Tag Archives: David Jarmul

The Hopeful Horizon

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We did a lot of traveling in 2025 but we couldn’t escape the chaos of what was happening back home.

Champa and I decided after last year’s election to spend more time abroad. We journeyed from Australia to Sri Lanka to the Balkans, pursuing our passion for travel while trying to put America’s troubles in our rearview mirror. 

But we couldn’t avoid them, no matter where we steered.

We passed this van in Galle, Sri Lanka.

When we visited New Zealand at the beginning of the year, we had dinner with a group of Canadians who asked why our country was disrespecting them despite Canada being our closest friend. In Kathmandu, we had lunch with friends who live next door to an apartment complex where USAID employees were in the process of moving out.

People held candles at this October gathering in Frankfurt that celebrated Germany’s reunification and embrace of tolerance and diversity.

In Dubai, we visited at the same time our president was in town toasting the country’s autocratic leaders. In Germany, we attended a candlelight ceremony honoring diversity and cultural inclusion — the same values under siege back home. 

Our friends in Moldova, where we served in the Peace Corps, wondered why the United States was slashing its support of their neighbor, Ukraine. Throughout our travels, our hotel televisions aired discussions about the United States turning away from its democratic allies.

Our visit to Sarajevo was a powerful reminder of war and genocide’s impact on future generations.

We spent about half of the year in the United States, where we watched some friends lose their jobs helping developing countries and other friends struggle to continue their life-saving scientific research. Several people I hired at Duke University more than a decade ago were forced out by budget cuts. 

When we had dessert at a friend’s house in Durham, one of the other guests told us her fiancé had just been locked up by ICE. Another local friend said she was reluctantly changing careers because there’s so little funding for public health. At a community organization where I volunteer in Durham, they’re facing serious budget pressures. At another Durham nonprofit where I help prepare and serve food, they’re coping with layoffs and program cuts.

We saw road signs for USAID projects in Nepal and other countries we visited.

Both at home and abroad, it’s been impossible to escape the ugliness that defined America this past year and metastasized beyond our shores. Even in remote areas of Nepal, where Champa and I traveled to dedicate a school we helped to build, we saw road signs for USAID projects that have since ended.

We plan to continue pursuing our travel passion in 2026. We’re leaving town again in a few weeks and will embark on an extended Asian trip in March, with West Africa and other destinations to follow. We’re at a stage in life where we want to keep going while we still can, always aware of how privileged we are to do this. 

This memorial in Christchurch, New Zealand, recalls how former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern embraced members of the city’s Muslim community following an attack on a mosque — a striking contrast with what we’ve come to expect at home.

As we look ahead, though, we’ll no longer pretend to ourselves that we can, or should, separate ourselves from what’s happening. That’s proven impossible. Instead, especially as the midterm elections approach, we’ll broaden our volunteer focus and spend more of our non-travel time working to help reclaim our country.

I keep reminding myself that it’s always darkest before the dawn. During this holiday season, at the end of a stressful year, I’m grateful for our family and friends and counting our many personal blessings, but I’m also looking to the horizon.

Top photo: One of our year’s highlights was helping to dedicate the new school in Samalbung, Nepal.

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Brown’s Crisis Response

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I had two immediate reactions to Saturday’s deadly shooting at Brown University, my alma mater:

Like everyone, I thought first of the victims, the wounded, the traumatized and their families.

But I also wanted to know how the university’s communications team reacted. How fast did it alert the campus? How did it keep people updated? How did it use press conferences, social media and other communications tools?

I focused on these questions because I oversaw news and communications at Duke University for 14 years before becoming “not exactly retired.” One of my most important roles was to help manage the university’s response to weather emergencies, student deaths, campus demonstrations and, most memorably, the false rape charges against Duke’s lacrosse team that dominated national headlines for months.

I worked with Paul Grantham and many others at Duke to develop emergency communications plans, including this website which has since been updated.

As regular readers of this blog know, I don’t write much about Duke. I think it’s a wonderful institution and enjoyed working there. However, I vowed when I left a decade ago that I wouldn’t linger on the sidelines or interfere with my successors. I focused instead on the next stage of my life and personal challenges that had nothing to do with smarmy Fox News reporters, online outrage or deciding what I should say publicly when I didn’t fully know what was happening.

