With the number-two biggest reef system lying just offshore, it was inevitable some of us were going to go down and check it out.

There are lots of dive operators in Cozumel, but to find the best ones, the age-old adage rings true: ask a local. My sister and her husband had struck up a conversation at one of the eateries their condo-owning friend had recommended, and through this lady they’d been turned on to Blue Angel, a hotel on the island’s southern half aimed mainly at the diving set.

I got there in the morning for my orientation dive, where I met Matthew, our diver master, an amiable Albertan; and Kale, another intrepid world traveler (with a blog of his own to boot) from Vancouver. They ran me and another Alberta family (note about Cozumel: Canucks galore!) through safety and training drills. I’d already done this a year ago but it was remarkable how much I’d forgotten – from hand signals to buoyancy compensation.

Unlike Australia, where the reef can lie dozens to hundreds of miles from land, Cozumel’s reefs lie right offshore – heck, you could almost swim to them if determined enough. After lunch, my sister and her husband (who’d already done the intro a couple of days before) joined us on the boat out to the reef. We zipped past one of the island’s three cruise terminals, where two Royal Caribbean ships were docked; one of them, the Oasis of the Seas, is the world’s second largest. Passing under it is akin to walking the concrete canyons of New York: a wall of white steel and glass rises up a dozen stories in the sky.

Meanwhile, natural wonders waited down below. We rode south, to Palancar reef, just offshore from the beach we’d been at a few days prior. Donning our gear and splashing backward off the boat into warmish blue waters, we began our explorations.

Palancar is deep and vertical: towering columns of coral climb forty-plus feet off the sea floor. We spotted schools of colorful fish, the odd ray, a spotted eel. My sister found her Pilates training useful and took to diving like one of the aquatic species around her. I held my own, the reflexes and impulses I’d learned at the start of the year slowly coming back.

Another day, another adventure: next day, we opted to vote ourselves off the island and check out some Mayan ruins. Cozumel was a minor outpost in ancient times, but most of the lost civilization’s activities were concentrated on the mainland. The great pyramid of Chichen Itza was a bit more of a haul than we were seeking, but another, closer-in spot, seemed like a better choice with family and toddler in tow: the seafront ruins of Tulum.

The day started out more Marx Brothers than Mayan quest: we missed the earlier ferry and clambered aboard the totally-packed 10 o’clocker – almost missing that one too as we’d forgotten to retrieve our baby car seat. Then my mother and Miri began turning green on the eleven-mile ferry trip: both suffer from seasickness, and the channel can be choppy. Then on arrival in Playa del Carmen, we discovered the car rental place where we’d booked a car for the day no longer existed – and all other rental shops were sold out. In Mexico, the big international rental chains subcontract out to local outfits whose idea of “reservation” echoes a Seinfeld episode bit (though at least all the people we dealt with were affable).

On to Plan B: our taxi driver, originally hired to ferry us the seven or so blocks from the ferry pier to the rental shop, became our driver for the day. The price wasn’t a whole lot more than the rental, and he helpfully directed us to a nice little seafood spot for lunch a stone’s throw from the ruins. With motion sickness in retreat and baby happy from a hearty lunch, we were ready to take on Tulum.

The walled city overlooking the Caribbean was an important Mayan trading entrepot, and as we entered its stone walls we instantly understood why this is the number two most-visited Mayan site in the country: it’s an ethereal, mystical spot, rocky edifices perched on cliffs above carpeted jungle greenery and azure seas. It was moderately busy, though not overwhelmingly so, and we agreed that my observation, made on my travels, that places like these — intended to be cities — feel right with people in them.

But the real crowds were down below: Tulum has to be one of the very few archeological spots on Earth (Caesarea, in Israel, is another) that boasts a beach – and a gorgeous one at that – astride the ancient temples. The place was packed with a mix of locals and visitors, and a dip in the waters invigorated us all.

“Okay, it was worth it,” remarked my Mom about the hectic day, as she took in the glorious scene.

Next day was my last on the island; after inviting the family over to my hotel for its renowned breakfast, I headed out to do some solo exploring.

Most of Cozumel’s populace lives in San Miguel, the town hugging the western coast facing Playa del Carmen. But sitting astride a channel means calm, even boring seas. For the more oceanic, wave-soaked experience, one heads to Cozumel’s eastern shore, some nine miles away from town. So that’s what I did, traversing the island’s main east-west highway on my little scooter, dodging the odd rain squall mid-island care of a low-flying cloud.

