Travels in the Riel World

I hope everyone in the U.S. had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend. Travels in the Riel World will return tomorrow.

I have to take time for a bit of book promotion here, as there was some nice press coverage in today’s Arizona Daily Star newspaper about my travel memoir, Two Laps Around the World.

It was the trip of a lifetime. Two trips, actually. In 2002, Bob Riel and Lisa Higgins, wed the year before, embarked on a three-month-long trip that took them from Greece to Turkey, then on to Kenya, Thailand, Beijing and Tokyo.

In 2005 they did it again, this time traveling to Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Singapore, Egypt and Europe.

But this was no four-star-hotel experience. The couple traveled at times by rickshaw and rickety bus, flatbed truck and camel.

More than mere sightseeing, the trip, says Riel, was a life sabbatical — one that more of us should undertake to renew and refresh our lives.

You can read more about the book, including some chapter excerpts, at my other website, www.bobriel.com.

My son turned six months old yesterday. Happy birthday, Brady!

Sorry for missing a few days of posts, but I’ve been doing a slight redesign of the site.

After much thought, I’ve decided to begin broadening the focus of what I write about. Since 2006, I’ve been “cultivating a global curiosity” with a blog about travel and cross-cultural topics. Although that will remain the primary focus of what I do, I’m now going to begin covering a few other related issues. It’s not a radical departure — I will continue to explore the world from a cross-cultural perspective, I’ll simply be adding to what I’ve done in the past. Along the way, I also hope to offer a bit more in the way of original writing and opinion.

If you look around the site, you’ll see a few cosmetic changes, such as in the revamped topics and links on the left side of the page. Primarily, though, the changes will come in the subjects that I choose to write about in the future, which I now see as falling into three main areas:

Travel and cross-cultural topics. This has been and will remain the foundation of the site. It’s a continuing effort to learn about the world and to see it from a cross-cultural perspective, whether that is through a travel story or an article that looks at the intersection of business and culture. The objective is not to provide comprehensive reports about everything of international significance, but rather to highlight topics that can open a window into culture or provide readers with insight into a particular country or region of the world.

Politics and democracy. Here, I’m planning to cast a wider net than in the past. I’ll continue to write about politics, democracy and elections across cultures, but I’m also going to delve more into U.S. politics. I expect to do this in part by looking at issues and events from my personal perspective, which in turn has been influenced by my international travel experiences.

Ideas for our changing world - It’s not news that the world around us is changing rapidly as a result of technology, globalization and other issues, so I intend to pursue topics of interest in this area. I also plan to explore some of the new ideas and new ways of thinking that are shaping our world and our lifestyles.

I’m excited to expand the reach of this blog and to cultivate an even broader global curiosity. I hope you’ll follow along and join in the conversation.

I’d like to wish all of you a wonderful holiday season! Travels in the Riel World will be back on Dec. 26.

2007 has been a big year. I recently wrote about the birth of my first child. Now, I’m here with news about a different type of birth - that of my first book.

Two Laps Around the World: Tales and Insights from a Life Sabbatical is now on the market. The book is about the experiences that my wife and I had when we decided to take a few months off from our careers to travel. The experience was so incredible that we repeated the experience less than three years later and so ended up traveling around the world twice - once in each direction.

You can read more about the book here. There are excerpts from a few chapters, a reading guide for book clubs, and information about how to buy an autographed copy. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope you’ll check it out! And when you do, please let me know what you think.

Exciting times - my first child was born recently and I wanted to share the news! Brady Robert Riel was born Sept. 25, 2007 at 10:33 a.m., weighing 7 lbs., 12 oz. He and his mother, Lisa, are both doing well, and we are all adjusting to a new schedule and to the wonderful new sounds of life in our house.

Here is a picture of one of the world’s newest travelers:

I just had the one-year anniversary of my first entry on this blog. When I began writing, I labored in solitude for more than a month before finally having somewhat of a public launch May 12. I’m pleased that readership has consistently increased and is now more than triple what it was just six months ago. So thanks to those of you who check in here regularly and also those who have sent me emails or left comments.

I’m planning a few upgrades to the site later in the spring, including more original content. But for the moment, in honor of one year worth of entries, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some of the most viewed posts of the past 12 months.

There are two clear leaders for most popular post. They are:

1. Starbucks takes on French cafe culture

2. The Masai and the gift of cattle

These are two diverse entries, one about coffee and cafe culture, the other about the unique traditions of the Masai people. After this, a number of posts had similar numbers in terms of page views, but they did fall into a few clear categories.

China was a popular topic, especially these two entries:

- Learning Chinese in Latin America

- India vs. China

Given current world events, it’s not surprising that several entries about Islam or the culture of Middle Eastern countries were also popular. But the most well-read of these was:

- The tribal culture of Iraq

Finally, I would expect readers of this site to be interested in travel and education, so it’s appropriate that two closely related posts also made the leaderboard:

- Educational benefits of travel

- Educational benefits of travel, part two

Thanks again for visiting. Let others know about the site and please continue to stop by. The next year is going to be even better and more interesting!