Articles By: Bob Riel
Destinations for 2011
It’s time for various travel publications to select their top travel destinations for 2011. Here is how Lonely Planet, Frommer’s and BootsnAll see the coming year in travel.
Riel World photo – Santorini, Greece
Homes perched near the edge of a clifftop caldera in the town of Oia on the island of Santorini, Greece.
Visiting 4 continents and 9 countries for $418
Steve Kamb recently published an article for Gizmodo detailing how he planned a 35,000 mile, four continent, nine country trip around the world for the grand total of $418.
Learning about Buddhism at a Himalayan temple
An elderly monk walked up to the spot where we stood, slowly spinning the prayer wheels and chanting words under his breath. He stopped in front of us and smiled. “Om mani padme hum,” he said, in a soft, slow cadence.
Poetry of travel: Ancient ritual on the Ganges
It’s five in the morning in Varanasi, India. The early rays of dawn paint the Ganges River with a silvery-orange glow and infuse everything with an ethereal radiance.
Riel World photo – Paris, France
Public art on a bridge in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower looming in the background.
Great destinations in Africa
There are some spectacular destinations on the African continent, as evidenced by this two-part series from “The Planet D” on the 12 greatest places to visit in Africa.
Ferry adventures on the Red Sea
Sometimes travel is a dazzling collage of sights and wonders, and sometimes it’s an exhausting, sigh-inducing day of trying to get from one place to another. If you’re lucky enough to be traveling, though, then even the sigh-inducing moments can be memorable.
The rise of the Arctic north
We don’t usually think of the Arctic region in terms of geopolitics or economic development. But a new book – “The World in 2050″ -posits that the Arctic will become a global force in the decades ahead, driven both by its untapped natural resources and its impact on climate change.
Riel World photo – Sydney, Australia
A view of the striking skyline of Sydney, Australia, as seen from the Harbour Bridge.
Obama and democracy in Asia
If you go behind the headlines of President Obama’s current trip to Asia, you can see that much of the agenda has been devoted to engaging with other democratic nations and promoting shared values. Here is a snapshot of the trip from that perspective.
Seven travel-worthy independent bookstores
Do you love bookstores? Do you enjoy wandering the aisles, fingering the titles that line the shelves, breathing in the scent of new books, and looking for unfamiliar treasures? Then you’ll enjoy this look at some of America’s most interesting independent bookstores.
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Bob Riel is a writer and a traveler. Go here to read more about Bob, his work and the Travels in the Riel World blog.
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Two Laps Around the World
My travel memoir - Two Laps Around the World: Tales and Insights from a Life Sabbatical - is about two round-the-world journeys with my wife.
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