GoNomad

Every year we pick our ten best stories of the year, here is our annual compilation with details about each winner and its author. 

In Gascony, south of Bordeaux France, we walked in the woods to a unique hunting lodge where traditional methods are used and the food makes it all worth the trip. Today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast, learn about this old tradition and foods that go with it.

Providence is famous for WaterFire, a fiery series of bonfires that light up the river and living sculptures that make the April to December annual events unforgettable.  Take a visit to Providence with GoNOMAD Writer Christine O’Toole, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast. Read the story https://www.gonomad.com/211001-a-super-weekend-in-providence-rhode-island

There is something about Bend, Oregon that draws so many retirees, tourists, and skiers.  Learn about what makes this central Oregon city so special, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Today on GoNOMAD, we visit cities that were built to fight pirates, in Saint Augustine Florida, Cartagena Colombia and San Juan Puerto Rico. 

I took the Valley Flyer train from Springfield to New Haven, then Metro-North to Grand Central and finally NJ Transit to Princeton Junction NJ. How to take the commuter trains and save money on a long trip. 

Did you know you can sleep in a treehouse?  Here are two unique treehouse stays, one in central Ohio and the other in South Carolina, that offer serenity, isolation, and a little bit of adventure. 

The Camino de Santiago is the famous pilgrimage route across France and Spain. But did you know there is a shorter ‘winter way’ that avoids the mountains? Take the shorter Camino hike, with many of the same benefits, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Erik Burns takes travelers on trips around the midwest to view the massive force of nature that creates supercells, damaging winds and tornadoes. Find out what it’s like to go on a storm-chasing tour with Tornadic Expeditions.

A day in the desert of Dash’ e Kavir in Iran. As the bus drove out of Tehran, my feelings became more and more relaxed. A trip to a caravansary learning about life in Iran for young people and how they rebel against the rules.

Kyte is a new company that offers a new take on car rentals…you pick the car, they bring it to you, and even if you’re under 25, you can still rent a car from Kyte. Find out about this new service, drivekyte.com today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

The Scenic Eclipse is a 550-foot discovery yacht that travels the world, offering just 200 passengers or less a luxurious cruise experience with a ship small enough to dock at many ports and even take on the Drake Passage in Antarctica.  Take a cruise off the coast of South America, today on the GoNOMAD Travel…

Tom Goetter is in charge of all food and beverage operations for the Scenic Ocean cruise ships, with hundreds of employees and 3000 recipes. We interviewed Tom about sustainable cooking, dehydrating and reusing food scraps and other details of this vast operation at sea.

Today I visited “The poor man’s Galapagos” the Ballestras Islands in Southern Peru.  These islands are a home to millions of birds and tons of guano, and many sea lions lounge on the rocks and breed here. Take a boat trip to these popular islands, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Take a trip to some of the best military museums in the U.S. at the service academies and Washington DC with GoNOMAD Senior Writer Rich Grant.

The Kinmen Islands are part of Taiwan, but they are located just a few kilometers off the coast of mainland China. Find out what makes these islands worth visiting and meet the Wind Lions who guard the windy archipelago. 

The most popular sport in Afghanistan is Buzkashi…a bloody and hectic spectacle where riders try to catch a dead goat and run through the goal lines.  Find out what it’s like and why so many people in Central Asia love the violent sport. 

Cunard is the storied cruise line that goes back 180 years. Their newest ocean liner, the Queen Anne, will bring a new level of comfort and luxury to this popular cruise line. Get a peek at the the new ship today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Portsmouth is a historic and tiny city of around 22,000 on the coast of New Hampshire. Explore this art-filled tourist destination that’s becoming one of the most popular places for arts and culture on the East Coast, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast. 

Gorlitz in the eastern part of Germany, is a movie-making capital, with more than 100 films shot here over the years. It’s a perfectly preserved town with 500 years of different architectural styles and a tall tower above the town hall. 

Disney’s animated 2021 movie, ‘Encanto’ relied heavily on the magical realism of Colombia for inspiration. Today we go to the places the movie’s creators visited that helped shape the popular movie’s look and plot. 

Richard Glover was moved when he spend time with the Berber tribespeople in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Find out the wisdom that comes from centuries of living in a harsh desert, on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Portugal has become one of the top destinations in Europe for American travelers. And one of the best places in Portugal is in the south, the famous Algarve. Find out what to eat, see and enjoy there today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Show your boarding pass on Alaska Air and get a free ski lift ticket!  This and hundreds of other discounts on spas, dining and more if you show your airline boarding pass, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Princeton, New Jersey is famous for the university of the same name, and a place full of very smart and interesting people. Take a trip to Princeton and find out why, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

The Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic is a collection of bones…millions of them, all formed into elaborate art pieces in the cellar of a chapel. Take a nighttime visit to this eery and remarkable place today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

One is an ancient spa town, and the other is a strange place with white foam that looks like snow. Discover Pamukkale and Hieropolis and find out the new name of the country once called Turkey, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Massachusetts has two capes, and Cape Ann is made up of Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea. Find out what Motif #1 is and where you can get whole belly fried clams in this lovely part of Massachusetts today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

What do those numbers used to designate airlines and flights mean? Patrick Smith of Ask the Pilot, helps us explain.

