Clark Norton

I have no idea why I came to trust Dave. The man loved snakes, scorpions, and spiders. I hate spiders — and I’m not too keen on snakes or scorpions. But this was the rain forest, where Dave seemed at home, and where, to me, everything seemed strange and foreboding. I watched as a line of ants, dwarfed by the leaves they were hauling, marched past my feet. I listened as distant howler monkeys made

As a baby boomer, most of my pop cultural touchstones date back to the 1950s through the 1970s. Bob Dylan will always speak more to me than Jay Z; the Kardashians are only names to me. What is it they do, exactly? I have no idea. My all-time favorite actors and actresses are long since deceased; some of my favorite movies were filmed in black and white. But many of them — along with popular songs,

When my family and I lived on City Island, New York, a little island in the Bronx that’s the farthest northeast point in New York City, our next door neighbor — a born and bred City Island resident then in her 60s or 70s — made a startling confession: she had only once in her life ventured into Manhattan, and that was to visit a friend in the hospital there. If you walked a short distance down the

The tiny Republic of San Marino, which is entirely surrounded by Italy, was number one on my personal bucket list because it was the only country in Western Europe that I hadn’t visited. Since I would be visiting Italy soon, I was going to cross it off my list. Of course, I also wanted to go for all the reasons I want to go anywhere — seeing what there is to see and, I hope, enjoying it — but I ad

Some terrific destinations just seem to fall through the cracks and when you finally visit, you wonder where they’ve been all your life. My latest revelation is Gloucester, Massachusetts, a city of 30,000 about 30 miles northeast of Boston on the Atlantic Ocean. It shares scenic Cape Ann with three other communities: Rockport, Essex, and Manchester-by-the-Sea, and if you like water views, boating,

On our first trip to Asia many years ago, my wife and I were traveling in Thailand and enjoying the most consistently good food we had ever eaten. Every meal — whether it was a simple dish of pad Thai at a noodle stand or a whole grilled fish in a sit-down restaurant — was outstanding. We were in foodie heaven. That is, until we spotted a placard in our Bangkok hotel lobby promising a memorable ev

Venice has always been one of my favorite cities. If there’s a more beautiful city in the world, I haven’t found it. And millions of other people would say the same. And therein lies the problem: Millions of people visiting (and tromping through) one of the most fragile cities on the planet — at the rate of 80,000 per day in summer, far outnumbering Venice’s own residents. After all, the city is b

Way back in 1971, shortly after graduating from college, I developed an obsession for the paintings of the 15th-century Flemish master Hieronymus Bosch, whose phantasmagorical — sometimes grotesque — artworks appealed to my psychedelic sensibilities of that era. I spent days in libraries hand-copying notes from dusty tomes about the artist, sought out all of his works in American museums, and even

A few months ago I attended a stamp and coin show in Tucson and was disappointed to see that most of the displays were devoted to coins, not stamps. And I became almost morose while chatting with some of the few stamp dealers there (all of whom were baby boomers, by the way). They each told the same story: in their experience, at least, stamp collecting is a dying hobby. Many of their items had be

I confess: I’ve dined on KFC in Nairobi, Big Macs in China, and A&W in Kuala Lumpur. I’ve watched Bob Newhart reruns in Zimbabwe, ordered bacon and eggs in Mumbai, and visited the Holiday Inn in Swaziland. There are times when seeing a familiar face — even Colonel Sanders — has proved reassuring while traveling in distant lands. But usually not. When I go abroad, in fact, I’m almost always dra

I might never have visited Nuremberg, Germany, if it hadn’t been the starting point for a Danube River cruise last fall. My wife, Catharine, and I arrived in Nuremberg several days early, intending to use it as a base for exploring the surrounding area, a region of Bavaria known for its charming medieval towns, rolling hills, and Autumn beer festivals. But we ended up being so enamored of Nurember

Whenever I tell someone I first meet that I’m a travel writer, I’m almost invariably asked the same questions. They usually involve some variation on “What’s your favorite place in the world?”, “How do I get your job?”, and/or “Can I come with you?” Depending on my mood at the moment, I may give one answer — or another — because some answers invariably lead to further discussion, while others almo

During our recent visit to Charlottesville, Virginia, where our daughter, Lia, lives and works, my wife, Catharine, and I had the chance to leave the city a bit and explore the attractions of the nearby region. Since it was our third visit to Charlottesville, we had already toured Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, and the Jefferson-designed University of Virginia campus, sporting some of the co

Note: This is the second in an occasional series of chance encounters I’ve had with famous people while traveling. The first was with anthropologist Margaret Mead in Kenya as she hesitated to cross a busy Nairobi boulevard. Below you’ll find my story with Imelda Marcos. Several years ago I was in Manila, capital of the Philippines, and in a bit of a funk. I was traveling with a group of journalist

When my wife, Catharine, and I were traveling around Europe for six months in 1974 — back when touring Europe was literally cheaper than staying home — we took a ferry from Naples to the Isle of Capri early one sunny morning and settled into seats on deck. On the ferry was an English-speaking tout trying to line up customers for Capri tours, approaching all the deck passengers who looked to be tou

It was May 1977, and I was sitting at an outdoor table in the Thorn Tree Cafe of Nairobi, Kenya’s, New Stanley Hotel, nursing a Tusker beer and alternating glances between the local paper (“Saboteurs Hit Uganda!” blared one headline) and the other patrons. I chuckled at some members of the well-heeled safari set sipping bubbly at a nearby table, looking slightly ridiculous in their pith helmets an

I never like to say “never” when it comes to travel experiences, especially adventurous ones, but there are certain ones I don’t care to repeat. I’m glad I did them — but “did” is the operative word (as in the past tense). I’ll do just about anything once, with the possible exception of bungee jumping. I’m still working up to that one, and admire anyone who’s done it — although I’d feel pretty stu

Over the past several years, I’ve had the following exciting, sometimes scary, often challenging, but ultimately exhilarating adventures: Whitewater rafting in Nepal on class IV and V rivers. Summiting a peak in British Columbia, then rappelling down the side of a cliff onto a glacier. Riding a camel in the Sahara and Sinai deserts. Hiking for a week over the hills and dales of County Kerry in sou