The shooting at Brown has brought crisis communications back to the front of my brain. Ironically, it occurred shortly before the deadly attack on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, where Champa and I went hiking less than a year ago on the famous beach trail to Coogee.

I admire how Brown has responded. It sent an alert to its campus community quickly, with instructions to “lock doors, silence phones and stay hidden.” It posted updates frequently. It replaced its usual home page with emergency information while retaining essential links to admissions, departments and the like. 

Brown made clear to panicked students, worried parents and others that “senior administrative leaders from across the University are convened in emergency command to mobilize ongoing response and support for our community.” In other words, it reassured everyone that the leadership was aware of the situation’s gravity and coordinating a response, even as police searched for the shooter and doctors treated the wounded. 

At 6:33 p.m., Brown confirmed to the community that two people had died and eight were in the hospital. The university continued posting updates into the night. At 1:53 a.m., President Christina Paxson sent a message providing an overview of this “unimaginably tragic day” and urging the Brown community to “work together to get through this difficult time.”

Other messages provided information about where students could find food, recover personal belongings, speak with a grief counselor or get more information about their classes, which were mostly canceled along with final exams.

In response, my fellow alumni have been overwhelmingly supportive although, predictably, some wasted no time in criticizing. I pulled my own Brown sweatshirt out of the back of my closet and began wearing it as a sign of solidarity, for myself more than anyone.

Champa and I have traveled extensively over the past year, and I’ve been asked whether the people we meet are now avoiding the United States. Some of them have told us they are indeed staying away for political reasons but more have said they fear visiting us because of our endless gun violence. I now understand their concerns more than ever. For me, as for so many Americans before me, the issue has become more personal.

As a communications professional, I also have been reminded how daunting it is for a university, or any institution, to respond to one of these perilous situations, when blood is on the ground, emotions are on edge, facts are fluid and everyone is watching. 

No one wants to hear terrible news like this. When it occurs, though, it needs to be communicated quickly, accurately and effectively. Brown’s actions since Saturday will surely come under scrutiny in the days ahead. Mistakes will probably emerge. Critics will express outrage.

As one familiar with this, though, I tip my cap to Brown’s communications team. I know I’m far from Providence and communications have evolved since I left Duke, but I think they’ve mostly gotten it right.

Top photo: ABC7

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Top Ten Books 2025

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I’m starting my annual Top Ten book list with a confession:

I ended last year’s list with a vow to finally read The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s epic biography of Robert Moses, the ruthless builder of New York’s roads, bridges and parks. Alas, I only made it halfway through this 1,344-page masterpiece.

That’s because there were so many new books I couldn’t wait to read. Now that we’ve reached year’s end, I have ten great ones to recommend, starting with four nonfiction picks.

In Careless People, former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams provides a devastating look inside the company. She portrays a toxic corporate culture, unfettered power and and leaders “devoid of any normal human feeling.” Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and their team pursue profit relentlessly while avoiding moral consequences. I wondered about the author’s own role in all of this but still found her account compelling.

Source Code: My Beginnings is an origin story for another tech giant. It’s Bill Gates’s memoir about his early life, ending with him establishing Microsoft. He’s remarkably open about his childhood. He struggles with his immense, but neurologically atypical, intelligence, often acting like a privileged brat. I felt compassion for his parents and teachers but especially for young Bill as he careens through adolescence before finding his calling in the emerging world of personal computers. It’s a surprisingly moving journey.

Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson describes how Joe Biden and his inner circle covered up his physical decline, resisting calls to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. I was disgusted as I read the details of how his enablers misled the country and paved the way for Donald Trump’s return to the White House. I already knew the basic story, of course, but still couldn’t stop reading this account based on more than 200 interviews. It would have been even sharper with a closer examination of the role of the press, including Tapper’s own network, CNN.

Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus is my last nonfiction pick. Elaine Pagels, a religious scholar at Princeton, draws on her decades of research to assess why early Christian narratives may have veered from what actually happened to Jesus. The story of his virgin birth, for example, may have emerged to counter claims of his illegitimacy. Accounts of his resurrection may be responding to the humiliating nature of his death. Ultimately, though, the story is one of hope emerging from darkness. I’m not a Christian but I found her analysis fascinating.