Malta is the capital of Moviemaking in Europe, with 150 movies and TV shows filmed there so far. Learn why the Island of Malta is such a hot spot.

The Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey are bailiwicks of England…and both are fun islands to explore with a wealth of history and great traditions.

Erik Trinidad lives the RV life but with only his small SUV and some cool products like the Carsule car camper kit, the NOMAD Kitchen and more. Find out how he does it.

Colorado is famous for its narrow-guage steam train lines. Join railfan and Senior Writer Rich Grant as he takes us on a train tour of Colorado, today on GoNOMAD.

In Hortobágy, eastern Hungary the Csikos, or Hungarian Cowboys, have been riding the range and performing tricks with horses for thousands of years. Meet the cowboys of Hungary today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Oman is green and different from most of the other nearby nations. Find out why today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Saudi Arabia’s lesser known cities provide a glimpse into the traditional ways of living in the hot desert. 

Airbnb is great for a weekend getaway or a weeklong trip, but Rene Cizio lived in 21 different Airbnbs for 15 months in two countries. Learn about long-term Airbnb living today on GoNOMAD.

Elba is a small island off the coast of Tuscany. Its most famous resident was Napoleon. Learn more about visiting Elba with John Henderson on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Why are so many people falling in love with San Juan?  And what is boriqua?  Find out today on the GoNOMAD Travel podcast about San Juan’s many charms, featuring GoNOMAD Travel Writer Dana Armstrong.

Couchsurfing: Would you be willing to sleep in a strangers’ house? Thousands of travelers use this website to find places to stay for free. Find out more today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Verdun might be the saddest town you can visit in France. That’s because of what happened there. Find out about World War One sites in Northern France on this episode of the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

River cruising has never been more popular. Why? We talk with river cruising expert Elliot Gillies about the business and about Scenic Cruises.

Travel Expert Ramsey Qubein is on the road 95% of his life and so far he’s been to 166 countries. He has great advice on saving money and other travel tips in this short interview.

In Zeeland, in the northern part of the Netherlands, an ingenious and gigantic barrier protects the land from flooding. Find out more about one of the most complicated projects in history that the world is now studying to protect more coastlines against rising sea levels.

Winter Rafting is a thing. Find out what is so much fun about taking a rafting trip in the freezing winter of Northern Michigan.

NEOM is an audacious and huge project being built in the Northwest desert of Saudi Arabia. What will it be like?

Jeju Island South Korea is one of the most popular islands in Asia. Why do more than 15 million people visit each year?

What are the origins of some of the three-letter airport codes in the U.S.?

Advice for people who want to go away longer than just a week. 

La Paz, in Baja California, Mexico, offers wonderful whale watching without Cabo’s crowds.

VIDEO PODCAST Enjoy this famous drink in a store and bar full of absinthe, in Antibes, France.

Tips on taking your small dog on a flight with you.

In Laguna Beach every summer, art comes alive at the Pageant of the Masters, a spectacle for the ages. Find out why it’s so great. 

The TSA has some good news. Their new CAT scanners can eliminate the stop to show the TSA agent your ID at the airport. 

Antibes is a famous French seaport on the Cote d’Azur. It’s one of the places people who own superyachts like to dock. Explore why Antibes is so popular, today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast.

Oktoberfest starts in Germany at the end of September. Here are five cities where you can enjoy the beer and fun.

Las Vegas is open for business, and here are some new attractions to enjoy there in 2022. VIDEO PODCAST, listen to this on Spotify to see the video and the music. 

Sumo–the mind art–is woven into the culture of modern-day Japan. Find out what takes place behind a sumo match in Tokyo.

Nice is the capital of the Cote d’Azur, near Cannes and St Tropez in the south of France. What can you find in this city by the Mediterranean? 

Grasse, in Provence, is the world’s perfume capital. Learn about the scents and the makers and how you can even create your own scent today on the GoNOMAD Travel Podcast. 

Cannes is famous every May for its world-renowned film festival. But what else can you see and do here?  Learn more about Cannes, today on GoNOMAD.

