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The Year in a Traveler’s Life – 2023

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Samarkand, UzbekistanAnother year has passed at the speed of travel, which if my time sense is correct is somewhere between the speed of sound and the speed of light. I’m always shocked to reach December only to wonder what happened to the first eleven months of the year. At least this year, travel-wise, was back to some sense of normality. To quote my old TV psycho-complement, Monk, “Here’s what happened.”

In what seems to have become a trend, my travel year started slowly. January through March are always intensely busy, both with catching up on everything I didn’t finish the previous year and with Abraham Lincoln-related events. This year I was especially busy giving presentations, doing radio and podcast interviews, and fielding questions from reporters related to my book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius. More on that in my annual writing post coming soon. The bottom line is that I didn’t travel much in the first quarter.

All that changed in April as the proverbial (not literal) dam burst. Of the thirty days in April, I was home for only six of them. Early in the month I took a road trip up through New England to investigate many of the stops Lincoln made on his two visits to the region. He had given a dozen lectures in Massachusetts in 1848 between sessions of his single term as a U.S. Congressman, mostly stumping for the Whig nominee for president, Zachary Taylor (Spoiler: Taylor won). Lincoln returned in February of 1860 immediately after his Cooper Union speech in New York City. While originally planned solely to visit his son Robert doing time at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire (after failing his Harvard entrance exams), the success of Cooper Union led to high demand for him to speak in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. I visited many of the sites and conducted research for a future project. I also stopped at Hildene – Robert Lincoln’s home in Vermont – and got a VIP tour, then stopped in Peekskill, NY to keynote an annual meeting and pick up an award.

After two days home, which included a webinar one day and hosting a Lincoln Group dinner meeting the next, I was on a plane to Lisbon, Portugal. We had a few days there before boarding a Windstar luxury yacht to Gibraltar, Morocco, many cities in Spain, Barcelona, and a day trip to Andorra. I wrote a bit more about that trip here. It was May 6th before we got home. June was a busy work month, but it was on the road again for the week of July 4th back to New England for family visits and stops at Chesterwood (the studio of Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial Lincoln), The Mount (the writer Edith Wharton’s home), and the Norman Rockwell Museum (to see his portrait of Lincoln, of course).

September had me back on a plane to “The Stans,” more specifically Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. I met up with a group of people traveling under the Eurocircle moniker, whose leader I had first met a decade ago when my book, Tesla, first came out. This was my fourth trip with her and was happy to see another four people I had met last year on the Tanzania trip. There were eleven of us total who jumped around three major cities in Uzbekistan before spending shorter times in the other three countries. It was an eye-opening experience, as was the single day I had in Istanbul on the way there. [Hint: Turkish Airlines offers free tours if you’re on certain flights with long layovers]

November included the annual Lincoln Forum symposium in Gettysburg, PA, a 3-day collection of a record 350 Lincoln attendees to listen to a collection of some of the greatest Lincoln scholars in the country. Last year (i.e., 2022) I picked up the Wendy Allen Award for the Lincoln Group of DC and gave a presentation on my Fire of Genius book, so this year was slightly less hectic. That said, I did spend time chatting up key leaders of other Lincoln organizations about plans for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. I joined a group of colleagues on the first day out at the Gettysburg National Cemetery examining the camera angles from all the extant photos of the event, including pinpointing the actual location of where Lincoln spoke. That night was headlined by Steve Inskeep of NPR fame. The middle night gave us a concert by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, whose music you would recognize from the Ken Burns mini-series on the Civil War. The final night featured a great rendition of the Gettysburg Address by actor Graham Sibley and a conversation with the incomparable Pulitzer Prize-winning Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals and many others). Two days after returning from Gettysburg, it was on the road again to New England for the third time in 2023, this time for a more relaxed Thanksgiving with family.

Which gets us to December. I do have one more short trip, a few days in Pennsylvania with family, but otherwise the year is done for traveling.

But 2024 is only ten days away. And I have plenty of plans.

Two big trips have already been booked. March will find us on Windstar again, this time on a small sailing ship (140 passengers) in the Caribbean. We’ll start in Panama and spend some time in Colombia before dropping in on the ABC islands, Grenada, the Grenadines, and ending in Barbados. July will find us in Botswana (birding), Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls), and South Africa (Cape Town). After not having been to Africa ever until 2021, this will make the third year in a row seeing a new country (or three) on that continent. The earlier trip to Colombia will be the first time in South America since the amazing Argentina trip of 2014. South America and Antarctica are in future plans starting in 2025.

Of course, there will be “shorter” trips closer to home. I plan another road trip to New England, likely in April, in addition to at least two, and likely three, other trips to various places there in 2023. There will be the Lincoln Forum in November, possibly an upstate New York road trip, a visit to NYC for both work and pleasure, and shorter visits (if I haven’t run out of days in the year) to Richmond and West Virginia. There may be more, or slightly less as circumstances warrant, but it promises to be a very busy travel year.

I’ll have my annual Year in the Writer’s Life post up shortly after Christmas.

Photo: David J. Kent, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in a Traveler’s Life – 2022

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David and the Lion - TanzaniaSome followers will recall that my annual travel roundup has been called “The Year in Science Traveling” since its inception many years ago. I’ve decided to change it to “The Year in a Traveler’s Life” from this point forward to reflect my broader traveling experiences. Given my writing history, which I’ll capture shortly in my “writer’s life” annual post, much of my travel includes Lincoln-themed locations. That said, I still do a lot of science traveling and this year was no exception. In fact, it was almost a normal travel year after two-plus years of COVID travel restrictions. In 2022 I made my first overseas trips since I went to Cuba in May of 2019. It was nice to see more of the world again.