My favorite novel of the year was Angel Down, which Daniel Kraus writes in a single sentence divided into paragraphs and sections. It’s a supernatural horror tale set in World War One. Five soldiers encounter an actual angel stranded in No Man’s Land and try to rescue her despite the unimaginable carnage around them. Amid this horror, the soldiers demonstrate greed, paranoia, faith and hope, showing what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances.

Death plays a central role in another fiction pick, Bug Hollow. Here it’s a single death in a much gentler setting. Michelle Huneven brings us to California to meet the Samuelson family, whose beloved son Ellis drowns in a freak accident shortly after leaving for college. The family is still reeling when Ellis’s former girlfriend appears and reveals she is pregnant, needing help. The characters navigate their grief and, especially after the baby is born, slowly come together to rebuild a family. It’s a powerful story of human resilience.

Another family drama is Vera, Or Faith, the latest from Gary Shteyngart. It’s the story of a socially awkward 10-year-old girl who must navigate both her unusual family and a country racing towards fascism. Vera’s father is a hipster Russian magazine editor, her step-mother a WASP and her biological mother a Korean woman whom Vera longs to meet. She leaves home to find her, confronting an America where white power is enacted into law and women’s rights are trampled. This bittersweet coming-of-age story is filled with Shtenygart’s usual social satire and wit.

Like Vera, the central character in Jennifer Trevelyan’s A Beautiful Family is a young girl who sees life differently. This time it’s in 1980s New Zealand. Young Alix is trying to make sense of both family tensions and the mystery of another girl who drowned in the beach town where her family is staying. Trevelyan tells the story through Alix’s eyes as she slowly gathers clues about what was actually a murder, as well as the truth about her parents’ fragile marriage.

Another of my favorite novels, Daikon, by Samuel Hawley, is set in Japan in the final days of World War II. Its premise is that the United States developed a third atomic bomb in addition to those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This bomb fails to explode and ends up in the hands of Japan’s military, which races to reactivate it to drop on the Americans. The urgent task is assigned to a nuclear physicist who wants the war to end but is desperate to rescue his wife from prison. The fate of San Francisco and the war hang in the balance of how he responds. 

Last on my Top Ten list is The Doorman by Chris Pavone, which reminded me of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities with its biting depiction of race, class and wealth in New York City. Interlocking stories play out in an expensive apartment building on the Upper West Side. A loathsome billionaire, his beautiful wife and an arts dealer with a mid-life crisis find their futures wrapped up with the building’s doorman as racial tensions explode nearby. It’s a satiric page turner with a satisfying climax.

Other novels I enjoyed, some of which were published a year or two earlier, included Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney; King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby; Hotel Ukraine by Martin Cruz Smith; All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker; The Midnight Library by Matt Haig; The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon; The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley; Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421, by T.J. Newman; Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway; and Wild Houses by Colin Barrett.

Other favorites of the year included books set in countries we visited in 2025. These included A Field Guide to Happiness, by Linda Leaming, and Radio Shangri-La, by Lisa Napoli, both set in Bhutan. Black Butterflies, by Priscilla Morris, and The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht, both unfold amid war in the Balkans. David Diop’s Beyond the Door of No Return takes place in Senegal, where we hope to visit.

My favorite travel book of the year was On the Hippie Trail, by Rick Steves, which recounts the journey he and a friend made across Asia in the 1970s. That’s what my friend, Mitch, and I did as well, following a similar path. Steves’s book brought back many memories of a trip that transformed my life.

Looking ahead, I hope to finish The Power Broker, and this time I really mean it. I even took this anticipatory photo in The New York Historical gift shop claiming “I finished The Power Broker.” For now, I wish you a great year of reading and, as always, invite you to share your own suggestions in the comments section.

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Travel Personalities

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It’s time for a personality quiz!

Question 1: Are you more extroverted or introverted?

Question 2: Are you spontaneous or do you prefer plans and schedules?

Question 3: Do you like familiar experiences or, instead, crave novelty?

If you like to travel, as we’ve been actively doing this year, your answers will strongly indicate what kind of travel you prefer.

