Have You Read Any Good Travel Books Lately? 3rd Edition!

I confess, I am addicted to travel literature, as well as traveling every chance possible. It is time to again share with you some of the books I have recently completed and which I think you might enjoy. As you review my selections, think back on some of the travel literature that you may have enjoyed, then send me an email suggesting what I might read next!

Mediterranean Summer by David Shalleck with Erol Munuz (Broadway Books 2007)

Five Stars by both Barnes and Noble, and Amazon  This is not just a travel book about the French and Italian Mediterranean coast, but also a book that will appeal to those who love cook books, and like to sail. David Shalleck was a San Francisco and New York Chef, who decided he needed European cooking experience. After four years of interning in Italian restaurants he signed on for the summer season as Chef of a classic sailing yacht owned by one of Italy’s most prominent couples. He then spent five months cooking out of a small galley for the rich and famous while sailing in and out of the great Mediterranean ports of France, Italy, Sardinia and Corsica. The book contains all of his delightful Italian food recipes and the great experiences of the summer. I heartily recommend the book as did Amazon and Barnes & Nobel, who both gave the book five stars.

the media relations department of hisbollah wishes you a happy birthday by Neil MacFarquhar (Public Affairs 2009, paperback edition 2010)  A Washington Post and Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year

I have to admit that my understanding of the problems of the middle east and the impact of Islam have been lacking. We have traveled to Israel and Egypt but, alas we were pursuing Christian education rather than paying a lot of attention to the developing politics of the region. Neil Macfarquhar was raised in Libya and after a Stanford education became a mid-east correspondent for the Associated Press. He then became the bureau chief for the New York Times in Cairo. Neil brings an interesting perspective to the stress and trauma from Morocco to Iraq and everything in between. He speaks fluent Arabic and his long tenure covering the wars, dictators, fatwa’s, and growth of extreme religious governments has given a unique look at the current situation in the Arab and Persian countries. He gives many stories of his contacts with dissidents and their struggle for human rights. Neil pulls no punches with criticism of the U.S. government in their foreign policy and dealings with these countries. For a real eye opening travel/history/politics book about the middle east this is a great place to start.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin Books 2007)  #1 New York Times Bestseller

I know, I know, I probably was one of the last readers of this book in America. I had seen it on the bookstore shelves for years and for some reason could just not get interested in it. When I did buy it, my reading of it was pretty slow, as the first few chapters really seamed to bog down. Eventually, though when you get into Greg Mortenson’s efforts to create schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and battle the Taliban to educate girls where no education had ever happened before, it literally brought tears to my eyes. As a result of his work he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His foundation to help build and fund additional schools has become one of our new charities. He has become quite a world famous humanitarian. I now have his new book “Stones into Schools” and will be embarking on it soon. Greg is speaking to the Rotary International convention in Montreal this summer and we plan to not miss his presentation.

I’ll Never Be French (no matter what I do): Living in a small village in Brittany by Mark Greenside (Free Press 2008)

For those of you who have previously read my travel book recommendations, you know I really do have a soft spot for stories of expatriates living in France. I swear, they just jump out at me off the book store shelves (and Half Price Books). Maybe I am looking for successes of foreigners who can conquer the difficulties of traveling and living in France. This book is a really funny story of one problem after another of a guy who buys a house in Brittany having never lived in France, did not speak French, and ultimately ends up being continually rescued by his neighbors. Naturally, he ends up falling in love with his rural town and the people in it. There are so many incidents in the book that you will recognize if you have ever traveled in France, that it is really fun to read. Presently I have loaned the book to one of the couples that have traveled with us to France, so they can also chuckle through it. So, you will have to buy your own copy!

Have You Read Any Good Travel Books Lately? 2nd Edition!

I am sure you know, from prior travel articles, that I am addicted to travel literature, as well as traveling every chance I have. A few years ago I wrote an article about travel books that I enjoyed. As my bookcases fill up, it is time to again share with you some of the books I have recently completed and that I think you might enjoy. As you review my selections, think back on some of the travel literature that you may have enjoyed, then send me an email suggesting what I might read next!

