Celebrating My 70th Birthday, Getting Inked For The First Time in My Life

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Today’s the day I make 70 years on this planet, and I’d never been inked.

Until now. It was time to get it done.

I chose a simple idea, a tribute to my original influencer, the great American bard, author of Leaves of Grass, Song of The Open Road, Walt Whitman.

I took four words from that latter poem, that paen to the glory of wanderlust that sums up what I do and focuses my aim as senior solo traveler better than anything else could.

“Forever alive, forever forward.”

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First Day In Batumi: Photos Of My Continuing Travels In Beautiful Georgia (The Country)

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A one-shot sampling of the wide variety of architectural styles that decorate the skyline of Batumi, Georgia, a seaside resort town now in its off-season.

Just a few days ago, I walked through the streets of Batumi, Georgia, second-largest city in this beautiful country, which straddles the eastern edge of Europe and western edge of Asia, an area of the world often called Eurasia.

Batumi boasts the beautiful Black Sea coastal resorts and the spectacular Caucasus mountains, the tallest mountains in Europe.

It was a quiet Sunday morning, my first full day in Batumi after a 5.5-hour excursion by train from Tbilisi the day before.

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Travel Cards: A Convenient And Effective Way To Share Your Contacts On The Road

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Ever want to give a new fellow traveler your contact info but don’t have a pencil, pen, or piece of paper to write on?

My new travel card! A significant upgrade from the first edition. See the flip side below.

Then you grab your phone and put a note somewhere in there, and find out later you didn’t type it in correctly?

Try carrying your own personalized travel cards to hand out to whomever you meet.

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Giving Tuesday: My View From The Road

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“I Wish for World Clean” is a sentiment I see often among the graffiti on the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia, where I am currently staying along my retirement journey. It is just one of the universal themes that need your support now to help save our planet and make the world a better place in which to live. Read more below about how I became involved and what you can do to help.

People I talk to in my travels are often amazed when I tell them how I abandoned retirement life in Hawaii to live a nomadic life on the road.

“Why would you do that?” they ask. “Hawaii’s so beautiful!”

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A Fall Tour of Georgia With Expats And Bears

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The trees of Georgia’s Sabaduri Forest spread a red ochre autumn carpet over its floor, awaiting a long winter’s slumber.

Over the weekend I went with a friend and a local ex-pat group from Tbilisi on a trip that included hiking among the fall colors of the Sabaduri Forest National Park and a visit to a nearby sanctuary for Georgian Brown Bears.

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Sunday’s Mass at the Oldest Standing Church in Tbilisi

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I took this photo the first time I visited Anchiskhati Basilica one weekday morning and was so intrigued with the interior light that I vowed to return for a 9 a.m. mass to catch that gorgeous ray of sunlight again.

I may be a heathen but I love the traditional ceremonies, rituals, art and especially the music of historic churches.

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Stalin Keeps A Firm Grip On His Legacy In This Historic Georgian City

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Gori, a Georgian city of about 45,000 people, capital of the Shida Katli district of Georgia, is probably best known for being the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953.

Statue of Joseph Stalin outside the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia

Gori was important militarily as far back as the middle ages, and the remains of the 7th-century A.D. Gori fortress on a prominent hilltop in the city is a popular tourist attraction. Yet the city’s most well-known attraction is undoubtedly the Stalin Museum.

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