For instance, you’ll find more extroverts in a Las Vegas club and more introverts on a nature hike. Spontaneous types are happy to see where the road leads while planners prefer itineraries. Some travelers like to return every year to the same beach or cabin while others look for someplace new.

Coimbra, Portugal

The travel industry tailors its offerings to specific personality groups. A luxury hotel seeks people who are not only wealthy but who also want to stay in a Ritz-Carlton, just as a group tour featuring bungee jumping and sky diving won’t focus its advertising on museum lovers. 

Travel decisions begin with our personalities, which are determined in turn by genetics, upbringing and other factors. Our personalities go a long way to explaining whether we seek cultural immersion, adventure, social interaction, self-discovery or just some rest and relaxation. They also help determine whether someone wants to travel at all.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

I’ve been thinking about all of this as Champa and I wrap up a busy year of travel that extended from New Zealand to Bhutan to Albania. I’ve found myself wondering why the two of us enjoy this so much while others do not.

I’ve explained previously that we decided last year to avoid our country’s political chaos while maximizing our remaining years of good health. That remains true but I think there’s a deeper reason for our travel passion, which is that travel scratches our curiosity itch.

I’ve always been a curious person. It’s why I was attracted to journalism, where I could ask people questions about what they did. It’s why I spent my career at institutions devoted to research and education. At Duke University, where I oversaw news and communications for many years, I learned something new every day about politics, business, law, science, sports, the arts and other topics. Curiosity is also why I’m such an active reader. (I’ll be sharing my 2025 Top Ten list soon.)

Champa is curious, too. When we joined the Peace Corps in Moldova after I left Duke, our primary motivation was to provide service. But we also wanted to explore a different culture.

Cooking class in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We’ve kept exploring the world since we returned home in 2018, always seeking out new places. We love to talk with people, learn local history, try exotic foods and broaden our horizons. Sitting on a beach for more than a day or two bores us. 

I first focused on personality types more than three decades ago when our office at the National Academy of Sciences had a staff retreat and we all took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Everyone on our team had their own personality traits. Some tended to focus on the “big picture,” others on details. Some were guided by logic, others by their hearts. The one thing we had in common was that we all came out ahead when we blended these perspectives and worked together.

Patagonia, Argentina

In retrospect, this should have been obvious to me. I was a slow learner, but I know now that people have diverse psychological needs and act accordingly, even when it comes to something like travel. 

In other words, there’s no “right” way to travel. We are all nourished differently, whether we’re lounging at a spa, playing golf, visiting Disney World or hiking the Himalayas. 

Helsinki, Finland

As we look ahead to the new year, Champa and I will continue pursuing the kind of travel that has brought us so much satisfaction. We recognize how privileged we are to do this, something we try to balance with volunteering and service. I hope some of you reading this will have opportunities to travel in ways that work for you or to pursue other activities that bring you joy, whether it’s playing music, working in your garden, hiking with your family or something else. 

Of course, I’m curious to learn how it all works out.

Top photo: Watching the fireworks in Sydney, Australia, on New Year’s Eve, 2024/25.

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Showing My Cards

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I bought four greeting cards this past week to replenish the collection I’ve amassed to send people for various occasions. All four were sympathy cards.

Back in my 20s, I bought lots of cards to send friends and family for their weddings, and then for their new babies or homes. As the years passed, I needed more cards for special anniversaries and, eventually, for people’s retirements. Now I have a growing need for “get well” and “thinking of you” cards, along with sympathy cards.

I keep all of the cards in a large accordion folder. They’re organized in plastic baggies for each category. Birthday cards fill the biggest bag, by far, followed by blank cards, which I’ve collected from various places.

I still have some “thank you” cards but don’t use them much anymore. A few years ago I switched to e-mail messages or texts to thank people.

My German grandmother would not have approved of this. She was a stickler for written acknowledgements. If my sisters or I didn’t write and mail her a thank-you card within a day or two after receiving a gift from her, she would call my mother and ask why not. My mother, in turn, made sure we did, if only to keep her mother off her back.

So I developed my habit at an early age, which was undoubtedly what my grandmother intended. I never came close to being as prolific as Princess Diana or President George H. W. Bush, who were both legendary for sending lots of thank-you notes and personal notes. Nor do I write them as often now as some relatives and friends. But I’ve maintained my stash of cards and postage stamps, one of the few cases in which I still choose paper over pixels.