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There by Rolf Potts. The author is a prolific writer and shows up frequently with travel articles in the major travel magazines and the annual travel anthologies like The Best American Travel Writing. This book is his second book and is a compendium of twenty travel stories collected from his previous writings. It also has an interesting feature as the author puts end notes at the end of each story, telling about incidents that were not included and writing tips on how he came to structure the story. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and after the fact found that others likewise enjoyed it as the previous purchasers on Amazon gave it five starts. Travelers Tales. ©2008

A Town Like Paris by Bryce Corbett. I am a real sucker for travel books about France and Paris. We have been to France three times, but that really doesn’t account for this affliction. Maybe it is because a fellow judge and good friend has bought a one month time share flat in Paris. Or could I just be jealous? The subtitle of the book is Falling in Love in the City of Light. It is all about an Australian who takes a job in Paris, just really to have the experience of discovering the delights of Paris. The book is a good romp through his experiences of many aspects of living and loving in Paris with all of his new friends, both expats and Parisians. My judge friend has me to keep her continually excited about Paris, as I send the French books on to her after I have finished them! Broadway Books ©2007

A Year in the Merde and In the Merde for Love by Stephen Clarke. As long as I am on a roll with the French travel books, here are a couple of more. I had seen the Stephen Clarke books in the travel literature sections of book stores for years, but for some reason resisted buying. The first book was an international best seller, so I should have read it. When I did read (both of them) I did enjoy Stephen’s experience of trying to start a British tearoom in Paris and all the trials, troubles, and tribulations that result. He is a very funny writer. To obviously protect some of the key players, this is an “almost true” memoir. Bloomsbury ©2004 & 2006

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux. In the opinion of many, Paul Theroux is the best travel writer of all time. He certainly is prolific in that he has written fourteen travel books and twenty-seven fiction books. In March he showed up in an interview in National Geographic Traveler and he has a short story about Turkmenistan in The Best American Travel Writing of 2008. Theroux is pretty much inescapable in the travel writing genre. The most recent Theroux travel adventure that I had read was Dark Star Safari where he traveled from the top of Africa to Cape Town, South Africa. This was a great read and I highly recommend it. I was not aware he had written a new book until I spotted it in Wide World of Books in Seattle’s Wallingford District. Due to a gift certificate I actually bought Ghost Train to the Eastern Star in hardback! Many of you might remember The Great Railway Bazaar which was his very first travel book and written 33 years ago. It was a train journey across Europe, through the mid-east, down the length of India, through Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Viet Nam, and then skipping to Japan and with a grand finale of the Trans-Siberian across Russia and back to London. His new book is a return to the same locales, mostly by train, and viewing and commenting on the changes over those 33 years. It has Theroux’s usual detail and it is quite a read. The reviews are a bit mixed on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but I thought parts of it were very good, particularly about India, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Myanmar. Houghton Mifflin Company ©2008

Have You Ever Used TripAdvisor®?

When selecting or booking hotels there are a lot of internet companies that you can select. If you are a frequent traveler you are familiar with Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire, Hotels.com and there are many more. I have found that some of the ratings and visitor comments on these sites are sometimes a bit suspect. For several years I have been using TripAdvisor which can be found at www.tripadvisor.com.

The site can be used in a couple of different ways. If you know the name and city of a hotel you are interested in, you just type it in on the search line at the top of the website. They will then give you access to all the reviews and information they have about the hotel. All of the reviews are written by people who have stayed at the hotel. TripAdvisor claims that they are receiving 16,000,000 + hits a week, and goodness knows how many reviews are being written (they say over 10,000,000 reviews are on the site). Yours truly is registered with TripAdvisor and I have written reviews, particularly on hotels we used last year in Mexico.

When you access the reviews you will find that the most recent evaluations are at the top, and as you go down the list they are older, but always dated as to the time of posting. Some of the reviews are priceless, both good and bad. Some of the evaluations are really opposite, so you have to read between the lines as to what the writer thinks is important.

The other way the site can be used is just to put in a city that you are interested in. That option is the next section below the search. You can enter your dates, price, and the currency you want quoted for the room rate. When you hit the “find hotels” the site gives you all of the hotels that they recommend and the average room rate. Down the page you will see listings of the evaluations. Just click on the first one and you can read all the evaluations for the hotel. For each hotel they give the TripAdvisor Popularity index and the traveler rating based on the number of reviews.

