It’s been a while since I did a #Frifotos-themed post, but I think it’s time to jump back into the habit.  This week’s theme?  CLOUDS!  I love clouds and I love photographing them around the world, especially with the Pro HDR app on my iPhone. This afternoon before my shipwreck in Indonesia, on an island [...]

One of my most delightful surprises of the Dalmatian Coast was lovely Korčula — the home of Marco Polo. Korčula?  But I thought Marco Polo was from Venice! True.  Marco Polo was born in the thirteenth century, back when Venice was a Republic spanning from the canal-filled city to what is now Turkey.  No one [...]

Here’s a brief confession: when Dave and I stepped off the plane in Pula, Croatia, I wondered briefly if I’d made a giant mistake. It was an afternoon in late May, and it was cool.  Temperatures were in the low sixties (about 17 C).  Long-sleeved t-shirt weather.  I had planned on this trip being our [...]

Italy is my country.  I’ve spent a long time there, I studied abroad there, and I get a huge smile on my face each time I return, excited for the food and the wine and the beautiful people. As a result, my readers are always asking me for Italy advice.  Most of the time, people [...]

One night at dinner with my friends Matt and Hannes in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, I found myself buried in my iPhone, unable to pull myself away from the latest tweets. Matt and I were two confirmed iPhone addicts, and with unlimited data plans costing only $30 per month in Thailand, there was no reason not [...]

If you’re 26 or younger, I’ve got news for you: 27 is a scary age. Why?  That’s the big year of marriage.  Sure, people get married younger than 27, but those tend to be the couples who have been together for years and years, whom you expect to get married. At 27, your single friends [...]

In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus spent ten years fighting in the Trojan War, then took the LONG way home — another ten years of sailing back to Ithaca and getting into many mishaps along the way. Seven of those years were spent on the island of Ogygia in the arms of the nymph Calypso.  As [...]

It was several years ago when I first began reading about the Balkans.  I immediately became a Balkans junkie, dreaming of sailing Croatia’s islands, hiking Slovenia’s Julian Alps, partying on Belgrade’s river barges. But the place that captured my imagination the most was a little island off the coast of Montenegro called Sveti Stefan. Look [...]

If ever I had to banished to a small town for the rest of my life, never going beyond the city walls, there would be no better place than Kotor, Montenegro. I fell in love hard and fast with this beautiful little town.  Kotor is brimming with things that I love: interesting architecture, an incredible [...]

Ah, Montenegro.  I knew I’d love it.  I knew it would be beautiful.  But I had no idea that it would have the kind of beauty to knock me off my feet and render me speechless! The scenery in Montenegro was tantalizing: the Bay of Kotor from every direction, storybook-perfect walled towns, mystical islands, a [...]