Every Road Has a Story
Road trips, detours, and the places that stayed with us. We write about where we went, what we found, and what it felt like to be there — from California back roads to medieval Spanish cities.
Hawaii
Green Heart of Kauai: Waterfalls, Canyons and an Unexpected Guide
Kauaʻi has a way of changing your plans. We came for waterfalls between beach days. The island had other ideas — pulling us deeper, past a Jurassic Park gate, into a swamp that swallows fog, and toward a canyon that earns every cliché thrown at it.
Hawaii
Emerald Cliffs Above the Pacific: Nā Pali Coast, Kauai
There are places that stay beautiful only in photographs. Nā Pali Coast is not one of them. No road crosses it. No road ever could. We found our own way in — and it was nothing like we expected.
Hawaii
Ten Days in Paradise: Arriving on Kauai, Hawaii
The plane door opened, and warm air rushed in. Sweet, heavy, alive with something blooming I couldn't name. Wild chickens crossed the road as they owned it. Waves knocked me sideways at sunrise. Kauai doesn't ease you in. It just takes you.
Nevada, Arizona
Martian Vacation: A Road Trip Told by Jack the Dog
The ground was red. Not orange-at-sunset red. Not dusty-road red. Deep, ancient red — the color of something that has been burning for a million years. I was fairly certain we had driven to Mars.
Italy
Venice: A Mosaic That Keeps Shifting
Small round tables scatter across the square like wildflowers. The air hums with half-familiar melodies from another century. I wrap both hands around my hot chocolate — it smells of mint, warm and faintly sweet — and I still can't quite believe I'm back in Venice.
Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina
A Road Trip Along the Adriatic — Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Italy
Ljubljana greeted us with a thunderstorm. The plan was Montenegro — a few days by the sea, some old towns, some good wine. But routes expand. This one refused to stay small.
Michigan
Sleeping Bear Dunes: Sand, Wind, and a Mother's Grief
No cell signal. No GPS. Just trees on both sides and the occasional cow watching you drive by. That's how you arrive at one of America's most beautiful places — Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Come for the sand. Stay for the story.
Michigan
The Fort at the Edge of Two Lakes
In 1763, the Ojibwe invited the British garrison to watch a lacrosse game. They left their weapons inside. The gates stayed open. It did not end well for the British.
Michigan
Mackinac Island, Michigan: A Step Back in Time
No cars. No engines. Just hoofbeats on cobblestone, the smell of fudge on the wind, and an island that has been quietly ignoring the modern world since 1898. We came for a day. We stayed in 1890.
Israel
The Road North: Galilee, Masada, Caesarea, Acre, Jaffa, and the End of the World
Leaving Jerusalem is hard. You keep thinking of things you didn't do. Then the road north opens up — Galilee, Masada, Jaffa, Armageddon — and Israel gives you an entirely different kind of overwhelming.
Israel
Knock and It Shall Be Opened: Jerusalem's Old City and the West Bank
We knocked on every door. Every iron gate, every arched wooden door half-hidden in the stone. And the strangest thing happened, again and again — they opened.
Wyoming
Yellowstone: Where the Earth Keeps Breathing
Sulfur in the air. Colors that shouldn't exist. A bear swimming toward our dog. Hot springs, geysers, bison, and a full moon blocked by an unexploded shell. Two weeks in Yellowstone by camper.