The travel year didn’t start well. We had planned a small ship cruise beginning and ending in Istanbul, Turkey. It would have taken us into the Black Sea with stops in Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine (Odesa), Russia (Sochi), Georgia, and a few additional spots in Turkey (including Cappadocia). Although it was scheduled for September, by March it was clear that was not going to happen. Not surprisingly, the cruise was cancelled soon after Russia invaded Ukraine and our attention switched to focusing on supporting a Ukrainian friend with whom we had traveled previously. With the Black Sea off the table, we looked for alternatives and found a quick booking for a tour of Iceland, a place that has been on my bucket list for many years. Iceland was a wonderful experience as we circled the island, stopping at a seemingly infinite number of spectacular waterfalls. We also saw volcanoes, luckily all dormant at the moment. Not long after getting home there was a volcano spewing ash and lava not far from the airport we had traveled from. While there I saw the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that had disrupted air travel for weeks in 2010 while I was living in Brussels. Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice, and this trip certainly proved that catchphrase true. A truly amazing experience, including hiking behind a large waterfall (and getting drenched) and seeing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that passes through the island.

Meanwhile, around the time of our Iceland trip we committed to a photo safari in Tanzania, which we took in late November into early December. This was our first time in Africa, our sixth continent (still working on getting to Antarctica). The trip came about through a friend we’ve traveled with two times before. I had met her in 2013 when my first Tesla book was coming out (we were both involved with the Tesla Science Foundation and her mother is from Serbia, like Tesla). Since then, we’ve joined her and her travel organization, EuroCircle, on two trips. The first took us to Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia, one of the highlights of which was meeting the Prince and Princess of Serbia in the Royal Palace. The second was to Australia and New Zealand. This time we flew for over 13 hours to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, then another 2.5 hours to Arusha, Tanzania. After a night in a small hotel outside the city, we spent the following week in the bush, living in different tented lodges each night (including the one where giraffes and wildebeests snorted and roamed outside our tent all night). We saw thousands of animals – elephants, lions, wildebeest, buffalo, zebras, antelopes, cheetahs, leopards, and tons of bird species – as we wandered through three national parks (Tarangire, Serengeti, Mt. Kilimanjaro) and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, plus the rift valley. We even did some sunrise ballooning over the Serengeti. I’ll have more stories and photos as I get the time to sort through them.

Besides the two overseas trips, we made two road trips up to New England. The first in June was to celebrate my mother’s milestone birthday, while the second was actually my first time in many years visiting family for Christmas. I’ve taken to adding side trips to these visits. Last year I tacked on a mini-vacation on Long Island on the trip up and this year’s June visit included a one-night stop in Hartford, CT to see an Abraham Lincoln tribute river walk complete with sculptures of various styles. For the Christmas trip, because of traffic and some tentative weather forecasts, there was no overnight stop but on the way, I steered the car into Concord, MA. I had started reading a book called The People of Concord just before the drive and wanted to learn more about the vibrant writer community there in the 1800s. I also wanted to stop at the Concord Museum because the Lincoln Memorial Centennial special exhibit that I had missed earlier in the year when it was in western Massachusetts was resident in Concord only until February. The exhibit and the Museum were both fabulous and well worth the stop. A brief side trip on the way back involved Henry Wilson, a Senator during the Civil War that played major roles in at least two Lincoln achievements (later he was Ulysses S. Grant’s second vice president).

There was one more short travel event in November. I attended the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, PA, where I gave some presentations and accepted the prestigious Wendy Allen Award on behalf of the Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am currently president.

Overall, it was a good travel year despite the challenges (not mention being busy with my book release, which I’ll talk more about in my annual writer’s life post).

So, what’s up for 2023?

Fingers crossed that we don’t get a resurgence of COVID or some other pandemic-related restrictions. But assuming a year at least as available as this one, 2023 should be a good travel year. We’re already booked on a Windstar small ship cruise in April from Lisbon to Barcelona with many stops along the way, including Casablanca, Morocco. That will give us a second country in Africa and a far different experience than Tanzania. Earlier in the April I’ll be doing a road trip to New England that will combine my previously planned “Chasing Abraham Lincoln” stops plus some more related to a possible new writing project. November will have the annual Lincoln Forum. Beyond that, the travel schedule is still in flux. There are a couple of big overseas options I’m considering for late in the year, but I would like to get some sort of travel – either overseas or road trip – in during the summer. I’ll also plan on road tripping to see family at least twice more in the year, plus some shorter day-tripping to see key locations less far afield. And of course, there are all those plans that the “COVID era” put on the back burner, so we’ll have to see what fits into my schedule. Stay tuned!

[Photo credit: Ru Sun (See the lion outside the window?)]

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in Science Traveling -2021

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Lincoln at GettysburgLast year I started off my annual science traveling post with “Well, this shouldn’t take long.” Despite expectations, I could have started my 2021 post with: “Ditto.”

