Terrell's Travel Journals

I travel as much as a bookseller's salary will allow and, since I like to write, I've kept journals of my trips from the last several years. I'll be adding to this list as I get my handwritten journals typed up. It seems to make more sense to list them geographically rather than chronologically. Let me know if you disagree. Just to keep things simple, I've put the Turkey journals in the Europe category although much of the time spent in Turkey was in the Asian portion.

Europe

Many years ago I spent a year in Italy as an AFS exchange student. Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten into the journaling habit yet. Someday I'll make a go of recreating some high points of that year but not yet.
In the spring of 2000, I fulfilled a promise to myself to take a big trip in honor of my fortieth birthday by spending three weeks in Spain. I've recently rediscovered my notebook from that trip so it will be posted here as soon as I can get it typed.
I've been lucky enough to be able to travel to Turkey three times with Meli Seval of Melitour. In 2004 I did the trip that most people start with. We began in Istanbul, then traveled by train to Ankara where we picked up our private mini bus and driver. We visited Cappadocia, Konya, Antalya on the Mediterranean coast, Pamukkale, and Ephesus, winding up in Kuşadası.
In 2005 we went to the areas that used to be off limits to travelers in Southeastern and Eastern Turkey. We had a wonderful time seeing Antakya, Gaziantep, Marden, and Şanliurfa, climbing Mt. Nemrud to see the giant stone heads and watching the sun rise on Mt. Ararat.
In 2006 I started my travels with a few days in London staying at an hostel and trying to sightsee during the worst European heat wave in years.
After London, I moved up to Scotland to join a brother and his family for a few days of touring by car.
Next, I flew down to Italy to visit with my niece in Tuscany and then spent a single day in Venice.
Finally, I continued on to Turkey to join my 2006 Melitour group. We started with the Eastern Black Sea coast, visiting Sumela Monastery near Trabzon and spending time in a yayla before heading south to visit Erzurum, Kars, Doğubayazit, and Lake Van. You can read the group journal where each tour member kept the journal for a day or you can read my personal journal.

North America

In 2001, I quit my job in Seattle and spent most of the year driving a rough perimeter around the country ending with an accident in Tucson that left me unhurt but carless. Most of the trip remains to be typed.
In 2007, I quit my job in Seattle (different but similar job) and moved to Texas to look after my mother for two years. I drove from Seattle via Portland, Salt Lake City, the Four Corner's region and Taos on my way to Dallas. A little family in Portland, a little genealogy in Salt Lake City, a little hiking in Arches National Park and a little snow near Taos made it a great road trip.
In 2008 my younger brother and I took our mom for one last visit (she's no longer really able to travel) to one of your favorite places, Chautauqua, New York. While I'm rewriting the journal, you can read the article that I wrote for the Wide World Books & Maps newsletter.

Latin America

Long, long ago, as a teenager I spent a summer in Puebla, Mexico living with friends. I still have the rather sketchy journal I kept that summer and plan to transcribe it here.
As of this moment (July, 2009) I'm in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mom moved to assisted living in January so I have left her to the care of my four Dallas brothers and gone off on a three month vacation. I won't post a journal about this trip until I'm done, but in the meantime you can read about it in my blog.

Asia

Way back in 1984, I spent six weeks in China as a TA for SMU's Summer in China program. We spent three weeks in Shanghai and then traveled for three weeks to Beijing, Xian, Chungking, and along the Yangtze River before the Three Gorges Dam was anything more than a twinkle in some engineers eye. This is one of those unwritten journals that I hope to recreate.