With some notable exceptions such as Taylor Swift, that’s not true of most younger people, who do everything electronically. I’m delighted when one of my children or nieces sends an actual card in the mail, but I’m also happy to get a text or e-mail.

I’ve learned to not expect even this. When Champa and I were serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in Moldova, we hosted a few dinners for fellow volunteers, most of whom were in their twenties. They had a good time but often didn’t bother to thank us by e-mail afterwards. I understood they were busy and had different attitudes towards etiquette, but I couldn’t help thinking: “You don’t have thirty seconds to write us one sentence?” Now that we’re back home, I feel the same way when we send someone a gift and never hear whether they received it, much less liked it.

I know I sound like a cranky Boomer about this, so maybe I should look for some “Get off of my lawn!” cards. At the very least, I need to be wary of letting it turn me into my grandmother.

If I’ve played my cards right, though, you’ll respond to this post by sending me your sympathies. When you do, please remember that only blue ink and black ink are acceptable.

Travel Planning

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I love traveling; 81 countries so far. Another thing I love almost as much is the planning I do beforehand. For a research nerd like me, putting a trip together is half the fun.

People have asked me questions about this so, in this post, I want to discuss our planning process.

These students were among those who performed at the school dedication we attended in Nepal. Learn more and watch the video at https://notexactlyretired.com/2025/05/02/samalbungs-new-school/

How do you choose where to go?

After the 2024 election, Champa and I decided to spend more time outside the United States. We accelerated our travel plans and looked for ways to combine countries into longer trips. Earlier this year, for example, we needed to return to Nepal to dedicate the school we helped build there. We added Sri Lanka and Bhutan and also stopped in Dubai. When we visited the Balkans, we added Italy since it’s near Albania.

We pay attention to global seasons and weather patterns. So: Australia and Argentina during our winters; Alaska and Nova Scotia during our summers.

We combined a trip to Hungary with stops in Austria and Slovakia, traveling by train.

How do you research a destination?

The itineraries of established tour companies — such as Rick Steves, Friendly Planet and TourRadar — are good sources. So are local travel companies and guidebooks, which I borrow from our local library. We watch travel videos on YouTube and use Chat GPT.

Do you travel independently or in groups?

We prefer traveling on our own so we can go where we want, be flexible and save money. However, if want to visit lots of places quickly or have concerns about logistics or safety, we may join a group, as we did in the Balkans (Choose Balkans), South Africa (Friendly Planet), New Zealand (Grand Pacific Tours) and the Baltics (Baltics Tours). 

The Travel Guru company organized everything for our trip to Bhutan, including a driver and guide, which are required for foreign visitors

When we think we need help but don’t want to join a group, we may turn to local travel planners, which I find and review online. That’s what we did in Morocco (Best Travel), China (U Travel) and Southeast Asia (Authentic Asia). It’s cheaper to work directly with a local company instead of one based in the United States, which usually outsources the job anyway. Why pay extra for an intermediary?  I can often pay local companies through an international payment app such as Wise.

Do you stay in hotels? Airbnbs? Someplace else?

It depends. Airbnb is great, and we’ve used it often, especially for longer stays or when traveling with others. I use hotels.com, too. Booking.com has broadened beyond Europe and hotels to include more options. Often I’ll dig into Google searches, scroll past the sponsored links and find local listings that don’t have an international markup. I no longer stay in hostels, but they can be a good way to cut costs and meet fellow travelers.

At the Colosseum in Rome.

Ideally, a property is located within walking distance of the main attractions, which are often in historic neighborhoods. This may be pricier, so I often broaden my search to include places further away that are near metro stops. I also check whether Uber or other ride-sharing services are available. I prefer these to taxis, which sometimes cheat foreigners if there’s not a fixed price.

How do you handle reservations for tours and other activities?

I research these in advance. As I wrote in my last post, we often use free waking tours, as well as sites such as Viator and GetYourGuide for day trips. These sites also help me identify promising destinations that I may book more cheaply with a reputable local company. I avoid nonrefundable ticket purchases but make them when necessary, such as when we visited the Colosseum in Rome.

Bus station in Split, Croatia.

How do you move around within a country?

