By Shani Gilchrist

One of the biggest discoveries I made while traveling in England with my family was the universality of modern dilemmas. On both sides of the pond, mothers are struggling with decisions about returning to work, couples struggle with whether to live in the suburbs or closer to town. Conversely, one of the differences in daily life that seemed the most distinct to me was the insertion of intellectual life into daily routine. Actually, insertion is the wrong word. Insertion indicates a deliberate or forced addition of intellectual activities or thought into the culture, which it is not. Leisurely pursuits such as reading and attending lectures are part of the fabric of middle and upper class society in England and other parts of the world. It made me wonder how America seems to have skipped that trait.

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By Gabrielle Menezes

The land fades out from medieval maps, and the borders are filled with drawings of dragons and mermaids. Later, English mapmakers would often write ‘Here be dragons’ to indicate uncharted and therefore dangerous territory. Now, the dragons have been slain with Google map, and any mermaids have fled to deeper waters. The idea of a truly remote place doesn’t exist anymore.  Travel can enrich and enlighten us, but with the accessibility of travel comes the unraveling of the mystery. I have been fortunate to have travelled widely, but now no longer feel the excitement of exploring exotic destinations. Too often I catch myself trying to diligently go through the recommended checklist of ‘ the top ten things to do’ in a country.

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Nina Sovich shares the first chapter of her new book, To The Moon And Timbuktu, with Equals. 

The cab driver assures me his sister Salima runs a lovely hotel.

“It’s a very good hotel, yes, very good hotel. No noise, no bother. Very clean. They have many, many Western tourists. Many women. Salima is a good woman.”

He leaves me in front of a squat two-story building made of poured concrete that sits on the edge of the desert next to the army airport. The second-floor balcony is hanging off its anchor bolts, and the windows are murky with sand and pink goo that looks a lot like Pepto-Bismol. The only light in the hotel emanates from a first-floor pool hall that smells of fish heads and burned felt. Cigarettes, empty milk cartons, and black plastic bags skip down the street in the midnight breeze, accumulating in a huge pothole in front of the hotel. Clean, I suppose, is a relative term.

© by Nina Sovich. Published by Amazon Publishing/New Harvest. All Rights Reserved. 

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By Rebecca D. Martin

You arrive on a Sunday. The house is white with a purple porch swing; the lane is unpaved, historic, and one-way. Once the ferry docks, you debark the boat and follow the road to the right. Soon, you turn left onto the small, sandy lane. When you get to the purple porch swing, you have arrived at your vacation. You are on Okracoke Island, in North Carolina. It is a vacation spot so remote that only a ferry will deliver you, and that is what you came for. You did not come for construction noise.

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