Centralia is back in the news today thanks to an AP story about the star-crossed Pennsylvania town’s last days: “Few remain as 1962 Pa. coal town fire still burns.”

I was briefly fascinated with Centralia when I lived in Pennsylvania. I drove there one Saturday to gawk at the smoldering streets take some pictures of the desolate place. I think these muddy old digital camera shots actually do a good job of reflecting the town’s atmosphere of unease and sadness. Here’s a post I published on my blog in 2002, with more pictures below:

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Over the weekend, airport security was stepped up after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the (mercifully) incompetent underwear terrorist, tried to blow a hole in a Detroit-bound airliner. Most air travelers don’t mind odd new rules and long lines at the TSA checkpoints because they realize there’s a real threat that some nutjob might try to kill innocent people.

Yesterday I traveled from BWI Airport in Maryland to New York City carrying several bags of gifts, including two sharp kitchen knives and a big bottle of delicious Belgian beer. No one asked any questions—because I was on an Amtrak train!

Bags are never searched or screened on the train. Knives? Liquids? Guns? Drugs? Explosives? They’ll never know! No metal detectors, no dogs, no TSA. You can board an Amtrak train without ever showing anyone your ticket or ID. (Conductors check the tickets along the way.)

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This afternoon I took one of my favorite bike rides—following the Belt Parkway out to Floyd Bennett Field, the decommissioned airport in Brooklyn. There’s a lot of stuff out there in a state of beautiful decay. Three pictures:

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Lonely Planet guides often begin with the author’s “top day” in a particular location. My brother was visiting this weekend, and I think on Saturday we achieved my personal top day in New York City.

Here’s what we did. I’m going to include Friday and Sunday, just for good measure.

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By four o’clock on a Friday in late August, with all sensible work having ceased after lunch, Manhattan is in the midst of a mass exodus. The commuter trains teem with office workers bound for summer excursions, overstuffing the luggage racks with rolling suitcases and sipping bottled beer from paper bags.

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August 12, Rio de Janeiro, on a vacation I felt I had earned.

A banged-up Volkswagen sedan picked me up at the hostel. As I climbed in the back, the driver apologized in part-English, part-Portuguese for the busted rear window, which was stuck open. We turned onto the road that parallels the beach. The air that blew through the car was warm and smelled like the sea.

We followed the coast and passed through tunnels cut into seaside cliffs. I was on my way to go hang gliding for the first time. This is a touristy thing to do, but the gliding conditions were good, and I felt excited.

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Recently I had two three-hour layovers in the Miami International Airport. Here’s the entire experience summed up in 18 seconds:

I love visiting other countries, learning about new places, and meeting fellow travelers. Last week in Rio, I stayed in a hostel, a place that draws together a lot of budget-minded, English-speaking wanderers. We usually have some predictable things in common (a go-with-the-flow sense of adventure, an interest in people different from ourselves, big backpacks). We also have some predictable differences (professions, faith beliefs, sports allegiances).

Wherever I go, including Brazil, new friends inevitably ask where I’ve been, where I’m going, and how long I’ve been traveling. And I say, “I’m only here for a week, then I’m heading back home.” People then give me a look of pity. If you’re an American and you’ve ever been abroad, you know what I’m talking about.

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Just posted: A photo gallery from my trip to Rio de Janeiro. I’ll be writing more about this later this week, but pictures first. Enjoy!

There are at least two constants when you take a long-distance bus. You always arrive at your destination late. And you always have to witness people yelling at one another. The way to cope is to sit down, shut down, go limp, be invisible, and let the bus beat up on your spirit for however many hours it takes.

My latest transportation adventure was a round-trip ride on Coach USA’s Megabus from New York to Washington, D.C. Along with Greyhound’s BoltBus, Megabus is one of a several ultra-cheap scheduled buses that recently started plying I-95. The first few tickets on each bus are $1 or $3. My tickets were $18 each way. (more…)