We traveled on Flix buses in Slovenia, Croatia and Italy, using their excellent app. In Italy, we rode high-speed trains, using the Trenitalia app. In big cities like Rome and Frankfurt, we used subways and buses. With their “Tap and Go” systems, we swiped our Visa cards instead of having to buy tickets. During recent trips we’ve also used ferries, funiculars, cable cars, ships, airplanes and a tuk-tuk in Sri Lanka.

In Sri Lanka

What kind of luggage do you use? How much do you pack?

We’ve evolved to just using carry-on bags, even for longer trips — Travelpro for me, Eagle Creek for Champa. Along with small daypacks, that’s all we need. We try to stay at an Airbnb with a washing machine at least every ten days. We’ve found it much easier to travel with smaller bags, which also avoid airplane luggage charges and delays.

Our packing varies according to our destination, as during this trip to Iceland.

How do you handle medications?

We always keep these with us. To reduce space, I buy smaller sizes and use baggies to hold pills.

How about phones?

We both have iPhones and a T-Mobile plan that includes international coverage. We bring two chargers with all of the adapter plugs and cables we need. We use one charger and keep the other in a separate bag as a backup.

Which credit cards do you use?

I’m currently using two Visa cards with cash-back benefits and free international transactions, and a Charles Schwab card that reimburses me for ATM withdrawals. I’ve previously used airline cards that offered generous sign-up miles. I know some people like loyalty programs for an airline or hotel chain, but I prefer more flexibility.

Ngoan Le of Authentic Asia, center, arranged our trip to Southeast Asia with our friends Mitch and Chiyoko. We met with Ngoan in Hanoi.

How do you and Champa divide this work?

Fortunately, I enjoy this process. She doesn’t. However, we discuss everything and she often has helpful suggestions, and we always travel easily together. Before we depart, I compile everything into a detailed document, which I print and put on our phones. 

Needless to say, we also value our time at home, to hang out with family and friends, handle any business, volunteer in the community and catch our breath.

We didn’t want the election to turn out this way but, for now, we’re determined to make the most of it. In fact, I’m planning on it.

Boarding the ferry in Durrës, Albania, with my carry-on bag and daypack for our overnight trip to Bari, Italy.

Thanks to my sister, Nancy Collamer, for suggesting this post. Nancy is a retirement coach who produces an excellent blog and newsletter.

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Our ‘Free’ Local Guides

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We traveled on our own but were guided by others during our 6-week trip in the Balkans and elsewhere, from which we just returned home.

In Slovenia, a local professor showed us around the capital, Ljubljana. That’s her, Nina, in the red shirt. 

In Zagreb, Croatia, we received an excellent tour from a lifelong resident, Mirjana, wearing the white hat.

We learned about Split, Croatia, from Roko, top photo, a guide whose family has lived there for generations. In Dubrovnik, our guide was Marko, who you see holding a notebook filled with maps and historical photos he showed us. Like Roko, he said Croatian guides work hard during the busy summer season, then relax during the winter.

As I’ve written previously, we’re fans of free walking tours, which have become available worldwide. We usually book them for our first full day in a city, to get oriented and learn about local history and culture. The guides work for tips, so are motivated to be enthusiastic and helpful. With few exceptions, the ones we’ve used have been excellent.

A group’s size is unpredictable. We were Nina’s only customers in Ljubljana, and also with our guide in Durrës, Albania, the port town where we spent a day before sailing overnight by ferry to Italy. After we landed in Bari and dropped off our bags, we got some fresh pasticciotto at a bakery, then took a walking tour that included more than twenty people.

We’ve also traveled with more traditional guides, such as Ana, an Albanian woman who led the two of us and five Brazilian guys during our driving tour of the Balkans. That’s her in the black outfit at a historic castle in Krujë, Albania.

Our final guide, in Frankfurt, was Haotong, who shared his perspective on growing up there in a Chinese immigrant family. In turn, Haotong was interested to learn about our Asian-American marriage and about my mother’s flight from Nazi Germany as a girl. Conversations like these are as memorable as any of the sights we see.

