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A Saskatchewan Highway by Mark Boyter

30/10/2017

Our 25th entry in the 2017 Travel Highlights Competition is another excellent piece from Mark Boyter entitled A Saskatchewan Highway.

A Saskatchewan Highway

Saskatchewan. Somewhere west of Swift Current. Trans-Canada highway, hitching east. Early June. Late afternoon. Cloudless. Been walking, past dusty grain elevators and double-X railway crossings. And then behind a green awning, a white picket cafe. The screen door bell jingles, and heads turn. It’s full. Farm folk. Set my backpack at the door, take a counter stool. Coffee and cherry pie and water, please. A man takes the stool beside. Where’re you from? Where’re you going? How’re the rides? Then I see it. He has an earring too. Good luck, and then it’s the road again.

That was good pie.

Mark Boyter

Mark is a traveller who writes, a writer who runs, a runner who drinks, and a drinker who loves movies. On rare occasions, he is all five.
From Vancouver, Canada and a teacher by training, he's lived and taught in his native Canada, Japan and the UAE.
His first book, Crescent Moon Over Laos, was published in 2014. He is working on other ideas that may or may not evolve into a second book, as well as a collection of short stories.
He lives in Vancouver with his long time partner and their three cats.

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My Special Visitor…………. by Deb Bott

28/10/2017

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A warm welcome back to Deb Bott with her second entry in this year's Travel Highlights Competition, titled My Special Visitor. Thanks for another fabulous highlight Deb.

Time is running out if you want to enter your 50-100 words. The competition closes on November 14th. We all look forward to reading your entry or entries.

My Special Visitor………….

You can smell them, long before you see them.
I look out but don’t see them yet.
I smell them again, much stronger this time, they are close.
Then on my right side I see an eye.
I turn my head slowly, she has come to visit me.
She is a massive humpback whale, with her calf.
She is so close to the side of Matilda, I could reach out and touch her.
But I don’t move, I sit still, frozen.
I silently call my Captain.
For a brief moment in time, the three of us are connected.

Deb Bott

If someone said to me 30 years ago I would be a sailor exploring the world’s oceans in my 50’s, I would have laughed in their face!

Until the year 2000 my entire boating experience was an overnight trip on a ferry from Melbourne to Tasmania at the tender age of 12.

During 2000 to 2009 we pottered about Moreton Bay, Queensland in three different sailing boats.

In 2010 we sold our home and moved on to our beloved Matilda.

We retired in 2014 to enjoy sailing the east coast of Australia. We have sailed south to Eden, New South Wales and to the most northern point of Queensland to Cape York.

2016 was the year we left Australia bound for South East Asia.

My sailing experiences are what I base my entries on.

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Maybe Tomorrow… by Alison Galilian

24/10/2017

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It is wonderful to be able to feature a second travel highlight from Alison Galilian. Thank you for taking part Alison and best of luck in the competition.

There are just 3 weeks left to enter your 50-100 words in the 2017 Travel Highlights Competition. For more details go to the Competitions page. There are great cash prizes to be won and the opportunity to be included in the 2018 Edition of Travel Stories and Highlights.

Maybe Tomorrow…

Life was easy in the tiny Indian village. I couldn't bring myself to leave. ‘Where next?’ the locals often asked me? 'Pakistan’, I'd reply. 'When?’ they'd ask. 'Maybe tomorrow’, I'd say. Then one day I stood under bending palms waiting for a bus to take me on the next leg of my journey. The bus was crowded. Sweating bodies packed like sardines. I squeezed inside. The conductor insisted I take the spare seat. Spare seat? Where? I don't think so! He insisted. I found it at the front and sat down next to my future husband. I never got to Pakistan.

Alison Galilian
I was born and brought up in Scotland, but left in my early twenties. I've worked and travelled in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Poland, Israel, Egypt, most of Asia, Australia and Africa. I returned to Israel in 1998 where I took up a post as Senior Teacher at the British Council in Tel Aviv - with occasional stints at the British Council in Egypt. I love travel - the more adventurous the better! Since the birth of my daughter in 2008, I have had to settle down and become an armchair traveller instead! I currently live in rural Northumberland with my husband, daughter and two rescue cats.