My year in traveling looks like my previous year’s “goals” list; just change the date and carry over everything to this year. Now I’ll be carrying most of it over to 2022. As with everyone else, I’ve grown exhausted by the continuing battle with COVID, in part due to its evolving variants, and in part due to the irresponsible choices of many to remain unvaccinated. And as with everyone else, it has crimped my traveling schedule. Luckily, I was too busy to travel in the first half of 2021, which I’ll talk more about in my annual “A Year in the Writing Life” that will come out next week.

I again planned to do a series of “Chasing Abraham Lincoln” road trips. Some were local (Richmond, Gettysburg, Washington DC), while others were a bit farther afield (Illinois, upstate New York, New England, California). All are now transferred to my 2022 plans. As usual, my goal was to get to five new countries this year. The reality is that the last trip I took out of the country was to Cuba in May 2019. Things started looking up in July when my brother proposed a two-week catamaran trip around the British Virgin Islands for November. Circumstances soon changed and that trip was cancelled. The idea of sailing around Spain and Portugal in November was put on the table, then removed literally the next day as both countries were added to the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list due to COVID. Okay, let’s do the Caribbean instead. Same problem. All of this was after foregoing a trip to the Galapagos because we thought we would be tied up at that time.

Around the time things were getting the most depressing, I saw that a writing acquaintance was doing a self-imposed “writer’s retreat” on Long Island. It was a lightbulb moment, and before long the plan became a mini vacation on Long Island on the way to New England for a Thanksgiving visit with my family. The trip was delightful. We had no trouble getting accommodations because it was off-season, although several restaurants on the coast were closed for the same reason. But we did get to see my 60th aquarium and visit some cool museums at the Vanderbilt estate, plus hiked the beautiful fall woodlands at Sands Point. Then there was the wine tasting at Lieb Cellars vineyard. All-in-all, a wonderful trip. As was the chance to see my family for the second time in a year, a treat given the continuing restrictions.

Looking back, it seems my entire traveling year was crammed into November. Prior to leaving for Long Island, I attended my one and only in-person conference in two years. The Lincoln Forum had gone virtual in 2020, but they were intent on holding an in-person event in 2021. All attendees were required to be fully vaccinated – and prove it – in order to be present. Everyone was required to wear masks for all lectures and meetings, although removal was okay (by necessity) during meals. Around 300 people enjoyed a mostly normal Forum, exchanging ideas and learning about ideas. I was elected to the Board of Advisors. I’m happy to say that a grand total of zero reports of COVID cases arose from the meeting. Luckily for us, the omicron variant didn’t show up until just after our conference. It was nice to be back with people.

There was one additional in-person event in 2021. The Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am now president, had a tour of a local battlefield in September. We car-pooled and masked to limit exposure, with the rest of the tour being completely outside. Again, we managed to do it with no reported cases before or after.

So, what’s the plan for 2022?

Largely, the 2022 plan is “see 2021 plan.” The uncertainly of the omicron surge in cases has already sunk several plans for the spring, but I’m hoping/praying/pleading that travel is back on the table. In fact, we’ve already booked a Windstar cruise for late September/October that begins and ends in Istanbul and bounces around the Black Sea. We’re hoping to book another major travel destination in the early spring or early summer, but the options are still open for that one. September will be a busy month, in part because of the Windstar trip but also because my new book is scheduled for release on September 1. I’m likely to go to New England at least three times, the July 4th and Thanksgiving holidays and on my “Chasing Abraham Lincoln – New England” tour. I expect to be doing some road trips to accommodate a speaking tour for the book. I’ll also be checking off as many of the “local” road trips I’ve been carrying for two years.

A quick note on the “Year in Science Traveling” title. This website was originally called “Science Traveler” to reflect my intent to delve into the science of worldwide traveling. That was the plan when I left my last science job in 2013, the same year my first book came out (on Nikola Tesla, followed a few years later by Thomas Edison). I continue to travel and have plans for more science travel-related content, but regular readers will notice that I’ve renamed the website with my author name to reflect my divergent interests. Abraham Lincoln had always been my side-gig, but it’s clear to anyone reading this that Lincoln is now my main job and science traveling is the side-gig. I’m planning to revamp the website in early 2022 to make it more modern and functional. Stay tuned.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

[Photo credit: David J. Kent, 2021, Detail of “Return Visit” sculpture]

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2020

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Well, this shouldn’t take long.

Normally I catalogue all the traveling I did over the past year. Like everyone else in 2020, I experienced a case of travelus interruptus due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To say that put a damper on my travel intentions is an understatement. Most of the world won’t even let Americans cross their borders right now (how’s that for irony). Even crossing state lines is a challenge with several instituting significant barriers to visitors.

So this is how I planned for the year to go:

 

You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So…get on your way!

(compliments of Dr. Suess: Oh, The Places You’ll Go!)

 

Instead, my traveling year looked like this:

 

Passport stamps 2020

 

Notwithstanding the allure of my kitchen, which my bathroom scale says I’ve been spending way too much time in, my original plan had included a significant amount of travel in 2020. There were to be several Lincoln-related road trips: Illinois, New England, Upstate New York/Ohio, and California. Then there would be the annual four-day Lincoln Forum and commemoration ceremony in Gettysburg. That doesn’t even count the semi-monthly forays into downtown Washington DC for Lincoln Group of DC dinner/lectures and book study group. Nor does it count the “local” trips into Richmond and other spots in Pennsylvania. None of that happened.

I had also planned a road trip through the central U.S. to visit the remaining contiguous states I hadn’t seen yet. That didn’t happen either.

