Even now, when I close my eyes, flashes of that pilgrimage return like scenes from a movie. It wasn't the Himalayas that first took my breath away. It was the road leading there. Inspired by The Road to Dharma documentary series, I found myself making the same pilgrimage to Kedarnath—one of India's four sacred sites, where the ancient Temple of Lord Shiva stands high in the Himalayas. Reaching it required a two-day journey from Rishikesh to Guptkashi, followed by an eight-hou

There are some memories from travel that stay with me because they were beautiful. Others stay because they were unfinished.

High in the mountains of Nepal, we woke before dawn to make our way toward Poon Hill for sunrise.

A friend said something to me recently that made me smile. “You are a walking rainbow.” I laughed when I heard it. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized he might be right.

As I was clearing out old papers in my office, I came across something I almost didn’t keep. A simple card. It was from a trip to New Zealand many years ago. At the end of that journey, the group handed it to me — a card filled with handwritten notes from each traveler.

Some journeys don’t end when we leave. They quietly continue walking beside us. In the autumn of 2024, I walked the first 28 temples of the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage in Japan.

Today I received a letter from Paul, one of the “original five” travelers who joined me many years ago and who has since become a very Out of all the countries in the world, somehow I find myself in one very specific place, at one very specific moment in time. Sometimes it happens while walking a pilgrimage path like the Camino, the Shikoku. Sometimes it happens during something very simple — sharing a meal, walking to dinner with someone, or pausing in a small street some