One nice advantage of the search for hotels is that on the left of the hotel listing it gives you a place to map the hotel, check photos of the hotel, and check rates. The rate box is very helpful as it gives you a chance to compare prices with several booking sites not connected in any way with TripAdvisor. As an example when writing this article I was looking at hotels in Christchurch, New Zealand and the options for the hotel I looked at were Hotels.com, Expedia, HotelClub.com, and RatesToGo.com. If you wish to book a hotel, you then can do so right on the referred to booking site.

The TripAdvisor site has a lot more features which you might want to explore when you are navigating their choices. I recommend you take a look and start exploring your travel options.

Have You Read Any Good Travel Books Lately?

As an addicted reader, it is only logical that apart from traveling, I am also a lover of travel literature. These are not the books about what to do when traveling to a destination, but rather the experiences and tales of an author after traveling to a travel destination or destinations. My family is very glad that I enjoy this pastime as it gives them at least something to give me for birthdays and Christmas. I am sorely lacking in other hobbies or pursuits. And did I ever get in a lot of trouble by buying several travel literature books just before Christmas! There is hardly a category of travel literature that I don’t enjoy. My tastes, times, and countries are very eclectic, which is good as I tend to read two or three travel literature books a month.

I must admit that a travel literature book need not be a Pulitzer winner or the author a fantastic writer. For me the criteria of a good travel literature book is one that is fun (a lot of humor), the events and experiences are interesting and sometimes exciting, and often the book will create a desire to travel to the location. There are a lot of writing formulas for a travel literature book. You can visit many places by reading the short stories in such books as The Best Travel Stories of 20??. There is a whole genre of books chronicling the buying and restoring of a home in a foreign country ala Frances Mayes and Under the Tuscan Sun. Many travel books just take a travelogue format where the author tells of the experiences of traveling in a location.

As a taste of current reading, here are a few books I have recently read, and which are good enough to recommend to you:

Spotted in France by Gregory Edmont. An American in Paris who graduates from the Sorbonne and buys a Dalmatian dog that he trains to ride on the back of his Vespa. He takes a road trip to Provence to breed the dog at the farm where he bought the dog. As you can imagine he gets into hilarious situations. A sequel is coming out in the Spring of 2008.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Run by Peter Allison. These are the true stories of an Australian who becomes a Botswana safari guide. It is an easy read with a lot of adventure. Surely makes you want to go to one of those high end safari camps in the Okavango Delta of Botswana.

The Caliph’s House: A year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah. This is of the restore the house genre, but you won’t believe the problems the author and his family encounter in Morocco. You just don’t expect the house to be haunted and the necessity of having the house exorcised to rid it of the jinns. When I find an author that I like I tend to then buy and read his or her other books. As this is written I am reading In Search of King Solomon’s Mines by Shah.

Fried Eggs with Chopsticks by Polly Evans. I first discovered Polly Evans in a book about cycling through Spain titled It’s Not About the Tapas. The “Fried Eggs” book is about her experiences traveling by bus and train in China. She has a new book out describing her travels in New Zealand titled Kiwis Might Fly. I have the book but I am saving its pleasure until we are in New Zealand this spring.

The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer by Eric Hansen. This is by far my favorite book of the giving season (thank you Amanda and Geoff!). It is subtitled as “Close Encounters with Strangers.” Eric Hansen has led an incredible life over the last 35 years traveling all over the world and writing his adventures. This book is nine short stories of some of the most amazing people and places he has encountered on his travels. He has also written a highly acclaimed (five stars on Amazon) book titled Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea. I will be buying it soon!

If you are interested, all of these books can be bought online at either Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and probably in the travel section of your local bookstore. Have you read any good travel books recently that you would recommend to me? It would be great to hear from you with your suggestions. Just send me an email to tmawarren@broadstripe.net.

Armchair Traveler?