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Bienvenidos a Los Cabos by Matthew Dexter

22/10/2017

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It gives me great pleasure to be able to feature another intriguing travel highlight entry from author Matthew Dexter. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Bienvenidos a Los Cabos

Cabo San Lucas oozes Lilliputian wizardry. Futureless toddlers peddle trinkets to dipsomaniacal idiots donning lobster sunburns and sombreros. Obstinate parents ponder varicose bellies. Dwarfish angels orbit tourists. If you close your bloodshot eyes and tap your heels, behold stardust of sharks goading an obese surfer, family dreams falling from fronds, veins larger than No. 2 pencils, pupils pulsating like doomed flying saucers, scanning with the periscope perception of drunken parasailers sandwiched into a submarine booze cruise.

“One dollar please—for school.”

I treasure their garbage, the essence of wasted life, visceral messages of neglect written across the scum of my shadow.

Matthew Dexter writes abhorrent freelance pieces for exorbitant amounts of pesos to pay the bills while drinking cervezas in paradise with tourists. An American author living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, his fiction has been published in hundreds of literary journals and dozens of anthologies. He wrote The Ritalin Orgy (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, 2013). His second novel, Hero Custodian, will be published in 2019. Debut memoir and story collection forthcoming. He's the Lil Wayne of literature.

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ISLA DE LA FANTASIA by Syd Blackwell

21/10/2017

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A warm welcome back to Syd Blackwell, who has been our most supportive entrant in this year's travel writing competitions. Syd's latest highlight is a fabulous poem entitled ISLA DE LA FANTASIA.

ISLA DE LA FANTASIA

A handmade handcart fabricated
from wood and wheels dilapidated
the brother pushed and concentrated
transported sister legs truncated
from top of knees were amputated
along this isle that´s inundated
by annual flooding unabated
all residents evacuated
´til summer floods have dissipated
how could this isle have been created
bestowed with name so unrelated
to these poor souls tragically fated

(On the Amazon near Leticia, Colombia, July 2012)

Syd Blackwell

I lived in British Columbia, Canada´s western province, for most of my life. I was a teacher, and a college employee (various roles - instruction, recruitment, promotion, counselling, research), before re-inventing myself as an innkeeper. I designed and had built my B&B inn in Revelstoke, which I operated for nine years. At age 60, my wife and I retired to Uruguay, where we have lived for more than a decade. Innside Stories is my first published book. I have extensive writing experience in Canada, and in Uruguay, I wrote 75 articles for a now defunct online magazine called Ola Uruguay. We live in Villa Argentina, a suburb of Atlántida, on the coast of Uruguay. We have five dogs.

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Ghanaian Justice by Jill Dobbe

20/10/2017

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Time is flying by in this years Travel Highlights Competition.

Entry #20 is from Jill Dobbe and is her second highlight submitted this year.

Ghanaian Justice will certainly make you stop and think

Best of luck in the competition Jill.

Ghanaian Justice

The whistle woke me. I heard them yell, “Thief!” Tromping feet and furious shouts blasted through the air. Glancing out my window I watched an angry mob gather, threatening sticks raised high. Men held his bloodied body. “Help me!” he begged laying his hands on my husband, Dan.

“Please! Let him go!” Dan pleaded trying to calm the hysteria.

“No! Stay out of it! It is our way. Thieves must be punished.”

They yanked him back into their unforgiving throng and moved en masse down the road. Dan stood helpless, bloodstained handprints smeared across his t-shirt.

Jill Dobbe

Jill is an international educator and published author who writes about her experiences living and working in schools and countries around the world. She presently lives in her seventh country, Honduras, with her husband, Dan, and her Yorkie-Poo, Mickey. While working as an elementary principal, Jill also writes, reads, takes photos of the beautiful people and countries of Latin America, and muddles her way through the Spanish language. Jill loves her life as an international educator, and most days, feels like she is living her dream.

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Be Careful What You Wish For by Jill Stoking

16/10/2017

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Today we are featuring the first travel highlight entry from Jill Stoking. She treated us to two great travel stories this year, THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF SCREAMING and A BRITISH SEASIDE HOLIDAY IN 1958. Follow the links to read them if you haven't already. Then enjoy her beautifully written highlight.

Don't forget - there is only a month left in the 2017 Travel Highlights Competition.

For more details on how to enter your 50-100 words, go to the Competitions page.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I was leaving Aggravation.
My friend wanted to live closer to her son.
We left Devon together, to settle in Kent.
Bought homes side by side, in the heart of the North Downs.
Surrounded by chalk and trees.
She was twenty miles from her boy. I was half a world away from mine.
She wasn’t close enough and moved to be near her new grandson.
She bought a large house in Lincolnshire, where they all live together.
I visited - once.
Flat fields of cabbages, without trees.
Her tiny bedsit with no front door and a view of the graveyard.

