TRAVEL: Overcoming Olympic travel hurdles in Greece
How a tour guide named Poopie kept an accident from turning into a traveller’s nightmare.
Frank Basile
Articles
TRAVEL: Heading south of the border again and again
Katrina and I have made more trips (10) to Mexico and traveled to more cities and towns there (35) than we have to any other foreign country in the last 12 years.
BASILE: Navigating South America proves challenging
Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana are connected to South America by land and little else.
TRAVEL: Perfectly Franks–Namesake meeting in Big Apple
In 2002, I received an e-mail from a gentleman in New York City named Frank Basile who said he attended Indiana University in the mid-1980s and was often asked if he was my son.
BASILE: Your personal history can be highlight of a trip
These days, it’s easier than ever to reconnect with important people online. But face-to-face is still far better than Facebook when it comes to telling someone how important he or she was in shaping the person you’ve become.
BASILE: For an in-state outing, you can bank on Wabash
Instead of writing about some international location this time around,
I thought I’d rediscover something near home: Wabash, southwest of Fort Wayne.
BASILE: Greenland has little dramatic history … or greenery
The highlight of the trip: the inspiring ice fields of Ilulissat.
BASILE: Three lessons from a harrowing trip to Paraguay
Our trip to Uruguay and Paraguay did not get off to a good start. And it went downhill from there.
BASILE: Building memories by booking it to presidential libraries
Until the first George Bush opens his presidential library, I’ve seen them all.
BASILE: PBS film could return national parks to national discourse
One of the best things our government ever did was to set aside land for national parks and to keep each in pristine condition
while making them accessible for people to visit. Each is different and has its own unique setting and breathtaking beauty.
BASILE: When cruising Antarctica, comfort isn’t first priority
There are cruises to the Antarctic in large luxury ships that go near the islands—close enough to afford
magnificent views. But those ships are too big to get close enough to go ashore.
BASILE: Following in the footsteps of Darwin in the Galapagos
There’s nothing like following the wildly influential thinker Charles Darwin’s own footsteps, which I had the pleasure of doing by visiting the beautiful, mysterious, isolated and enchanted Galapagos Islands.
Iran: A peaceful sojourn into the ‘Axis of Evil’
Iran is a magnificent and historically important country. It contains nine World Historical Sites as designated by UNESCO. Only 20 countriesâ??including Greece, China and Italyâ??have more.
A Persian Gulf excursion gives hint of locals’ opinions of America
Throughout our visit to five countries in the Mideast, we found the people friendly and helpful.It is not our purpose on these trips to argue with the locals or try to convert them to our way of thinking, but simply to learn about them, their culture and ideas.
Rail bonding: Train trips aren’t just a thing of the past
Train travel is not only a thing of the past—it’s also a thing of the present.
THE TRAVELING LIFE-WEB ONLY
Train travel is not only a thing of the past-it’s also a thing of the present. It’s enjoying resurgence as people rediscover the romance and excitement of riding the rails in their leisure travel and realize that getting there is more than half the fun. My wife Katrina and I have taken four train trips […]
Taking a sightseeing vacation … right here in Indy
For eight years, we’d gone out of town for the holidays. But in this particular year not too long ago it looked like we had
no choice but to stay put. So we decided to do the same thing here that we would have done in Utah—sightsee.
THE TRAVELING LIFE: Walking-and dancing and dreaming-in Memphis
In past columns, I have written about travel to far away places, but there are plenty of discoveries to be made and interesting sights to be seen in cities closer to home. Our recent four-day trip to Memphis is a case in point. We made the obligatory stop at Graceland, where the tagline on all their brochures and ads says, “Where Elvis lives.” Interesting, but we were more intrigued by Sun Studios, where the story really began. That’s where the…
THE TRAVELING LIFE: Visiting Katmandu, Nepal: The unrest of the story
Upon arrival in Katmandu, Nepal, we learned from our tour guide that the American Information Agency was bombed the day before, causing the peace corps representatives to be evacuated, along with the families of all U.S. Embassy staff. Maoist terrorists abducted 700 students and boycotted the city, closing down a dozen industries with a strike, killings and riots. The King dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew. The royal massacre of the then King and…