Deep Creek, Eleuthera, The Bahamas

No Turning Back. It's time to put the old year behind us and make our resolutions for the year ahead. Life's best is still in the making. So, why would you want to turn back? [2014]

Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Thanking my barbers for 2014: First, my Dominican coiffeur in the British Virgin Islands. Then, left to right: McDonough, Georgia; Gulfport, Mississippi; Philippi, West Virginia; New Cumberland, Pennsylvania; Havana, Cuba; Bucharest, Romania; Dillsburg, Pennsylvania; Brunswick, Maryland. Nine barbers, nine friends, nine locations, one topophile. [2014]

Haridwar, India

Pilgrims converge on Haridwar to bathe in the sacred River Ganges at the point where it plunges out of the Himalayas and onto to the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Many make a haircut, and sometimes a head shaving, a part of the purification ritual. [2011]

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Priest conversation.
Sweet conversation.
Brief conversation.
Ceased conversation.
At least it wasn't a
Tweet conversation.
[2014]

Saluda, Virginia, USA

How do you judge privilege? Just read the landscape. When you drive an eye-catcher like this, the privilege of parking on the grass right in front of the church is yours. Every privilege has a purpose, though, and helping people find their purpose is the reason Christ Church exists in the first place. So, recognize your privileges and ask why you have been chosen. [2014]

Hoboken, Georgia, USA

Each year, the employees of Georgia Power cover 400 miles in 2-1/2 days to benefit the American Cancer Society. It's called Run for the Reason, and it's a way to raise money for fighting cancer. Now, on Boxing Day, maybe the box you give should contain a donation to a cause bigger than yourself. [2012]

Key West, Florida, USA

Look into the future this Christmas day. Do you see legions of Cuban gardeners poised to board a ferry in Havana for the 90 mile ride to Key West, ready to put in a day's work tending the Lighthouse and cutting the Bermuda grass, then returning home in the evening? Just a thought. [2014]

Pigeon Point, California, USA

No coastal plain here. On the east coast of the United States, only in Maine do you meet a landscape like this. On the west coast, cliffs and bluffs are the norm, not the exception. The Coastal Ranges of Washington, Oregon, and California carry that name for a reason. So says the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. [2007]

Port Penn, Delaware, USA

Ever see a naked lighthouse? Here's one, the Liston Range Rear Light. It has a partner, fully clad, the Liston Range Front Light, out in the Delaware River. When the lights align, you're on course. Do you have any leading lights in your life? Yes, range lights are also called leading lights, and now you know where we get a popular vernacular expression. [2013]

Biglerville, Pennsylvania, USA

It may be the first full day of winter, but the days have just started to get longer. We pray for Persephone's return from the underworld. In these latitudes, her reappearance is assured. Soon, the trees will be in foliage and the apple orchards will be in bloom. Where is Persephone now? With her abductor in Hades. [1994]

Shartlesville, Pennsylvania, USA

Low sun and long shadows: both are maximized today. It's the December solstice:  shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and longest day of the year in the South Hemisphere. Solstice means "sun stop": the direct rays of the sun stopped moving south at 6:03 pm EST today and began moving north again. [1984]

Izmir, Turkey

A meal in Turkey is not complete without bread, a.k.a. ekmek in Turkish. We would call it flatbread or pita, but it's not flat like the bread of Syria and Mesopotamia just to the south. Turkish 'pida' is round and puffy, not round and flat. Like all bread, it's best when it comes right out of the oven. [2014]

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

They are getting paid for what they do, but it looks like fun doesn't it. Perhaps a new industry is waiting to be born: People would pay for the thrill of scaling a high-rise, and maybe you could get them to wash the windows as part of the deal. [2011]

Havana, Cuba

The United States and Cuba are normalizing relations, a long-overdue move on the part of the U.S. government. Life for everyone, including these gardeners, is about to change, hopefully for the better. But, as the American dollar stages an invasion, change could also mean a widening income gap between rich and poor. [2014]

Trieste, Italy

Who keeps the streets looking good? Hard-working men and women whose toil goes unsung. Who gets the credit? The syndaci. They call the tunes. It's the same everywhere. [2008]

Chiang Mai, Thailand

In both Thailand and the United States, Meals on Wheels means feeding the hungry. In the United States, however, the hungry are shut-ins who can't prepare food for themselves. In Thailand, the hungry are people who order fast food by phone and have it delivered. Context matters! [2011]

Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA

How many ads can you add to a single wall? As many as you want if you just keep painting over old ones. Do you see Coca-Cola struggling to make a come-back? Look closely, and you will discover layers of history reintegrated into contemporary narratives. [2012]

Dallas, Texas, USA

Nature abhors a vacuum. So does culture. A blank wall is a reserve of space, ready to be exploited when the economy permits. Then, it becomes a resource, ready to be commercialized. That was the practice in downtowns and uptowns all across the country as modern retailing began in the late 1800s. [2007]

Norfolk, Virginia, USA

"Mural" comes to the Anglophone World from La Francophonie. The word for wall in French is le mur. From it, we get mural, today used as shorthand for mural painting, a painting on a wall. What you see along Norfolk's Granby Street is paint on a wall, for sure, but does it qualify as a painting? Is it a mural? And, does it deserve a Gold Medal? [2014]

Covington, Virginia, USA

Landscapes have a grammar of their own. They communicate with subjects, objects, and verbs. So, what are the 'verbs' in the paragraph above and what is their tense? Future Perfect, perhaps. What could offer a more perfect glimpse of the future than last summer's memories of good times along Dunlap Creek by the Humpback Bridge. [2010]

Covington, Virginia, USA

Landscapes have a grammar of their own. They communicate with subjects, objects, and verbs. So, what are the 'verbs' in the paragraph above and what is their tense? Past Perfect, perhaps. What could be a more perfect reminder of the past than a covered bridge? In this case, it's the Humpback Bridge in Alleghany County. [2014]

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

What does a Christian church have to do with a lighthouse? To geographers, it's all about reading the landscape. Lighthouses tell pilots how to wisely navigate turbulent waters. Churches tell congregants how to wisely navigate turbulent lives. Thank you to Jacksonville's First Baptist Church. [2007]

Lisbon, Portugal

What does delivering the daily news have to do with a lighthouse? To geographers, it's all about reading the landscape. Lighthouses tell pilots how to wisely navigate turbulent waters. Newspapers tell patrons how to wisely navigate turbulent times. Thank you to Lisbons's Diário de Notícias. [2009]

Gaziantep, Turkey

In Turkey, where they language is Turkish, they are called babouches. Where to you find them? In the pazars. What are they made from? Morocco. It's an old word for leather. [2014]

Marrakech, Morocco

In Morocco, where the language is Arabic, they are called babouches. Where do you find them? In the souks. What are they made from? Morocco. What kind of an answer is that? Consult Meriam-Webster. [2010]

Valetta, Malta

If Malta is the "land of honey," then these are honey bees. But, their honey is Cisk, the nectar of the island nation, now with an export market, but penultimately Maltese. Cisk: lager beer since 1928. [2009]

Valetta, Malta

Don't discount the role of food and drink in nation-building. Malta doesn't. For indigenes of the archipelago, there is a preferred alcoholic beverage: Cisk. And, there is a preferred non-alcoholic beverage: Kinnie. Devotion to Cisk and Kinnie define what it means to be Maltese. [2009]

Suomenlinna Island, Finland

In Finland but in English: "Passport Control." Small countries struggle to maintain their identity, linguistically and otherwise. Even the Suomenlinna fortress in the background tells of Finland's struggle to survive. It was built by the Swedes to keep Finland from being taken by the Russians. [2005]

Antalya, Turkey

"Wait till my ship comes in!" Is that what these casuals are thinking as they watch the boats entering and exiting Antalya's harbor? The black-pants dude, though, is going to miss it entirely if he doesn't get off his cell phone and fix his eyes on the horizon. [2014]

Cardiff, Wales, UK

Places often use literature to make their genius loci feel at home. That's what Cardiff has tried to do by replicating John Masefield's "Cargoes" on its waterfront. Seen here: 'a cargo of ivory and apes,' trade in which we today deplore. It's an example of dialectical tension between past and present. [2005]

Canillo, Andorra

In times past, Pyrenean shepherds wandered up and down the Valls d'Andorra tending their flocks. Today, snapshots from that bucoloc past have become identity stones of Andorran nationhood. The formerly feudal fiefdom has transformed itself into a modern urban nation, but the rural past continues to feed the memory, as it does here in Canillo. [2005]