What a dilemma – I am between trips, no pro-tem calls, and a man without any other hobbies except travel planning, travel dreaming, travel literature, and of course going traveling. What is a guy to do? I found out that you can feed the travel fix with traveling on television. Although there are not a lot of choices, the programs that are about travel do show up on a daily schedule. Well, we do have to exclude the food shows and RV shows (the preferred travel companion will not be caught dead in a motor home, as that is just another way for a spouse requirement of cooking and cleaning). However, I have found four shows that do make me want to go traveling and they all have separate pluses and minuses. If you like to travel, or dream about travel, check out the following:

Rick Steves’ Europe – I have been watching Rick travel around Europe and give travel advice for years. He is kind of like an old traveling companion. He is a PBS favorite and often can be seen on those pledge marathons to support public television. I have to admit that I have supported PBS on occasion in order to get his current travel books, which have become a staple of our European travels. Rick and his team have now produced over 70 programs and have built his travel writing, tours, and filming into a travel empire out of the store in Edmonds, Washington. You can find his books on every European country, and the touring bible, Europe through the Backdoor, at any bookstore or on his website. The books are updated every year. Rick Steves’ website is excellent, giving travel updates, traveler feedback, and plenty of advice and suggestions. The website travel “store” also shows all his books, maps, travel gadgets and luggage. Check it out at www.ricksteves.com.

Globe Trekker – Globe Trekker is quite a contrast from any of the other programs that are mentioned herein. This series is titled as adventure travel, but it really is travel on the cheap and is hosted and narrated by young travelers in their 20’s and 30’s, who do a lot of traveling on buses and in the back of pickups. These shows are interesting because they get into a lot of locations and situations that you won’t see on the other programs. The series has now been on television for six seasons, with number seven coming up. The company producing the show markets the program on either PBS or the Travel Channel, depending on the market. Each show is an hour in length and shows destinations all over the world. To see what is offered, the destinations, the narrator-travelers, and where you might find it on the TV dial go to www.pilotguides.com.

The Seasoned Traveler with George Bauer – This is the newcomer of the group and is aimed at the older more mature traveler (define this as the baby boomer generation with money). Each program has segments on favorite food, favorite hotels, and favorite drinks. The programs can be from anywhere in the world and includes a lot of United States destinations. They have even had a program on RV’ing (shudder). On the website at www.seasonedtraveler.com you can learn about George, the available episodes and the station list. It is produced by KCTS, the PBS station in Seattle. George has also published a book available on the website, titled The Seasoned Traveler: a Guide for Baby Boomers and Beyond.

Samantha Brown – When our cable company in Chelan finally gave us more than 30 channels, we received the Travel Channel and I discovered Samantha Brown. I have to admit that I am a sucker for a cute, blonde, perky, female travel host with a great sense of humor. On the Travel Channel you can see her usually twice a day (previous shows) with the new shows appearing on Friday night. Her two series are called Passport to Europe and Passport to Latin America. I think she is a very popular feature on the Travel Channel and she also does other specials such as cruising, favorite hotels, and U.S. destinations. My favorite travel companion enjoys Samantha because of her upscale clothing and high end hotels. This is not a frugal traveler! The Travel Channel website has a lot of options for learning from Samantha, to include her hotel recommendations, travel blog, travel guides, podcasts, travel journals, and fan wiki (whatever that is!). All of Samantha Brown’s information, and all the other shows featured on the Travel Channel can be found at www.travel.discovery.com.

So if that vacation isn’t in the cards this year, just settle into your favorite lounge chair and grab the channel changer.

What About All Those Travel Magazines?

When you have been bitten by the travel bug, it isn’t just enough to go traveling. You have to study! Guide books, web sites, E-mail travel newsletters, and certainly you need the monthly fix of the travel magazines. All travel magazines are not equal, so the true travel addict has to subscribe to more than one, and in my case it is four. The target audience of travel magazines is not always the same, as you will see from my comments below. Hereafter is my evaluation of each of the travel magazines that I read.

 National Geographic Traveler – As you might expect when published by National Geographic, this one is great for travel photos. It is however much more than that and it proclaims that it is “The World’s Most Widely Read Travel Magazine”. Each month there are the feature articles, but also lots of repeating department articles such as the smart traveler, real travel, 48 hours at one destination, National Park essentials, and recommended trips. They also publish their annual photo awards. The Traveler probably covers more United States travel than most other magazines. The subscription price is $14.95 per year. You can subscribe online at www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler or pick up a copy which always contains a lot of subscription cards.

 International Travel News (ITN) – Now this is a real contrast to the slick glossy travel magazines you normally see. It is published on newspaper stock and mostly contains amateur writer (like me) articles and is very friendly and funky. It is a fascinating magazine as it is so uneven, due to the eclectic nature of the writers, features, departments and columns. I have never seen it on a newsstand and you usually become exposed to it because of having been mailed a complimentary copy. If you would like a copy just send an email to me as each issue has a page for recommending that a complimentary copy be sent to all your friends. The publisher gives awards for travelers who have been to 24 time zones, 100 nations, seven continents, six continents, and the status of globetrotter and world traveler. The magazine has just about everything. The subscription price is $19 per year and you can subscribe at www.intltravelnews.com or call 1-800-486-4968 (or get that free copy from me).