Around the Table, Stories of the Foods We Love is a new exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx that is all about the food we grow and the many interesting aspects of growing it. GoNOMAD Senior Writer Cathie Arquilla takes in this very cool exhibition https://www.nybg.org/event/around-the-table-stories-of-the-foods-we-love/

Today on GoNOMAD, travel writer and barista Dana Armstrong shares her story about the multitude of different coffee houses she found and savored in Vienna, Austria.  There is a strong cafe culture in this exquisitely beautiful and civilized capital city in the far west of Europe. Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/201238-vienna-chocolate-and-coffee”>

In southern Spain’s Andalucia province, there is a fantastic walking experience like no other. It’s the Caminito del Rey, where you hike along a suspended walkway on the sides of a cliff with a 100-meter drop down into a ravine with a rushing river. 

Dresden is a famous city–but famous for the wrong reasons.  Ask any American about the city and the first thing many of them will say is “Slaughterhouse-Five.”  Fast forward 74 years to the present and you have today’s Dresden.   Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/150075-saxonys-architecture-highlights”>

Gaspe Peninsula, also known as Gaspesie, is a fantastic and out-of-the-way destination in Quebec Canada. Find out what’s there.

Helsinki, Finland, is that perfect combination of urban and outdoors, lively yet laid-back. Helsinki was established as a trading town in the Middle Ages to be a Swedish rival to other ports on the Gulf of Finland. It remained a small fishing village for over two centuries.

I visited Saudi Arabia and I had an interesting moment outside a mosque in the city. 

If you’re sick of the long TSA lines and intrusive security In a story on GoNOMAD, Susan Krauss explains the details of getting your Global Entry or TSA Precheck designation,  <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/201501-become-a-trusted-traveler”>

Today we take a journey across the west, from Denver’s magnificent Union Station to the famous town of Moab, Utah. Read the story on GoNOMAD Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/194509-us-rocky-mountaineer-train”>

The modern world is full of gigantic megaprojects that many people have never even heard of. In this episode, we take a look at some of the biggest construction projects both completed and ones that are still being built.

The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia are almost unchanged from the ones George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Daniel Boone knew 250 years ago.  Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/201666-seven-reasons-blue-ridge-mountains”>

Mystery Trips are a new way to travel. You sign up and have no idea where the bus will go, it’s a complete mystery to everyone on the coach. Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/202028-mystery-trips-going-no-one-knows-where”>

Ever wondered about all of the little soap bars left in hotels after just one or two uses? So did we. What we discovered from the Hustle Newsletter was a very creative thinker named Shawn Seipler, who saw the need and ended up helping the world. .  <a “https://cleantheworld.org/about-us/about-us-overview/”>p

Underwater hotels: A round-up of hotels you can visit where you sleep underwater, including the Jules Undersea Lodge in Key Largo Florida, The Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland in China, the Manta Resort on Pemba Island Tanzania, The Muraka Conrad Maldives Rangali Island and others. Some require SCUBA gear and others don’t require a swim to visit….

In a land as rich with eccentricities as the Australian Outback, Coober Pedy manages to stand out. A small town in South Australia plopped down in a nearly uninhabitable desert, it is dry and sterile, grassless and unpretty.   Read more <a”https://www.gonomad.com/2989-australias-coober-pedy-gemstone-desert” >

Winter in Alaska comes with its own set of travel challenges, as Maria Haase learned on her winter trip to Fairbanks and up the Dalton Highway to Coldfoot, Alaska. This part of the world is where they film the TV Show, “Ice Road Truckers” and the Coldfoot Camp is a lot more than a truckstop….

Jackson Mississippi is the state’s capital and a center for blues, barbecue and most of all, civil rights.  We visited Jackson in April and got a chance to visit the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the Mississippi History Museum and the large art museum. We toured the home and learned a lot about the famous author…

Today on GoNOMAD we interview Heather Mikesell, an expert on health, spas, and wellness. She told us about six interesting trends that are guiding wellness retreats around the US including at Carillion in Miami Florida and Kripalu in Lenox, Mass. Non-touch services that eliminate the need to have physical contact is growing, as is breathwork,…

Today on GoNOMAD we explore the silent way of communication in Italy, namely the famous Italian hand gestures that Italians use to convey their thoughts with their hands as well as their faces.   <a href=” https://www.gonomad.com/1766-italian-hand-gestures-in-conversation”>

Tailwind Air now offers seaplane service from Plymouth, Massachusetts to Boston, and New York City.  Samantha Butts joined the pilot of Tailwind Air for a quick jaunt from Plymouth, Mass, flying a low-altitude 20-minute hop that landed in the water of Boston Harbor. Seaplane service is a classy way to get anywhere and it’s a…

Did you know you can take a specially equipped sleeper bus between LA and San Francisco? The Cabin offers sleeping pods and other amenities to make an overnight trip between Santa Monica and San Francisco a comfortable sleepy trip.  Watch the Buzzfeed video about Cabin <a href=”https://youtu.be/hjb2p_GEPpE”

Great Diamond Island is one of many islands in Casco Bay, near the city of Portland, Maine.  There was a fort built in the 1800s on Great Diamond Island that’s been transformed into a series of townhouses, condos, and a luxury hotel. 