More far-flung plans were to finally get to the Middle East, in particular Israel, Petra, and the Egyptian Pyramids. There also was the idea of visiting the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu. Didn’t happen.

So what did I do this year, travel-wise?

Well, I did make one road trip. Around the first year anniversary of my father’s passing and the 4th of July I drove to New England to see my mother, and as it turns out, my brother and his wife who had unexpectedly moved nearby a few weeks before. I figured there was a small window prior to COVID infections getting much worse (which turned out to be true), so squeezed in the visit not long before Massachusetts cracked down on a mandatory 14-day quarantine, later to include mandatory negative test results (and now likely, vaccination). It was the only trip I made the entire year.

To keep myself busy, and at least somewhat sane, I read more than I planned. I summarized the 90 books I read in 2020 on my Hot White Snow website. I also read a lot of Abraham Lincoln books, which I’ve documented here. Click on my Goodreads link to follow my reading travels.

Beyond that I participated in dozens of Zoom webinars and interactive presentations. My Lincoln Group of DC lectures and book study group meetings all shifted to Zoom. I gave a few presentations myself via Zoom, and have another scheduled in a couple of weeks. Many of the events worked out well enough virtually, but I know we’ll all be ready to see each other in person when safe to do so.

I also took advantage of my 2020 calendar, which features photos by David Wiegers of Abraham Lincoln statues placed all over the world. For each month I would talk about the statue of that month, but also reminisce about my own time visiting the location, or in some cases, future plans if I hadn’t already been there. What started on a whim turned out to be an interesting way to travel back in time to 12 foreign locations where the people thought honoring Lincoln was a good idea. I enjoyed the ability to travel, at least in a sense, through those posts. You can see the December post and a recap with links to all the other posts here.

Not surprisingly, I’m not even going to try to preview 2021 travel. As vaccines slowly make it out to most Americans (and overseas), I’m working on the assumption that even road trips will be curtailed at least until summer. For now it’s wait and watch. When the timing is right I’ll be ready to get back out into the world. Hopefully you’ll join me.

P.S. Check out my “A Year in the Writing Life” annual post. It has some big news, which is yet another reason I don’t expect to travel until next summer. 2021 should be a much better year!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2019

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Capuchin monkey, Costa RicaIf I could briefly describe 2019 with respect to the year in science traveling it would be – Started with a “C.”  Mostly this was in a good way, but unfortunately it also includes cancellation. While I still had a great traveling year, it didn’t go quite the way I expected.

As with 2018, 2019 got off to a slow start. The first two weeks of January shuffled in with a commitment to jury duty, which didn’t actually result in me sitting on a jury, but nevertheless blocked out that period of time from doing anything else. I made up for it by going to Costa Rica the end of the month for nine days, a fun trip that gave me plenty to write about. February and March once again kept me local with Lincoln-related events, including participation in the annual ALI Symposium at Ford’s Theatre.

In April I merged my Lincoln and travel with another “C” location – Charleston, South Carolina. There I saw Fort Sumter, the harbor fort where a bombardment by Confederate cannons marked the official start of the Civil War. I also visited the Hunley, a Confederate submarine that was lost immediately after sinking a Union ship and only recently recovered and is being restored. Then there was the die-hard Confederate.

May started with a visit to the U.S. Capitol Building where the Lincoln Group of DC helped officially dedicate the “Lincoln Room” where Abraham Lincoln used to hang out between sessions during his one term as a U.S. Congressman. The end of May took me to another “C” – Cuba. Such a fascinating country with limited opportunities for Americans to visit, especially since four days after our return the current administration applied even more stringent roadblocks.

Camaguey, Cuba

June started a rather trying few months. Mid-month I headed out for my Chasing Abraham Lincoln, Part 3 road trip (another “C”). After stops in Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana I made my way into Illinois for a week of exploring Lincoln sites. One highlight of the trip was to join the Looking for Lincoln crew for their LEAD: Spirit of Lincoln Youth Academy. The LEAD group has given my book to all the participants (40 students and 8 mentors) for the last two years and this year they asked me to speak to them directly about leadership. The trip went well, including a foray into Wisconsin, but ended abruptly. I found out my father had gone into the hospital; ten days later he passed away. I spent the end of June and early July on a road trip up to Massachusetts for his funeral. Three months later my uncle, who had been a pillar of strength for the family at my Dad’s passing, had suddenly passed away himself, a victim of the rare disease, EEE.

Dad in DC 2014

July and August were light on travel, in part because of local commitments and the need to do more writing. September took us to Chicago (there’s that “C” again) for several Lincoln-related activities and the chance to see the musical Hamilton. October and November were light until mid-month when I attended the annual Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, PA.

Then there was an unexpected “C.” We had booked a Caribbean Cruise on Windstar many months in advance and were looking forward to two weeks in such places as Curacao, Colombia, and Colon, Panama, in addition to other Caribbean islands. But those “C”s were enough it seems; literally one week before our departure I received an email saying the ship had major engine trouble and would be forced out of service – the trip was Cancelled. We were not amused. So instead of being warm and toasty sipping tropical drinks on the deck of a sailing ship in the Caribbean, we drove to Massachusetts and huddled over hot cocoa for a chilly Thanksgiving with my mother and other family. It was great to join my Mom for her first Thanksgiving since my Dad’s passing, but it wasn’t even a “C” location. There were plenty of other “C”s, including a trip to Coatesville (PA), some Civil War stops, and Ru’s multiple trips to China.

