Traveling is such a wonderful experience. All the travel documentaries that are available on cable TV can’t begin to enrich an individual the way that stepping outside one’s local area can. Of course, like anything else, too much travel can become overbearing - there was a time many years ago when I found myself in a new city every week, sometimes several times a week, and I would literally wake up and wonder what town I was in. Nowadays, my travel is more limited, and perhaps because of that, more enjoyable. So let me tell you about my September travels, two trips down, one to go.

My wife and I had the fantastic opportunity to spend a week in Iceland from September 2-9. Why Iceland? Because it’s a place that we’ve always been interested in, and, conveniently enough, there was a Rotary Youth Exchange conference being held there. So, in addition to the conference agenda (which included a speech by yours truly), we got to visit some of Iceland’s most famous attractions - the Blue Lagoon, Geysir, the Gullfoss waterfalls, and the site of the Althingi (no, that’s not an object named for me … follow the link to learn more). We also had the chance to sample some unique local cuisine, including puffin (not bad) and minke whale steak (delicious), along with the ever-present Icelandic dessert, skyr. Reykjavik is a truly cosmopolitan city (with prices to match), but very easy and safe to walk around in. The weather was cloudy with a little rain and daytime temperatures in the low 50’s for all but our last day, when it was beautifully sunny (but no warmer). I’d love to go back, to discover more of the country, visit a glacier, see the northern lights, etc.

Last week, Gary and I made an APPX road trip to Raleigh, NC, to meet with a current customer and some prospective customers. We decided to do this trip by car rather than by plane, not so much because of the money it might save, but because the time commitment would be about the same, and we wouldn’t have to worry about connecting flights, baggage checking, etc. It’s an easy drive from Jacksonville to Raleigh, about seven hours on I-95 and I-40. Along the way, we discovered that gas is cheapest in South Carolina (we paid $2.19 a gallon there), that Georgia must have more billboards per mile than any other state, and that no one makes more use of billboard space than the notorious South of the Border tourist trap in South Carolina. In Raleigh, outside of our business activities (which I won’t bore you with, at least for now), we dined at an eclectic restaurant one night, and a not-so-eclectic barbecue joint the next. Both were quite good. We also got to visit the North Carolina Natural History Museum, and had a group tour of their exhibit on pirates. Aaarrrrrr!

Finally, I’ll be closing out September on a short business trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was happy to learn that JetBlue now flies nonstop to San Juan from Orlando, which is just over two hours away from here. I don’t expect to have much time to do anything outside of business there, and, of course, I won’t even get another stamp in my passport, but it should be an interesting couple of days anyway.

So that’s my September travelogue. Have you been any place interesting lately?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.