micetrail – Travel adventures & observations – local and global

The Hatchery: a blog about my adventures in bird watching

Spring in Sri Lanka (or rather sweating) – 2025

What to say about Sri Lanka Beautiful / Serene / Amazingly clean (no plastic, no garbage) / Friendly / Sweltering and Sweaty / Well worth visiting After a long flight via Doha, arriving in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, we overnighted in Colombo in anticipation of our journey the next morning. Our journey took…

July 5, 2025
A journey to Western Australia and the Outback – 2024

It’s quite a journey from the U.S. to get to Fremantle in Western Australia but worth the trip. Actually Fremantle was one of the highlights as was the stay south of there in Olio Bello. There were several highlights, most of all on land but a few on the ship as we traveled from Fremantle…

March 16, 2024
Christmas Markets with my Sis – 2023

Christmas Markets along the Danube – December 2023 Nuremberg to Budapest

January 22, 2024
No traveling recently so…here’s some musings on massages around the world

Memorable Massage Around the Mundo #1 – Bagat. Uzbekistan During my 2 years in Uzbekistan with the Peace Corp I had the occasion to travel in the country and to other countries when there was a break. When I was first stationed in Bagat, a small Agri village I inquired as to massage possibilities being…

July 26, 2023
Algerian & Tunisian Highlights

Closing out my 2022 travels was a trip to the northern Africa countries Algeria and Tunisia. I “had” to make a stop in Lisbon prior to joining my favorite travel partner Andrew in Algiers. So, from Lisbon which is not that far from Algiers I had a one hour transfer through Paris. Once arriving in…

January 15, 2023
Adventure in Algeria & Tunisia – 2022

It’s taken me a bit of time to recount my visit to Algeria and Tunisia last year in 2022. But here goes: This was not a cruise and not for the faint of heart and not for the grumpertons. Being with a small group was helpful and having some “interesting” fellow travelers along helped with…

October 5, 2022
An interesting time to be in the Baltics

Even with all the cancelled voyages and Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I was able to get to the Baltics ie., Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania. As it turns out there were only three of us on the trip as one person had just cancelled at the last minute due to her dog being…

June 18, 2022
Cuba Libre

What can I say about Cuba? I think the only way one can visit (as an American) is to join a ”cultural” tour. Applying to a university trip is the way to go. One really doesn’t have to be an alumni but can pay to join temporarily. On the trip I took, out of eleven…

April 21, 2022
Crete was a bit of a bust…

My expectations for Crete were not great and I was certainly under the misunderstanding of the size and geography of the island. It is quite mountainous and brings to mind the Sierra Nevadas’. It could have been a lovely culinary and hiking ten days. After all it was announced as Great Hikes and Cuisine of…

October 26, 2021
Outahere…yes, you’ve got to really want to travel or escape in the Time of Covid

Yes, it is a challenge traveling in The Time of Covid but it really is a necessity. This time to Lisbon-Crete-Lisbon. From Lisbon initially and then heading to Athens and then Crete where I met up with a small group of peeps for a culinary/cultural trip consisting of some really nice hikes…well more on that…

October 25, 2021