Overall, 2019 was much less than I had anticipated but still reasonably busy with science traveling. The 2020 travel prospects are the most uncertain we’ve had in years. As of now there is absolutely nothing booked and only some general plans for what we want to do. With some key decisions up in the air, we’ll have to wait a few weeks more before deciding where to go, or even if we can go, or if alternative plans are necessary to go. While I admit that sounds rather cryptic, I’m hedging because there is a great deal of uncertainly extant, plus I don’t want to jinx things that are in the works. You’ll have to check back later for something more concrete. I promise to post a further update when I can.

Until then, happy traveling.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Traveling the Sugar and Slave Trades of St. Kitts

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St. Kitts sugar factorySt. Kitts is the larger of two islands that make up the nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Nevis is most famous for being the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, the musical about whom I recently saw in Chicago. While St. Kitts is now a tourist mecca, the island is best known for its dominant position in the colonial sugar trade. Lesser known is that St. Kitts also was a major hub in the slave trade.

A few years ago I visited St. Kitts along with a few other Caribbean islands. Remnants of the past sugar industry stand mostly as ruins on the island landscape. Abandoned, but not that long ago – St. Kitts clung to sugar until recently, the last sugar factory closing only in 2005.

Today you can take a scenic railway around the island. With views of Nevis towering to southeast and Mount Liamuiga rising in the interior, the railway crawls the perimeter in search of sugar plantations. Sugar cane was the main source of sugar on the islands, and some remains for visitors to appreciate. Periodically the remains of cinderblock processing buildings and chimneys stick up out of the recovering natural vegetation. The railway itself is a remnant of the industry. Individual sugar cane growers would harvest the crop and do some initial processing, then wait for the train to stop on its daily circling of the island, stopping at each grower to pick up raw materials. Eventually the train would drop off the crops at the central factory the grew up in the early 20th century. It was this factory that finally closed its doors in 2005, turning over the island’s economy almost entirely to tourism.

A trio of local singers serenades us with old spirituals as a covey of school children in green-shirted uniforms keep pace with the train. The sugar ruins and spirituals remind us that St. Kitts was once a key cog in the slave trade triangulating between Europe, Africa, and America. Great Britain was the biggest purveyor of slave trading at that time. Bringing weapons and gunpowder from England to Africa, ships would cram as many kidnapped Africans as they could in the bowels of the ship, selling or trading the survivors for sugar and rum in Caribbean and South America, then bringing those commodities up to the slaveholding colonies – and then states – before heading back to England to start the process again. It was in St. Kitts that, supposedly but not fully confirmed, Thomas Jefferson’s ancestors got there start in the new world, and from here they became slaveowners that continued through Jefferson’s life.

Slavery was abolished in all the British Empire, including St. Kitts, on August 1, 1834. St. Kitts now celebrates August 1st as Emancipation Day, a public holiday.

As I soon head back to the Caribbean I remember my time on St. Kitts and its connection between sugar science and slavery. On this trip I’ll be seeing other islands that were focal points in the slave trade, hoping to learn more about the business that enslaved human beings for the profit of a few. More to come.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Traveling Travails – It Isn’t All the Good Life

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Queenstown, New ZealandIn over five years of science traveling I’ve experienced some fantastic locations, but it isn’t all the good life. Sometimes there are traveling travails. I’ve been injured traveling more times than I care to admit, and getting lost is not an uncommon occurrence. The following gives a hint of how sometimes even getting from one place to another can be a bit of a trial.

The scene: We’re part of a small group of six new friends.

The place: Starting in Cairns, Australia, with an ultimate destination of Queenstown, New Zealand.

Okay, that sounds easy enough, right? Except there is no direct flight, which means a day of flying and multiple airports in two countries. I anticipated a long day, but reality turned out to be even more complicated than I imagined. The first leg took us from Cairns to Sydney, where we were to connect with a plane to Auckland. From Auckland (on the north island of New Zealand) we connected again to Queenstown (on the south island).

Pickup at the hotel in Cairns was on time – at 3:40 a.m. Luckily there was no traffic but we cut it close, as in arriving at the gate five minutes before boarding time. The attendant at the check-in counter was efficient enough, though one wouldn’t call her the warmest personality. On boarding, the six of us were spread out in different parts of the plane. Three of us were in the very back and, unlike U.S. planes, they opened up the rear doors for us to enter and depart. Only a few rows from the tail, the three of us disembarked and made our way into the terminal. Given the short connection time, Ru and I immediately headed for the assigned transfer gate to catch our other plane. Our companion told us not to wait for him; he would hit the loo and then wait for the other members of our group. That would be the last we saw of him, or them, until the next day.

Now just two, we found the gate specified by the instructions given to us on check-in, which to our surprise meant loading into a bus that brought us to another terminal for the international flight. This took longer than we expected and dumped us outside a packed security area, which meant long lines going through passport control and baggage checks again, then a long walk to get to our actual departure gate. The gate itself required getting through a rugby scrum of people going downstairs to a series of gates, which meant being careful not to get carried along with the crowd heading to Shanghai instead of Auckland. Another passport check and boarding pass scan got us onto yet another bus to take us out to the plane, which as far as I can tell was not far from where we originally got off our plane from Cairns. As Ru and I walked up the gangway steps into the plane we desperately texted our companions to tell them to hurry. I even begged the head flight attendant not to close the door because they hadn’t arrived yet, even after a second shuttle bus came and went. He shut the door anyway and we were left with three empty seats staring at us from across the aisle, and a fourth between us.

