vegetation. But closer…
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ROADTRIP: Galapagos Island, Rabida edition
Overlooking a pock-marked landscape dominated by grim volcanic scoria—partially covered by a crust of scrubby verdure and rimmed with a thick band of maroon sand—for a moment I felt like a visitor to the strange red planet now prominent in North Carolina’s evening sky. Instead, I stood firmly on Rábida, a tiny island (less than…
Sense of Place 