I want to focus this week on strange encounters with food while traveling. Sometimes this will be encountering strange food but in today’s photo the food was normal but the encounter was not what I expected.
I went to Tanzania with a group of 10 people from my church and the main reason we went was [...]

This picture is taken inside a hut made of mud, sticks and cow dung in a Maasai cultural boma in Tanzania just outside the Ngorogoro crater preserve. This is a man and one of his two wives. Each wive lives in a different hut. The picture looks smokey to me but that might just be [...]

It has been a bad week for planes and pilots as this first story shows:
Plane takes off without pilot at vintage airshow
A runaway aircraft took off on its own when the pilot could not get into the cockpit on time after swinging the front propellor. The classic biplane ran in circles on the ground at [...]

I did not take this video but was there when it was taken. We were in the Ngorogoro Crater preserve in Tanzania and were taking pictures of a Cheetah when a rabbit sudden appeared from the bush. The Cheetah sprang into action. Only one of the people in the Range Rover with me already happened [...]

At first glance this photo might be a bit misleading. It looks like this car has hit one of the lions here in the Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania. But instead it is not the lion who is in distress but the people in the car. This lion has fallen asleep holding the tire of this [...]

I took this picture in Tanzania at a cultural boma. This is a traditional Maasai village which is preserved this way in large part for tourists to visit. The center of the boma is a pen for the all important Maasai cattle. Huts made of mud and cattle dung surround that with the outer stockade [...]

This week’s Amateur Traveler podcast was on traveling to Zanzibar in Tanzania. You can get by in English in Tanzania but you will have a better experience if you pick up even a little (kidogo) Swahili. Swahili is a simple language since it was formed as a pidgin language to help natives who spoke Bantu [...]

Say what? This story had me scratching my head.
Will a replica of India’s Taj Mahal in Bangladesh also draw tourists?
Tourists from around the world can now opt for which Taj Mahal to visit: the original in India, or its replica in Bangladesh. After work started in 2003, a life-size replica structure of the original Taj [...]

Rape alert campaign on Greek beaches
An anti-rape campaign has been launched by the [British] Foreign Office in resorts in Greece following alarm at the numbers of attacks on female British tourists. More rapes and sexual assaults are reported by British nationals in Greece than in any other tourist destination, according to research by the FCO. [...]

It is a rare thing for a U.S. Ambassador to write an open letter to travelers urging them to consider visiting a country, but that is what the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael E.Ranneberger did this week. In light of the unrest Kenya and the resulting drop in tourism to the country Ranneberger’s remarks should [...]