By the time I reached Mezcalitos, however, the cloud had tucked itself into a corner of the sky, and the blue Caribbean – with waves, natch – presented itself under brilliant sunshine. I went for a dip – the surf was relatively calm for this spot – and, contemplated the year this has been.

Perhaps because it’s a sun destination, I’d found relatively little background information on Cozumel in my pre-trip read-ups on the place. I had my questions answered by the Museo de la Isla, a small but very comprehensive set of exhibits in a vintage yellow-hued building on the island’s main waterfront drag. Everything from the island’s formation over geologic epochs; to the creation of the region’s underwater cenote caverns; to Mayan days; Spanish conquests; and modern re-emergence, is covered. Heck, there’s even a reconstructed Mayan dwelling complete with statuary and circular stone calendar. Some factoids I didn’t know: Cozumel was one of the first spots visited by the Spaniards, and even Cortéz passed through here on his way to ultimately take down the neighboring Aztecs at Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City). Plague and horrible enslavement fully depopulated these lands, and it was only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that the place surged back.

After what was arguably the best dinner we’d had to date at a beach club on the island’s northern fringes, I bade farewell to family and headed for a meetup with a fellow I’d been chatting with online. I was feeling good about Beto, and in person he proved my supposition true: a friendly, talkative twentysomething (whose English was excellent) studying physiotherapy in Mérida. He and a large clutter of friends, all local Cozumeleños, met up at the re-opening of a really fab bar just off the main square. I think I’d just encountered the third layer of island society, after the cruise-ship tourists and the expat locals: these were true locals, mostly middle class but of all stripes (Beto’s parents were both doctors).

And with that, a fond farewell to Cozumel; the place ignited a fascination in me for Mexico that previous travels did for many other places — though unlike most, this country is far more accessible to me from where I live — and I have no doubt more visits await me in the years to come.

San Miguel de Cozumel, Dec 23-25, 2012

It’s been something of a running joke with me that I’ve been everywhere in the world except places closest to home: as a native Montrealer, I’ve been almost nowhere in Canada outside the Quebec-Windsor corridor; as a Californian, I’ve never visited Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or Mexico. Having finally made it to (and fallen in love with) Vancouver earlier this fall, I positively jumped at the chance to meet up with some family members spending Christmas holidays off the Riviera Maya, in Cozumel, Mexico.

I have to admit, some of my foot dragging on visiting North America’s third country was due to lingering preconceptions: In his book Smile When You’re Lying (a very edifying exposé of the business of travel writing), author Chuck Thompson ponders “Why Latin America Isn’t the World’s Number-One Tourist Destination (and Probably Never Will Be),” citing American mythology about rampant kidnappings, Montezuma’s Revenge, and “hey gringo” ripoff-ery.

For my part, too, while my round-the-world travels had vanquished any phobias about travel in developing countries, one concern remained: with such proximity to the U.S., does tourism to Mexico present an even more amplified form of the soft colonialism so frequently written about by travel writers? Can one even have an experience here that doesn’t revolve around kitschy sombreros at Señor Frogs?

My sister, brother-in-law, and sleeping 20-month-old nephew picked me up at Cozumel’s twee little airport. Even though it abuts the town, the field is sleepy enough to fit in almost unnoticed on the island. The broad, divided carriageway leading from the airport to the beach was typical of tropical sun destinations: a row of coconut palms running along the median line; dense, if low-lying, forest on either side. Cozumel was badly battered by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, and although the island looks to have returned to its normal self again, the wind-battered foliage offered clues to past devastation.

“Now here’s somebody who knows how to travel,” remarked my sister, spying my partly-loaded backpack and miniature daypack, both veterans of my global haul. They were not so blessed: between the needs of a toddler and trying to anticipate how well-stocked a Mexican Caribbean island would be, they were hauling a lot more gear – and had the misfortune of flying one of my least-favorite domestic U.S. airlines (hint: begins with a “U”) at holiday time. Yes, it nearly came to blows at LAX on their trip out, and remained nightmarish right through the ride down to Playa del Carmen, the ferry ride over to the island, and the taxi to their friend’s condo south of town (they flew into Cancun, which I’d be doing on my return leg).

I, meanwhile, seem to have hit the flashpacker jackpot once more: Casa Mexicana, a vaguely nautical-looking, newish hotel right in the center of San Miguel, offered that great blend of comfortable and casual (and reasonable) I’d sought out on my global trek. A second-floor terrace offered a stellar view of blue seas, the town’s “Malecón” oceanfront promenade, and myriad ferries and cruise ships coming and going. Although it got put on the travel map some three decades past thanks to its dive spots – the island sits right on the second-largest reef system in the world, after Australia’s Great Barrier – it’s perhaps best known to many as a cruise port of call (for better or worse).

