Sydney, Australia; Los Angeles, California; New York City; Shanghai, China; Hong Kong; Miami; Santa Monica; Bermuda; New York City (again); Toronto; Vancouver, Canada; Austin, Texas; Newport, Rhode Island; and back home again to Boston, Massachusetts. This year has taken me around the world and back again, and while not without its complications, this year has [...]

The tears started before I even set foot on the bridge. It was 8 a.m. and our climb was scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. I grazed through the gift shop and made back-to-back trips to the bathroom. I walked up one flight of stairs to the ‘holding area’, where I would await my tour [...]

“I can’t believe how off-balance and dizzy I felt earlier,” I said to Mary, the marine scientist who works at the Sydney planetarium. “Well that’s normal,” she said. “You are, after all, standing upside down.” G’day from down under! It’s an amazing feeling to know you’re flying over the equator to the other side of [...]

In just a few weeks I’ll be sitting pretty in economy-class on 16-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, courtesy of VAustralia. When I purchased the ticket I told myself, “Economy class will be fine! You can walk around, watch some movies, maybe you’ll make a few new friends… you don’t need to spend the [...]