We’ve used several of the big companies that offer these tours, such as Guru Walk and Sandemans, as well as local companies. We research them online, find a tour that matches our schedule, then book a reservation. They respond with instructions about where to go and what to expect. They send reminders before the tour and, if necessary, let us cancel without a problem. That’s what we did in Naples, where we opted instead for a free Rick Steves audio tour I’d downloaded. We also used Rick’s excellent audio tours in Rome and Florence.

Free walking tours are helpful in another way, too. When we’re figuring out where to stay in a city, we check where the tours start, then seek lodging nearby. That puts us close to major attractions even if we don’t take the tour.

We always tip the guides and post good reviews. After all, they work hard and provide a great service. Are they really “free”? Well, not exactly, but when it comes to learning about the places we travel, “not exactly” is working just fine for us.

My Art Renaissance

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I’m an art lover with a confession: a lot of art in museums bores me. Champa and I both love Impressionism, abstract art and other modern genres. But we’re less passionate about much of the art produced before that. We appreciate it but don’t love it.

When we visit great museums, we often stride through the pre-Columbian, Egyptian, African and other galleries, glance at the old European paintings and tapestries and maybe pause a little longer for Rubens, Velázquez and other great masters, especially Rembrandt.

But it’s only when we get to the Monets and Renoirs, to Pollock and Frankenthaler, that we slow down and really begin to savor. For better or worse, that’s the art that speaks to us. 

That is, until we came to Rome and Florence. 

Night view of the Duomo in Florence

We just spent much of the past week in museums, basilicas and other showcases of Renaissance art. I was familiar with Leonardo, Michelangelo and the other greats, of course, and not only because our two sons collected Ninja Turtles. I admired their work, but it didn’t especially move me. My appreciation was dutiful rather than passionate. 

I don’t know what caused my Renaissance switch to turn on after so many years but, unexpectedly, I found myself entranced by much of what I saw in Rome and Florence. 

For example, here’s Michelangelo’s famous Pietà, which I first saw in my youth at the New York World’s Fair. Its composition and technical mastery are impeccable, to be sure, but what got to me when we viewed it in Saint Peter’s Basilica was its emotional and spiritual power. I could feel Mary’s grace and anguish. 

Michelangelo’s David, in Florence, also spoke to me. Its anatomical precision and monumental scale command attention, but what stayed with me was the look in David’s eye — his intelligence and determination to slay Goliath. David is my namesake and this has always been my favorite Bible story. Seeing this statue in person made him seem so much more real. 

So did this David statue at the Borghese Gallery in Rome. I was less familiar with this Baroque version by Bernini, but I spent a long time circling it, gazing at its details and feeling the drama of what young David was about to do. Just look at his coiled body, holding the stone that will kill the giant. Bernini demands that I engage emotionally. 

And so I did, not just with these three sculptures, but with many of the frescoes, paintings and other works we saw, some of which I’m sharing here.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Adoration of the Magi, Uffizi Gallery

Laocoön and His Sons, Vatican Museum

Raphael’s The School of Athens, Vatican Museum

Michelangelo’s Moses, San Pietro in Vincoli

Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, Uffizi Gallery

The Vatican Museum’s collection also included some work by newer artists I already loved, such as Matisse and Klee, below, and I was happy to see those, too. 

I’m sure some people will read this, shake their heads and consider me an idiot for taking so long to appreciate Renaissance art, or for not paying proper homage to other old masters, from Goya to Vermeer. I can hear the indignant cries that I’m paying short shrift to other artistic lineages, from China to the Incas. 

I get it. They’re right. But I can’t help what I like or what touches my heart. Art is so personal. I can recognize the greatness of, say, British landscape painters but still not be moved by them. I can’t explain why I prefer Georgia O’Keeffe’s landscapes or Monet’s water lilies, but I do and think they’re gorgeous. 

Monet, Water Lilies, MoMA, New York

Champa and I visit museums often during our travels and have recently steered towards the work we love most. When we went to Amsterdam a few years ago and had only one day to see art, we chose the Van Gogh Museum over the iconic Rijksmuseum. In Paris, we chose a return to the Orsay Museum, which is filled with Impressionists, over revisiting the Louvre. On a recent trip to New York, we went to MoMA and the Whitney instead of the Met.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Whitney Museum, New York

In Rome and Florence, though, we necessarily focused on Renaissance art, which led me to reevaluate how I felt about it. Maybe something similar would have happened if we’d immersed ourselves for a week in some other artistic style. Maybe not. I think it was the art itself that caused this rebirth, or renaissance, in my sensibilities. 

