This week’s Photo Friday (#FriFotos) theme is DOGS.  Pictured are two beach dogs and their walkers on an early morning stroll on Sanibel Island, FL. Caption: “Forgot that little dog!  We came here to walk, remember?”  

Every professional travel writer, it seems, has a happy place, a destination where they return not so much to gather new material, but to unwind and relax. For me, that place is Sanibel Island, Florida. My parents started taking us to Sanibel when I was a teenager. Eventually, they bought a condo...

This week’s Photo Friday (#FriFotos) theme is SUMMER.  To me, summer means a season of shorts and flip-flops and playing on the beach.  The turtle sand sculpture pictured above was taken during an early morning walk on Sanibel Island, FL.

The Sanibel Thriller, a high speed boat tour of Sanibel and Captiva islands on Florida’s Gulf Coast didn’t appeal to me at first. For one, the weather was cold. And two, it cost $38 per adult for two hours – which seemed a little expensive for this unemployed writer (kids cost $25). But...

As I’ve mentioned before, Sanibel Island, on southwest Florida’s Gulf Coast, is one of my happy places, a retreat where I can relax and mentally recuperate. There’s something about the island’s natural beauty that I find soothing. Development is limited, and the shoreline...

  As journalists, my coworkers and I tend to seek out the novel and unexplored. As reporter Laura  Bly puts it, “My favorite place is the next place.” Plus I’ll never make it to the Century Club if I keep going back to the same countries and cities. That being said, there usually...