Empty seats

The second connecting flight wasn’t much easier. Despite what the check-in attendant told me in Cairns (that we didn’t have to pick up our bags until Queenstown, which she repeated three times at my doubtful questioning), the flight attendant informed us we did, in fact, have to reclaim our luggage again in Auckland. Here we go again. Passport control, luggage claim, wait in line. The first line looked like the exit after a drive-in movie finished. After an anxious hour and a half, we passed through the “biosecurity screening” checkpoint and were sent out to a counter to re-check our bags. But wait, the woman in the “Drop Bags” area tells us we are now less than 60 minutes before the flight and there is no guarantee that they will get the bags on the next plane. Instead, she tells us, we must go outside the terminal, hike 15-20 minutes with our luggage to the completely separate domestic terminal to check our bags again. But hey, we had a helpful green line to follow down the sidewalk, across the streets (twice), and around the airport to get to the other entrance. Not surprisingly, we had to wait there for the attendant to re-check our luggage before we could walk down an increasingly long terminal, through yet another security check-in and x-ray line, then more walking to finally reach the gate where our plane was revving its engines.

Keep in mind we thought we had something like 3 hours of transfer time. We made it to the gate with only minutes to spare before boarding. But the view was amazing.

New Zealand

The empty seats next to us was a reminder that our travel mates were still somewhere in Sydney. But after our successful arrival in Queenstown we found the Super Shuttle waiting to take six – now two – of us to the hotel. When we arrived he tried to scam $26 each from us before I reminded him it was prepaid. It seems taxi drivers scamming customers is a global thing.

Eventually we found out that our four companions had been able to get a later flight from Sydney to Auckland to Queenstown that night, which was good because we were all scheduled for a tour early the next morning. They were, however, sans luggage, which didn’t arrive until the following night. That didn’t stop all of us from enjoying the next two days trailing in the steps of hobbits and cruising in the fjords of Milford Sound.

These weren’t the only complications on this particular trip, or on other trips I’ve taken. In fact, I’ve come to expect the unexpected when I travel. Sometimes it’s a missed flight or train, sometimes a lack of coordination with local accommodations, sometimes a gravel road where the map says “highway.” I even had one travel agent book my flight to Rome for the night before a flight from the U.S. to Brussels she booked in the same session. That cost me several hundred Euros and a lot of grief. But I made it. And so far I’ve survived, and enjoyed all my travel, despite the travails.

So…Where to next?

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2018

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Water Buffalo, Boracay, PhilippinesI was traveling. That’s my excuse for being a bit tardy on this wrap of the year in science traveling, 2018. And what a year of traveling it was, with 8 new countries visited, plus a lot of domestic travel. Click on the links for stories about some of the stops.

It was a bit of a slow start, with only one significant trip in the first 2-1/2 months. The end of January took me to Sanibel Island and Fort Myers, Florida to visit the Thomas Edison/Henry Ford Winter Estates, the Mote Marine Lab (in Sarasota), and explore nature on Sanibel. February and March kept me mostly local with tons of Lincoln-related events, including a weekend trip to Newport News for the annual Battle of Hampton Roads event (including touring the facility with none other than Abraham Lincoln).

In April it really got busy travel-wise, a condition that didn’t let up for the rest of the year. Early in the month I was scheduled to give a presentation in West Virginia, after which I was starting my Chasing Abraham Lincoln, Part 1 tour. At the last minute I had to scrap the whole trip and instead drive up to Massachusetts where my father had gone into the hospital. After my return, virtually every day was filled with some sort of event, plus a short trip to Fredericksburg for the annual CPRC meeting.

I finally was able to take my Chasing Abraham Lincoln, Part 1 trip in early May. This had originally been planned for March, then due to a huge snowstorm in my target area put off to April, which as mentioned above was again rescheduled at the last moment. The road trip took me down to Tennessee and Lincoln Memorial University, where I spent the day in the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. For the next 8 days I wound my up through Lincoln’s birthplace in Kentucky, his boyhood home in Indiana (with a day spent researching in the Allen County Public Library Lincoln Collection), then up to Michigan to see the actual chair Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated.

Windstar CruisesThe end of June put me on a Windstar Cruise into the Baltic Sea. Windstar specializes in small yacht cruises so we got to know the other 200 passengers well during the 11-day cruise. Starting in Copenhagen, we stopped in Bornholm, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Finland, the Aland Islands, and finally into Stockholm. Windstar offers such great cruises that this was the first of two we took in 2018.

Part 2 of my Chasing Abraham Lincoln tour took place in mid-July. Over 9 days I zigzagged my way around Illinois to see dozens of Lincoln statues, all 7 of the Lincoln-Douglas debate sites, and other key locations related to research for my next Lincoln book. I even got to see Lincoln and Douglas debate in person.

August took me back up to Massachusetts to visit my family. I made three trips up in 2018, and each time my father was in the hospital or rehab so I never saw him at home. On this one I also drove up to Maine to visit my brother who had become President/CEO of the Schoodic Institute, a non-profit associated with Acadia National Park. On my return I picked up my son for a week’s stay in the DC area.