 Budget Travel – Those of you who are regular readers of my travel articles know of my frugal (not cheap) travel philosophy. This magazine is thus my favorite and the one I cannot do without. I devour it within minutes of its reaching my mail box. It is edited by the Arthur Frommer travel guide people, but is actually published by Newsweek. It has so many helpful sections I don’t have enough room to tell you about all of them. Needless to say a classic unique section is the 40 Best Bargain Vacations of the next three months. Mary Ann and I have taken advantage of this information on several occasions. In addition to monthly destination bargain features, the repeating monthly sections of 20 Tips ,GO!-what’s news around the world, WHERE-You Can Go Anywhere IF YOU KNOW THE WAY, HOW-Smart Travelers Learn to work the system, How to be Web Smart, True Stories, and much more. The magazine is practically dirt cheap at $12 per year (10 issues). You can review it on your newsstand and subscribe at 1-800-829-9121 or use the subscriber card in the magazine.

 Condé Nast Traveler – This is the magazine for all of the travelers who maybe like to travel a category above me. The target audience is tipped off by the quality of advertisers, such as Rolex, Cartier, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, Silversea Cruises, etc. You get the point. This is not to say that there are not a lot of interesting features for travel junkies. They claim “Truth in Travel” and represent that they pay their own way. It is very glossy, excellent writing, great pictures, and amazingly inexpensive at only $12 per year for 12 issues ($4.95 on the newsstand). This is probably due to a lot of high quality advertising. I do enjoy some of their regular sections such as Stop Press, Places and Prices, and Word of Mouth. Most of the feature destination stories are pretty to look at, but seemingly beyond the capability of my pocket book. Their printing format also superimposes a lot of print onto photos, which I find hard to read. A comparable high end travel magazine is Travel + Leisure published by American Express. I will pick it up on the newsstand on occasion. You can check out Condé Nast Traveler at www.cntraveler.com.

All right now start reading and traveling.

 (Published in the Summer 2005 ABA Judicial Division Record)

What Have I Learned From Travel Planning?

I am not sure you would call travel an addiction, but it certainly gets into your blood. Because Mary Ann and I usually go to locations outside of the United States, people who know us have an expectation that we are off to somewhere exotic in the near future. When we do not have something planned, I think it is a disappointment for the questioner that we have not planned the next trip. I must admit that I find myself anxious, and somewhat at a loss, when no trip is in the works! It is only in the last ten years that we have been traveling frequently, and I have learned a lot about travel and planning for a successful trip.

• I receive several free travel newsletters by e-mail each week, and one of them arrives three or four times during the week. This newsletter is the Frommers newsletter. Their format includes a section on “deals and news” and then a section of “Reader’s Voices” asking questions, stating problems, or making suggestions. This “Reader’s” section allows for answers or responses. The newsletter is a great resource and I print many items that might be fun, helpful, or educational in the future. You can subscribe to the newsletter by going to the website at www.frommers.com.

• The most unusual newsletter I receive is The Travel Insider written by David M. Rowell. It arrives on Friday and is mostly informational and editorial about interesting developments in the travel industry, alerting readers about travel problems, and lambasting the big air carriers. His weekly column is a fascinating read. You can subscribe to the newsletter by signing up at the website which is www.travelinsider.info.

• The third newsletter is Smarter Living deal alert. It sets out the top travel deals of the week, travel advice with references to articles by Smarter Living travel writers (and others by hyperlink), and sponsor deals. All of these newsletters are free, other than being subjected to their ads. Subscription to Smarter Living can be found at www.smarterliving.com.

• The fourth newsletter I receive is the Independent Traveler. Each week it provides information on destination communities, travel articles, the editor’s picks, travel resources, bargain box deals, and interactive opportunities on message boards. Sign up for the newsletter is at www.independenttraveler.com.

• I also receive the monthly National Geographic Travel newsletter. This newsletter has been substantially upgraded and is now very helpful with interesting destination articles, travel tips, and great photography. You can subscribe (for free) to the newsletter at www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/.

