Travel Tale: Go with the Gondola

Gondolas. One cannot think of the city of Venice without picturing those long, skinny and beautifully crafted boats and their perfectly uniformed gondoliers. As my husband and I were preparing for our trip to Italy a couple of years ago, we struggled with the question of whether or not to spend money on a gondola…

Swimming with Sharks…Literally

For most of my life, I have been afraid of swimming in the ocean. Maybe it was the giant wave that sent my six-year-old self tumbling head over heels through the surf, maybe it was the stingray I almost stepped on in middle school, or maybe it was that time one of my high school “friends”–knowing…