Today on GoNOMAD, veteran travel writer Ginger Warder takes a short trip to a fascinating part of South Carolina, The Santee Cooper region. She stayed in some octagonal-shaped cabins, met a friendly armadillo, and then cast her line with one of the only female fishing charter captains, nicknamed Mouse, to fish for catfish sleeping beneath…

Private rail cars harken back to the days of the robber barons. But with America’s Trains, you can rent a private rail car that gets towed behind an Amtrak train.  <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/1659-americas-trains-offer-luxury-train-travel”>

A visit to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan. Henry Ford was the ultimate collector, but what he loved were the ordinary objects found on farms and in factories and even the buildings that contained them.  Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/199654-henry-ford-museum-history-great-inventor”>

In Wuppertal, Germany, a city of 350,000 near Dusseldorf, there is an upside-down train, called the Schwebebahn. The train runs for twenty stops along an 8-mile, 35-minute long route, with the tracks and wheels above the train, and the passenger compartment hanging below. The Schwebebahn is a beloved tourist attraction in Wuppertal and carries 80,000…

As the war in Ukraine goes on, so many ripple effects are being felt after the U.S. and EU’s harsh sanctions, especially on the Russian aviation industry. After Boeing and Airbus stopped supplying the nation, Russia retaliated by taking control over leased airplanes in the country. How the ban on flying over Russia affects other…

Have you ever wondered what those series of numbers, letters and codes mean on your airline boarding pass?  We did too. 

Donnie Sexton traveled to frigid Fairbanks, Alaska with one goal. To photograph the elusive Aurora Borealis, the famous light show that appears at random times and often after a long wait. Read the story here <a href=”https://www.gonomad.com/199474-fairbanks-alaska-patiently-chasing-aurora”>

San Diego is called America’s Finest City.  Local resident and GoNOMAD Senior Writer Noreen Kompanik writes lovingly about her adopted hometown, moving there with her husband Mike, a retired naval officer 20 years ago.  Learn about Balboa Park and the big zoo, the city’s many beaches, the Embarcadero where many historic ships can be viewed…

Bird Strikes are something that every airline pilot is concerned about.  More than 10,000 bird strikes to aircraft are reported every year, at all 850 airports across the USA. Learn about how airports keep birds away from runways and the many different ways they use to scare them as far away as they can from…

For the past few years, Zephyr Aerospace has been working toward tackling the issue of uncomfortable upright seats on airplanes with a new concept: lie-flat seating on airplanes. Zephyr is reinventing airline seat designs, specifically for travelers on long-distance flights. It will provide access to in-flight sleep, privacy, and aisle access for more travelers on…

Prices are going up everywhere, there is almost no way to escape it. However, there are ways to get discounts and deals on popular museums and attractions across the USA. In 2021, DealA created several lists highlighting the museums and attractions with the highest ticket price increases from 2017 to 2021, as well as those…

The Most Annoying Things People Do in Airplanes. After an extended time off due to the pandemic, many people are traveling again. With this return to air travel, we are reminded of all the annoying things people do on airplanes. Only Wanderlust conducted a survey asking over 1500 travelers to rank the top 20 airline…

Robots are now serving customers all over the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport. The autonomous delivery robots are called Ottobots, and they bring drinks, snacks, sandwiches, and even new sets of AirPods to customers who order on their mobile phones and wait for the robots to bring them their purchases right at the gates.  The company that…

Traverse City Michigan is well known by most Michiganders. It’s a special place about 100 miles south of the Upper Peninsula, and it has 40 nearby wineries, a famous cherry growing tradition, a busy downtown with two independent movie theaters, summer festivals, and the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, along with Fishtown and many other fun…

In Middleton, Wisconsin, you can visit a museum dedicated to one of the world’s favorite condiments…it’s the Mustard Museum, founded by Barry Levenson. He was so sad after the Red Sox lost the World Series in 1986 that he went right out to the store and realized that there were more than 1000 different kinds…

The Jacob Javits Convention Center is the largest space in New York City, and is famous for hosting hundreds of large conventions each year in lower Manhattan. The center has recently added a rooftop vegetable garden, much more exhibition space, and many other innovations to keep it green and ahead of the convention game. Find…