• If you have been following my travel articles, you know that I am a frequent user of go-today.com. This is a website travel packager that can be accessed only by the internet (or by phone for an extra fee). I have purchased foreign trips from them on the internet to Vienna, Tuscany, Paris, London, Brussels, and Bangkok and everything they have promised has been delivered. Check out their new website and you will see the wide array of one week trips offered to Europe, South and Central America, and Asia. The package usually will include air travel, hotel, breakfast, sometimes pickup and return to the destination airport, and a half day city tour the day after arrival. It is well worth your looking at their website at www.go-today.com. A competitor to Go-Today is Gate1 Travel. I have their website on my favorites. Their similar packages (and escorted trips) are found at www.gate1travel.com.

• Finally, for those of you who enjoy travel writing literature (like I do), please look at www.worldhum.com. This site reviews recent travel books and interviews travel writers. It is also a very helpful site for hyperlinks to travel journals, travel magazines, travel blogs, newspaper travel sections, book stores, and a myriad of interesting travel websites. The title of the site is World Hum – Travel dispatches from a shrinking planet. Take a look at it.

This article was published in the Winter 2004 issue of the ABA Judicial Record newsletter.

Is There Travel Life After Retirement?

Does the sun come up every day? Of course there will be travel in our future. I am always pleased with the number of people who tell me that they enjoy my articles and I have promised Sally, your newsletter editor that I would continue to send them on to her even though I will have retired just seven days after you receive this month’s newsletter. As a truly addicted traveler I really can’t wait to get started knowing that I have a nearly empty calendar. This past November Mary Ann and I were coming back from Portugal and I mentioned that I was pretty bummed out that we had nothing planned until late January. I am sure she thinks I have gone off the deep end! When I was developing a retirement income and expense budget (another strange experience as I have never followed or had a budget in my life) I figured out all the real life expenses like food and mortgages, and then everything left over went into the travel budget. You really have to set your priorities in life.

To start the retirement travel I have an American Bar Association meeting in Miami in early February, so to get ready for that, it surely is necessary to spend a week in Key West resting up for the intellectual rigors of the meeting. We have selected and reserved a Bed & Breakfast in what has to be one of the most fascinating communities in the country. We were in Key West a few years ago and have always wanted to return and spend more time. Check out the guest house we have selected at www.lhabitation.com. After exhausting ourselves at Margaritaville and the Hogsbreath in Key West, we decided to wind down in Naples, Florida with the rich (old) and famous. We will spend a few days at the Bellasera Resort Hotel before crossing Florida to the meeting in Miami at the Hyatt Regency. Sounds like a tough schedule but we will try to survive.

Now of course all of the above was business, and we should get on to some real retirement travel. Our plan has always been to spend the late spring, summer and early fall months at our home in Chelan. Each winter, for two or three months, we have planned to live somewhere different in the world. For our first effort we have selected San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where we have rented a furnished apartment for 10 weeks starting March 1.

If you haven’t heard of San Miguel de Allende, it is one of the secret great places in the world located in the state of Guanajuato. It is actually a top destination of world travelers. The city, about the size of Wenatchee, is located in the colonial district of Mexico, north of Mexico City and east of Guadalajara. It is similar to central Washington with dry terrain, but has a high altitude of about 5,000 feet. It is world famous for being a cultural center of art, writing and music. The climate is much the same the whole year with temperatures in the high 70’s and low 80’s. There is a considerable expatriate community of Americans and Canadians, so if my meager Spanish fails me we should be able to find enough people to talk to.

In selecting a place to live we had some real tough criteria. Mary Ann said we had to have a maid, high speed internet access, within close walking distance to the historic city center, a washer and dryer, and cable TV. Fortunately, there are a lot of choices that fit these criteria. If we wanted a cook, that is also available at a modest fee, but when you are married to a person who you have sent to a Mexican cooking school, who needs it? For more information about the history and sites of San Miguel de Allende take a look at:

www.internetsanmiguel.com. We are really looking forward to this adventure, and hope it will work out so we will continue planning for future years. New Zealand would probably be the destination for 2008. The following are a couple of photos of our San Miguel apartment.

I will certainly keep you updated on how we are doing on our travels. Thanks for all the great years and your many kindnesses to me during my tenure as a Chelan County employee.