Author: Jeffrey Kontur

Old City Panama City

Last week I shared my thought process on flying. During our recent trip to Peru, Sydney and I had to choose between a layover in Panama City or one in Bogota. Ultimately, we decided on Panama City. The deciding factor was the fact that 2014 is the 100th anniversary of...

My Theory on Flying

When it comes to air travel, I have a theory. Except on very short flights or if you pay extra to avoid it, it’s pretty much inevitable that you will have a layover. Sometimes more than one. Since that’s likely to be the case anyway, I like to plan my...

Halifax Harbor

I visited Halifax, Nova Scotia in July 2013 and was surprised to have loved it as much as I did. I’m no fan of cold weather so I went with relatively low expectations, but I found it a quite magical place. Like most seaside towns and cities, Halifax has a...

Travel Firsts

One thing I love about travel is all the firsts. An especially fantastic trip typically has a lot of them. (I even think that’s one of the things that makes a trip especially fantastic.) For her 18th birthday, instead of wrapping up some trinket she didn’t really need I decided...

Living in the Shadow of Machu Picchu

As the nearest large city  to Machu Picchu, Cusco Peru is the gateway to the celebrated “Lost City of the Incas”. In reality, Cusco is a modest sized city of only about 300,000 people. It is extremely scenic and picturesque, in that strange way that only third world countries have...

Bay of Fundy – Crown Jewel of Beautiful New Brunswick, Canada

The Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada is one of the coolest places you may have never heard of. Out of all Canada’s Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island tend to get a lot more attention than “plain sister” New Brunswick. So I was pleasantly surprised at finding...

Fort Sumter, SC – Where the US Civil War started.

Silent puffs of smoke rise on the distant shores. Sailors gather at the rails to watch the cannonballs splash harmlessly into the water. Not even near enough to get their shirts wet. Laughing, they sail into the city and pillage. With the American Revolution and the War of 1812 still...

Eating Well on Vacation

I tend to eat very well in general but when I go on vacation I eat especially well. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I eat a lot. It means that I eat very rich foods. Having always been a huge fan of variety, I’m also a pretty adventurous eater. While...

Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kitty Hawk, NC

“Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician. After you know what to look for you see things that you did not notice when you did not know exactly what to look for.” – Orville Wright Everyone...

There’s No Stinkin’ Ocean!

To paraphrase one of the great movie quotes of all time, “Ocean? There’s no ocean. We don’t got no ocean. We don’t need no stinkin’ ocean!” The voice, of course would be that of a distinctly Hispanic-sounding Donald Duck and he’d be speaking in reference to surfing classes offered at...