Throwing Darts
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Today is our last day in Provence; tomorrow we’ll head back to Paris for one night, then on to Brittany for a few weeks. We’ve been doing a bit of 2025 contemplation while we’ve been here, and it got me thinking about how we choose some of our destinations. It’s never quite as random as throwing a dart at the map, but sometimes it’s pretty close to that.
Throwing Darts
People often ask how we decide where to go, and Dhaka was a really good example of just how totally random our decisions sometimes are. It is often cited as the most densely populated city in the world, so we (okay, mostly Lee) wanted to see what that looks like. [And what did that look like? It was crowded, but not in the ways you might expect. The only place we found the crowds truly overwhelming was at the entrance to the airport. First, our taxi got absolutely trapped in the driveway traffic, so tightly packed we couldn’t get out. The lines to get through the airport door were unbelievable—there were guys offering to take us through a VIP entrance for 25 US dollars, and if we’d had any cash, we’d have happily paid.]
We went to Hokkaido because we wanted to get away from the summer heat in Tokyo.
We went to Lake Como because Lee’s mom had been talking about how beautiful it was. Plus, see previous item: we’re always looking for ways to escape heat, and we thought it might be cooler than the rest of Italy in late July. It was still hot.
We’re going to the Faroe Islands this July because last July, when we were boiling in Lake Como’s heatwave, I scanned weather maps and found a place that was cool at that moment, but still in a European time zone (because I want to watch the Tour de France on television at a reasonable hour). We booked it that day—a full twelve months in advance.
We went to Budapest for cherry season. Hungary is known for cherry pastries and desserts, and I love cherries, so it seemed like a brilliant idea. It was, and it was delicious.
We went to Melbourne, Australia to try the world’s best (according to the NYT) croissants, at Lune Croissanterie. We ate them every single day for 28 days. I can’t say whether they were the world’s best, but they were mighty fine.
We went to Kerala because we had Keralan food when we were in Mumbai a few years ago, and we both sat there stunned, and immediately wanted to go find those flavors in situ. [Replicating that mind-blowing flavor experience turned out to be a lot harder than expected. Next time I’m just going to go back to Mumbai and eat at that same restaurant again.]
We went to Puerto Lopez, Ecuador, because we saw an Airbnb listing that said we could flush the toilet paper. [That was perhaps not the best rationale, but five years later, we’re still talking about the utter weirdness of our month in Puerto Lopez, so maybe it was a good choice after all. You can read about it here and here.]
We went to Mandalay because I thought the name sounded romantic (yes, I’ve read entirely too much Kipling). [Note: a romantic-sounding name is definitely not a good reason to visit a place.]
We went to Transnistria because it’s a ‘break-away’ republic, and that sounded absolutely fascinating. It was. My thoughts about that experience are here.
We went to Shetland because I love the eponymous British television mystery. [I also love ancient places and spectacular scenery.]
We went to Dusseldorf (the first time) because we needed somewhere in Germany to hang out for two weeks so that we’d be allowed to enter Bonaire. It was nearby and had a reasonably priced hotel. Covid times were complicated. We went back (the second time) because I wanted to go to the museum that was closed during Covid. I did, and it was … interesting.
At the moment, we’re in a small town in Provence. I read that the Wednesday market in Sanary-Sur-Mer was voted the most beautiful in France a few years ago, so I thought it would be a good place to have an apartment with a little sliver of a Mediterranean view for a month. The market is indeed lovely, and I’m cooking lunch every day and buying big bouquets of peonies and strolling on the boardwalk and generally pretending to be the kind of person who lives by the sea and pronounces Provence with a certain je ne sais quoi.
There are also obsessions: I love ancient ruins. We’ve seen Roman ruins in 15 countries, and counting. Algeria? That was totally for the ruins (and they were spectacular). Also Guatemala: the ancient Mayan city of Tikal is fascinating. And if you ever find yourself in Ollantaytambo, Peru, the Inca ruins there are every bit as spectacular as Machu Picchu, with a fraction of the tourist hordes.
Sometimes we like to find the places where locals go for their honeymoons—those places tend to allow interesting cultural insights, and have just enough attractions and tourist infrastructure, without being overrun by foreigners. We saw quite a few brides and wedding parties in Uzbekistan, which was great fun (although there were plenty of foreign tourists too). There is nothing more cheering and life-affirming and sometimes just flat-out entertaining than watching a bride and groom posing for photos against whatever backdrop matters in their culture. [I highly recommend going to Agra during Indian wedding season.]
We went to Panama to see the canal. To be fair, there are loads of other wonderful things to do in Panama, and we really enjoyed Panama City as well as the mountain town (Boquete) we visited, but the canal? Absolutely fascinating. When you go, be sure to read David McCullough’s excellent book about the construction, The Path Between the Seas.
Our itinerary is a lot more random than you can imagine, but it’s mostly driven by curiosity (with a little dash of appetite). Whatever sounds interesting—that’s what we’re interested in, and we tend to be interested in most things.
We’re planning to go to Azerbaijan in September because I want to see the modern city architecture in Baku, the capital.
There’s a rose festival somewhere in Bulgaria that I want to get to one day, but that day hasn’t happened yet. It will.
One day I want to go to India for mango season, but mangoes require very hot weather, so I’m still trying to work up my nerve for that. Ditto the Hunza Valley—the apricots are supposed to be the best in the world, but it’s a rural area of Pakistan, and I haven’t yet found my gumption. And there’s the National Cherry Festival, in Traverse City, Michigan. One day, one day.
Will travel for fruit. I mean, why not?
Take care,
Lisa
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