Crater LakeThree days later we flew out to Oregon to begin a 10-day road trip in early September starting in Crater Lake, up the Oregon coast, through the Columbia River Gorge, into eastern Washington state, through Idaho and into Montana to spend a couple of days in Glacier National Park.

Okay, breathe. The rest of September and October was time to catch up at home and prepare for the next trips. No, we weren’t done by a long shot.

From mid-November until Christmas we didn’t stop. I drove up to Gettysburg for the annual Lincoln Forum conference. A day later I was driving to Massachusetts for the Thanksgiving holiday. Then few days after that we were again on a plane, this time flying to Hong Kong to board our second Windstar Cruise for the year. For 14 days we toured five different parts of the Philippines (Hundred Islands, Manila, Boracay, Coron, Palawan), two parts of Malaysia on the island of Borneo (Kota Kinabalu and Kuching), and the tiny country of Brunei (officially, “Nation of Brunei, The Abode of Peace”). After finishing the cruise in Singapore we spent a four days exploring the city that spawned the book and movie, Crazy Rich Asians.

I flew home from Singapore less than a week before Christmas while Ru flew on to Beijing to spend a few days with her family. When she returned on Christmas eve she was accompanied by her mother, who will spend the next three months visiting.

Clearly 2018 was a busy year. I estimate that I took between 10,000 and 15,000 photos in one year, and going through them is always a slow process. Regular readers of this page will have seen many of the trip posts I’ve done during the year and I’ll continue to write posts to catch up. How quickly that happens will depend on how much time my upcoming travel and writing allows.

So what about 2019? Trips are already booked for Costa Rica and Cuba and I am planning a Part 3 of Chasing Abraham Lincoln, proven necessary after I realized how much I missed on the previous two trips. I’ve had tentative plans to rent an apartment in Paris in the spring to do research for a forthcoming book, but so far haven’t done much to prepare for it. I’ll plan at least one family trip to New England with the likelihood it will end up being two or three trips. I’ll definitely be at the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg. Where else I go is still rather fuzzy. Domestic options include a Southwest road trip, Chicago, Charleston, and various other Lincoln-related sites. International travel options currently on the radar include Iceland, Banff, Galapagos, and Antarctica/South America.

And somewhere in there I need to keep writing. I was able to write during sea days on both Windstar Cruises, but usually I’m so busy on travel that I can’t get much done on the road (other than writing about the current trip itself, which some day will be fodder for Bill Bryson-ish travel memoirs).

As Mark Twain wrote in Innocents Abroad:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Happy Science Traveling!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Science Traveling Through Time and Space

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Hong Kong Philippines Malaysia BruneiTraveling can take you back in time (as in, history)…or it can take you away in space (as in, geography; so far no actual space travel for me). I’m about to do both.

After close to two months without any substantive travel, I’m eager to get on the road again. And the air. And the sea. Upcoming trips will cover all of those.

First there is the annual Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where I get to travel back in time. After a three day battle the previous July, Abraham Lincoln took a train to Gettysburg to deliver “a few appropriate remarks.” He was a bit of an afterthought for the event; the keynote speaker, noted orator Edward Everett, regaled the crowd with a two hour speech before Lincoln stood up to present his two minute address. Besides the usual cast of Lincoln scholars, the Forum will feature George Saunders, author of the unique and critically acclaimed bestseller, Lincoln in the Bardo. David Blight will also speak on his new book about African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Returning from Gettysburg only long enough to gas up the car, I’ll hit the road to visit the family in New England. I’ll cover some geographic distance, but this is only a prelude.

A few days after that I’ll be on a plane to Asia, where I’ll set to sea for two weeks. Starting in Honk Kong, the Star Legend (sister yacht to the Star Breeze we took around the Baltic Sea this summer) will zigzag among the islands of the Philippines, with stops in Hundred Islands, Manila, Boracay, Coron, and Palawan. Then on to Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, Malaysia on the island of Borneo, with a hop to the “Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace” (or simply, Brunei). The yacht finishes in Singapore, where we’ll stay a few days and probably take a side trip up to Kuala Lumpur.

So I’ll get to experience American history, international history, new and interesting cultures, and a whole lot of new geography. Oh, and hopefully monkeys since last year at this time I found out there are no monkeys in Australia.

More previews and recaps to come!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Reflections of a Science Traveler Five Years On

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Glacier National ParkIn the last quarter of my most recent 2000 mile road trip we met a lovely couple at a Montana rest stop. Gene and Jacque were sitting in foldable chairs next to their large RV camper when we pulled in to stretch our legs. As we talked about life I realized that very day – September 12th – was the 5-year anniversary of my science traveling life.

Five years ago I resigned from my well-paid environmental consulting position in Washington, D.C. My new life as a science traveler, writer, and Abraham Lincoln historian has been jam-packed with excitement, interesting locations, and mind-stimulating enrichment. I said then, and reiterate now, that it was the best decision I ever made.

Back when I was contemplating making the jump, I couldn’t help but worry about where and how much I might travel, whether anyone would read what I was writing, and how I would make ends meet financially. After all, I was giving up a good salary, adventuring into new intellectual territory, and traveling to places I never expected to travel. In some ways it was a big risk. And yet, as I wrote in my first anniversary reflections, “the stars aligned, angels’ voices rang down from the heavens,” so the risk wasn’t all that risky. I remind myself of this as my bank account and royalty check balances dwindle. 

