A lifetime ago, John Fowles’s novel The Magus sent me searching the islands of Greece for a lost Eden. Eventually, I discovered Alonissos, in the Northern Sporades. Forty years later, I went back for the first time.       IF YOU ACCEPT the proposition that the Greek islands have the power to seduce the Read more

I wrote this for my ‘Road Show’ project about Route 1 (www.us1roadshow.com), but thought ‘Postcard’ readers would also enjoy it. There were a few things you didn’t want to say in my father’s house. ‘Franklin Delano Roosevelt’ was right there at the top of the list. I come from a long line of card-carrying, cocktail-drinking Read more

Can books change your life? Sure, if you’re lucky, or you find them at the right time. As an 18-year-old college freshman, I discovered Ed Buryn’s Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa. The book is long out of print – this was 1973, mind you – but you can still find the odd copy on Read more

In 1983 I quit my job as a magazine editor in London to travel the rivers of Africa by public transport. This article about the Upper Nile was written for and sold to The New York Times.  Sadly, it was never published – most likely considered too fringe for the Sunday Travel section.  Despite the Read more

As 2016 New Year’s resolutions went, few matched the enthusiasm, ambition and fragility of the commitment made by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). On January 1st, its 10 member countries – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – inaugurated the ASEAN Economic Community, a common market whose Read more