I’ve only seen a small slice of Norway, and I’m in awe. Two weeks ago our cruise docked at Molde, Olden, and Haugesund, three different but beautiful areas of Norway. All three offered delightfully moderate temperatures compared to the 100-degree weather in St. Louis–I now know that I should travel north in the summer, not … Read more
A cornerstone of the tabletop game industy is game conventions, but for years the only conventions I’ve attended are Geekway to the West and the Stonemaier Games Design Day. I work 7 days a week and can play games in St. Louis, so I’ve had a hard time justifying the travel time to play games … Read more
For our recent trip to a Norway fjord & gaming cruise, we wanted a little buffer time in England upon arrival, just in case. Fortunately, aside from the rough flight to Toronto, we landed in Heathrow mostly on time. We had special guests waiting for us at the airport: Mark (who has handled Stonemaier Games’ … Read more
A little over a week ago, Megan and I headed to the airport to fly from St. Louis to London. We were excited about more than just the destination, as we had found a great price on business-class seats for the trip (which had us leave in the mid-afternoon and arrive in the morning). The … Read more
Today I have a little travel tidbit that I recently learned. Two related tidbits, actually. Both are about the experience of returning from a trip, which I’ve at times found distorting. You’ve gone on this amazing adventure, and then it’s just right back to regular life afterwards. I’ve yearned for a better way to appreciate … Read more
For the final segment of our trip, we headed to Tokyo! We had a delightful departure from Shibu Onsen, with the hosts at the Sakaeya Ryokan treating us to tea while we waited for the shuttle to the train station, then waving at us until the shuttle was out of sight. I waved back. We … Read more
After 2 wonderful nights in Kanazawa, it was time to get on the bullet train to Nagano. We first spent a nice morning at Kanazawa station, which featured a huge array of tasty treats (including some tayaki). In my mind we were going to Nagano–which is true–but our final destination was nearly an hour outside … Read more
I wanted to venture to a few new places during our trip to Japan, and I found Kanazawa along the bullet train line on the west coast. Technically we had to take a regular train from Kyoto part of the way, but it didn’t add much time to our trip. I should note here that … Read more
We flew into Tokyo after a long day of traveling, but we immediately got on the bullet train and headed for Kyoto. We figured that we might be sleepy (which we were), so a gentle train ride was the perfect way to start our trip. Also, we didn’t want to rush to the airport at … Read more
For years I’ve seen travel agents be the butt of jokes in TV shows and movies. I must admit that I laughed along–in the era of the internet, everything you need to plan a trip is at your fingertips. Yet now, after recently planning a trip to Japan, I realized that’s exactly the reason why … Read more