by Nancy Bernard Please note that there are absolutely no lies or exaggerations in this account. It is, however, an incomplete report. * * * * Dear Mom, Thanks so much for my birthday gift! I still can’t believe you gave me a week at your time-share. Mexico is absolutely gorgeous, and the Grand Mayan…
by Shanti Sosienski “We just might fly today,” says Chris Santacroce, 31, owner of Superfly Paragliding Academy in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Santa,” as he’s referred to in the paragliding community, and I are standing at South Point, a muddy, somewhat snow-covered parking lot on the top of a long sloping hill. It’s hard to…
by Lorraine Godfrey It was well after dark when I arrived in Hanoi late one January evening in 2003. Coming from Bangkok, where temperatures loomed in the nineties (with equal humidity), I was prepared for the heat. I shared a cab from the airport with two locals, who directed me to the old quarter of…
by Callie Silver No one better embodies the spirit of a true Diva than Laura Vary, who spent her earliest years in Columbus, Ohio attending high school football games, crocheting, and enjoying the local ice cream. Laura didn’t travel internationally until age sixteen—but since then, she has lost count of her trips to Paris and…
by Suzanne Siegel, Intro By Teresa Rodriguez Williamson What is that ingredient that gives some women the courage to shed the shackles of fear and dive headfirst into life? If you ask Suzanne Siegel from Atlanta, Georgia you’ll get a pretty dramatic answer: murder, mayhem, and Metallica. With a career in police work and passion…
by Jordan Smedberg When I’d first tell people I was going to Africa for two months by myself, their faces almost always twisted into an expression of horror and awe, as though they couldn’t quite decide whether I was stupid or courageous. Granted, my follow up comments: “You know, because it’s Africa,” or, “Nope, no…
by Peng Ong It all started when my boyfriend received an offer from a relative in Reno to purchase his white Lexus. Considering the long drive from San Francisco, Ricky proposed, why not spend two days in Reno? Soon, Ricky’s sister Anna and his father wanted to go too. I felt relieved; it would be…