In any case, I now regret that I didn’t open my eyes sooner and acknowledge that my sons were smarter than me to idolize Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello. I should have paid closer attention when they shouted Cowabunga!

Top image: Detail from Raphael’s The School of Athens, Vatican Museum

Sorrento and Naples

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Billionaires. Yachts. Fashion. La dolce vita. 

Anyone who follows this blog knows this isn’t our usual traveling style, assuming we could afford it, which we can’t. 

However, we’ve spent the past few days living among the beautiful people in Italy’s Amalfi Coast. We window-shopped lemon-themed gifts and colorful ceramics as we toured the scenic towns of Positano, Amalfi and Ravello along the rocky shoreline. We watched boats sail off to Capri. We sampled gelato and sipped limoncello. Outside our window in Sorrento as I write this, a musician is playing “That’s Amore” on his accordion. Really. 

Positano

Amalfi

The Amalfi Coast is unavoidably expensive but we’ve kept to our usual style, such as foregoing an expensive guided excursion to Pompeii by traveling there on our own by train, ordering admissions tickets online and listening to an excellent free Rick Steves audio tour. (It rained but we enjoyed it anyway.)

Pompeii

Last night in Sorrento, we assembled a delicious dinner with bread, cheese, peppers and other goodies from a local market. 

The Amalfi Coast is every bit as gorgeous as its reputation, and we’ve enjoyed our version of la dolce vita. However, we felt more at home in Naples, an hour away. 

Naples

Street art in Naples

Naples is Italy’s third largest city, after Rome and Milan, and we loved it. It’s loud and chaotic, with graffiti on the walls and laundry in the windows. Aging buildings, glorious churches, historic monuments and tempting pizzerias provide a backdrop for racing scooters and flirting teenagers. 

Duomo di Napoli

Shrines worship local football legend Diego Maradona along with the Virgin Mary, above.

There are plentiful street demonstrations, such as one we saw for Palestine, above, and strikes, like the one that nearly made us miss our train. 

The Farnese Bull at the museum

Our favorite stop was the National Archaeological Museum, with its imposing sculptures and galleries filled with mosaics and other artifacts from the doomed city of Pompeii, whose ruins we visited later. We also rode a funicular up to Castel Sant’Elmo, admired its views of the city and Mount Vesuvius, then took a different funicular down to large plazas near the waterfront. We sampled the gelato there, too. 

Sumptuous Amalfi and vibrant Naples are both part of the Italian region of Campania, which is only one of many regions in this large and beautiful country. We’re heading next to Rome and Florence and look forward to continuing our new love affair with Italy. 

When the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine, or gelato, that’s amore. 

Signs of Death

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Here’s something you don’t expect to see if you’re an American taking a walk near your home: a poster telling you that one of your neighbors just died.

We’ve seen these death notices throughout our travels in the Balkans and now in Italy.

Gjakovë, Kosovo

Across the region, families place notices about their departed loved ones on public walls and elsewhere. The posters typically include a photo of the deceased and facts such as their age and next of kin, along with funeral plans. In other words, much like a death notice or brief obituary in the United States.

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

However, the posters are much more public than a typical American notification. They’re a quick way to alert neighbors who may not be connected online or read a newspaper.

As the comedian George Burns famously said, “I get up every morning, read the obituary page. If my name’s not there, I have breakfast.”

Durrës, Albania

I’ve found something comforting in how this tradition is being maintained, in both Christian and Muslim communities here, while our own methods of announcing deaths evolve rapidly. Published obituaries in local U.S. papers have given way to Legacy.com, Facebook memorials, e-mail chains and other online systems. Social media is now the first place we learn of many deaths. The notifications themselves may be less formal, more personal, even funny.

Bari, Italy

I didn’t expect to spend time thinking about death customs during this trip but the posters are omnipresent. As someone who publishes almost exclusively online these days, I like how these posters brave the elements and slowly decay, like death itself.

When I’m back home in North Carolina and taking my daily walks, I’ll miss seeing them.

Naples, Italy

Top photo: Naples