There are times I think I’m not taking big enough, or fast enough, advantage of this post-salary time of my life. I could travel more, but that would mean less writing (I still haven’t mastered the art of writing while traveling). I could write more, but that would mean more obligation and less fun as I take on freelance jobs more for the money than the topic interest. I could do more with the Lincoln Group, but that greater responsibility comes with lessened flexibility. Overall, I think I’ve found a good balance.

So what have I been doing these five years? As the name of this website suggests, I’ve been science traveling. What does science traveling mean, you ask? Simple. I try to find the science in everywhere I travel, with science defined in the broadest sense. I don’t spend time in laboratories pouring chemicals (although I have been known to do that). And I don’t spend a week sitting on the same beach contemplating the same sand particles and clouds (some call this relaxing, to me it is stressful not to be moving). Instead, and with a career background ranging from marine biology to aquatic toxicology to environmental science to regulatory science I’m bound to find myself exploring the environmental aspects of my target location. For example, I was just along the Oregon coast where I noticed the similarities – and differences – between the rocky stacks there and the 12 Apostles off the southern coast of Australia. While in Crater Lake I marveled at the geology of the inside of a volcano. While in Pisa my mind wandered to the physics of Galileo dropping unequal weights off the Leaning Tower (not to mention the physics of what keeps the tower leaning and not toppling). Usually I try to read up on locations before visiting them, but I also do research on the locations once I return. I include these scientific aspects in my travel writing.

But my definition of science is broader than that. As a Lincoln historian I include getting to understand the local cultures (e.g., Serbian vs Croatian, Aborigine vs Maori vs Native American). As a science communicator – yet another interest in my diverse repertoire – I look for ways to best communicate the science to the public. Glacier National Park, for example, will soon have to be labeled “Historical Glacier National Park” as most of its glaciers have disappeared or shrunken to minimal levels. In contrast, the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina is one of only a few glaciers that is actually growing. Throw in a little Darwin and Patagonia becomes a much more interesting place than simply hundreds of kilometers of gravel roads. Mark Twain once said that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” I aim to prove that is true.

My travels have taken me to over 50 countries, so far. This past 12 months alone I have been to nine or ten countries and several areas of the United States. There was Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Finland, the Aland Islands, and Sweden on the international front, with Hong Kong, Philippines, Brunei, and Singapore coming up soon. Domestically, I’ve been to New England several times in the last year, including Maine, plus Sanibel Island in Florida and my most recent road trip through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. With three corners of the country covered I’m looking to make a road trip in the southwest U.S. soon.

This has been a busy year for my Abraham Lincoln side as well. In May, I finished up my term as Vice President of Programs of the Lincoln Group of DC, responsible for booking speakers for our monthly dinner meetings. I considered taking on ultimate leadership responsibility but opted to make a lateral move instead because of my travel and writing schedule. I’ve driven three increasingly intensive road trips as research for my book in progress. First a long weekend in Newport News for a “Battle of Hampton Roads” conference. Then a week-long drive through Lincoln’s early life in Tennessee/Kentucky/Indiana, with a stop in Michigan to see the rocking chair Lincoln was sitting in when assassinated. Finally, a 9-day Chasing Lincoln zigzag around Illinois to visit the seven Lincoln-Douglas debate sites, the I&M Canal, Rock Island, and two dozen or more Lincoln statues. I even got to see Lincoln and Douglas debate in person thanks to George Buss and Tim Connors. In the coming months I’ll make a few short day trips related to Lincoln, plus a few days in Chicago to check out more Lincoln sites (plus the famed Art Institute of Chicago).

The year wasn’t always great; there were some downer times too. My trips to New England were in part because my father has repeatedly made hospital and rehab stays as his body slowly gets weaker in his 92nd year. Then my Lincoln mentor and friend John Elliff passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Other drags on life also creaked into existence during the year, but overall, it was a very good year.

My writing has been both a highlight and a lowlight this year. My first book on Tesla is into its 8th printing and several foreign translations. Edison is essentially sold out and has been translated as well. My Lincoln book released last summer is into a 2nd edition and is likely to get a 3rd plus translations. I’m also working on three books, two on Lincoln and one a travel memoir. The lowlights? I’ve spread myself a bit thin so none of the books is progressing as fast as I intended. I also planned to submit more freelance article work this year but haven’t put much effort into following through on it. I specifically dropped my reading goal from 100 books to 75 this year, intending to spend the freed time writing. I’m now 3 books behind even the lower goal and haven’t shifted the time into writing as much as I planned. Some of this is because of traveling, and with a heavy travel schedule continuing through at least next summer, I’m not sure whether I’ll improve my reading or writing pace much in the near future. Still, I am writing. I just need to write more and faster.

As I reflect on five years of post-salary life it strikes me that I get two kinds of reactions. One is envy, as people who want to quit/retire/travel/write think the grass is greener on my side of the fence. The other is inspiration, as they see promise of greater fulfillment even while they are working. It simply takes making the time to do what you want. After five years I can still say I have no regrets about my decision.

No regrets whatsoever.

See my previous “Reflections” for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017. This will be the last of these annual “Reflections” pieces unless something marvelous happens to warrant a special one. Of course, if one of my books becomes a million seller I won’t need to write these updates as you’ll be seeing me all over television and the internet. 🙂

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!