Jill Stoking

Born 1949 - Not dead yet. Qualified as a teacher for children with severe learning disabilities and taught for a while in Surrey before moving to Devon in the early 1970s. Jill has had loads of different jobs since then, most of them in the care sector, either residential homes or in the community. Divorced and her son now living in New Zealand (the two events aren't connected) Jill moved back to the south east in 2010 and lives in a mobile home in Kent with her dog QT, surrounded by the fantastic scenery of the North Downs and a vast expanse of sky.

"Joan's Descent into Alzheimer's" is the first book Jill has written, though she has had odd bits published in local and national newspapers.

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Deep in Patagonia by Andrew Klein

14/10/2017

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It gives me great pleasure to feature Andrew Klein, another newcomer to our travel writing contests, . He spent fifteen years traveling and has many experiences to share.

Andrew recently released a book about his travels entitled Footprints: Stories from Anywhere. You can find it on Amazon by following these links: US UK

Enjoy his insightful highlight and support him by buying his book. Many thanks for taking part Andrew and best of luck in the competition.

Deep in Patagonia

Once, deep in Patagonia, we got caught on a glacier and had to wait until morning to be 'rescued'. We had used our last match to light a fire the night before, and could not make hot water in the morning. A Peruvian woman, married to a very funny Israeli man, had a small sack of instant coffee in her bag. We each took a handful and put it in our mouths. I can still feel the crunch it made as I chewed it up and swallowed it with ice water.

Andy Klein was born in New York and raised in southern California.

He graduated from San Diego State University, and, after attaining his master's degree in psychology, spent the next fifteen years traveling around the world.

Andy taught children in Japan and Taiwan as well as here, in the states. Inspired by his youngest son, he has begun to write a series of children's books. He now lives with his family north of Atlanta.

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The Mexican Conductor by Matthew Dexter

13/10/2017

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Our 17th travel highlight entry this year is from Matthew Dexter, who has been a regular supporter and contributor since we started these competitions in 2015.

Matthew's entries are always thought-provoking and his latest highlight is no different.

The Mexican Conductor

Meth made the miniature train more endurable as it careened through the mall. Children chased the caboose. Eyes full of diamonds and watermelons and blood, pointing with cotton candy dusted fingertips as the majesty blasts its convivial horn. I think of muchachos and muchachas who ride with their siblings or mothers or babysitters. How they bounce. How they should be lost in a cave with nothing but fire. How steel melts beneath the broken wings of fallen serpents.

Matthew Dexter is an American author living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He’s the Lil Wayne of literature. His fiction has been published in hundreds of literary journals. He writes abhorrent freelance pieces for exorbitant amounts of pesos to pay the bills while drinking cervezas in paradise with tourists. He is the author of the novel The Ritalin Orgy (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, 2017). His second novel, Hero Custodian, will be published in 2019. His debut memoir and story collection are forthcoming.

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A Magical Encounter by Alison Galilian

12/10/2017

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It is always fantastic to welcome a newcomer to our travel writing contests.

Today I am really pleased to be able to feature an enchanting travel highlight entry entitled A Magical Encounter from Alison Galilian. Best of luck in the competition Alison.

A Magical Encounter

A dolphin in the bay! It was an opportunity I had to take! I quickly pulled my snorkel on and swam towards him. He disappeared. I twisted around under the cold water searching for him. Where was he? Please come back! Suddenly, an enormous, smooth grey body appeared under me, belly up, and lifted me just above the water. My heart pounded with excitement and fear. He carried me along on top of him. I giggled like a child. I'm sure he would have giggled too if he could. Our magical swim was over too soon, then he was gone.

Alison Galilian

I was born and brought up in Scotland, but left in my early twenties. I've worked and travelled in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Poland, Israel, Egypt, most of Asia, Australia and Africa. I returned to Israel in 1998 where I took up a post as Senior Teacher at the British Council in Tel Aviv - with occasional stints at the British Council in Egypt. I love travel - the more adventurous the better! Since the birth of my daughter in 2008, I have had to settle down and become an armchair traveller instead! I currently live in rural Northumberland with my husband, daughter and two rescue cats.

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