“For better or worse” seems to mean that the island does indeed possess what I feared: piles of restaurants and shops geared at the cruising set that would not feel out of place in a mall in Iowa. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those backpacking purists who fetishizes “authenticity” at the expense of everything else; and I’m acutely aware that “live like a local” tourism is just as much “tourism” as those loud-shirted cruisers at Carlos ‘n Charlie’s.

Turns out my kin were on the same wavelength: after practicing my few words of Spanish in ordering (and consuming) seafood pasta at a local Italian joint, we wandered across the way to a town square, colorfully decked out (to the delight of my talkative, ebullient toddler nephew) for navidad. Here the faces were more brown than white, the language more Español than Ingles: turns out Cozumel not only has a sizeable local populace, it also attracts a large proportion of Mexican tourists. Off the main drag, the vibe quietens, the buildings turn single-story and less tricked-out, and the “real” Cozumel presents itself. Could I have found it, as I had more often than not in my travels, a spot where foreign tourist and local resident (and transient) comingle happily and freely?

We took such musings to the beach the next day, heading several miles down the island to Playa Palancar. Cozumel’s north side, where my kin was staying, and its central city, where I’d parked myself, mostly consist of rocky shorelines with bits of reef scattered about. For the sandy beach experience, one heads southward. Palancar’s pretty – not quite top of my list, but definitely up there – with a scattering of retail shops, a narrow-ish strip of sand, an eatery, and a small menagerie of peacocks and Cozumel raccoons (smaller – and more endangered – than their mainland relatives). Although nominally a Caribbean island, the western side, where most development lies, also faces the mainland (the buildings and lights of Playa del Carmen can be seen on clear days, some 12 miles off). This translates into gentle waves and calm seas, with warm though by no means torrid waters. Just right for the water princess that I am.

A home-cooked meal for dinner that night and a lazy day at the condo pool (and adjoining reef-let) made for a splendid Christmas Eve and Day. Festivus in the tropics is always a nice change, but for my family the venue change had broader significance: my parents’ anniversary was December 24^th, and although we’d agreed not call too much attention to it, inevitably talk shifted to my father’s passing this past summer. We’re all still reeling from the aftermath of his sudden cardiac arrest on a warm July morning in Montreal. Perhaps it’s fitting, being here in the Mayan heartland just days after their calendar cycle ran out (though the assumption that this meant the end of the world was, of course, totally off the mark); for them (well, those that remain from that once-great civilization), and for us, 2012 signifies not only endings but also new beginnings.

It’s an odd time to be traveling, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and odder yet to be journeying to North America’s chilly northeast from balmy California.

But then, little about this year has been typical.

Dodging those sky-high airfares to Canada, on Friday I hopped a red-eye across the country to New York. The city’s rep as a transient hub is well represented by my friend circle, ever more of whom continue to rotate through the place. This time, I met up with my friend Lake, a Chicago native and chemical engineer whose prior stints in his field include Sheboygan, Wisconsin before this present foray to grad school here in the Big Apple.

Lake met me at Penn Station, where I’d hopped off a commuter train from JFK. Surprisingly awake after the too-short-to-sleep-properly transcon journey (thank you, Business Class upgrade), we settled into a cute little Franco-tinged breakfast spot in Chelsea (thank you, Yelp), then rode the subway far uptown. Lake’s studies have brought him to a once-squalid part of Harlem that’s now dotted with upscale eateries and brick buildings in various stages of fixed-up-ness. Best part (for transit geeks like me, at least): the “A” train’s express run from 59^th Street to 125^th. We walked uphill from the station, beholding a view of the city over a portion of the island that hadn’t been flattened ages ago and still retained its vaguely primordial undulations.

I was only set to be in New York for 24 hours, and had one bite-sized attraction I’d been hankering to visit for ages: years ago, when my siblings were doing rotations of their own in this city, my parents would come down here and I’d fly out to meet everyone in a family reunion of sorts. My father’s thirst for bargains on designer clothing (I always joked that, with his fashion sense, love of opera, and unabashed emotion-showing, he made a far better gay man than I) led him to Lower Manhattan department store Century 21. My fascination with the city and its history was stoked on these forays: I’d wander past Trinity Church, by the Park Row (featuring my own shopper’s paradise, electronics store J&R), and under the then-standing monoliths of the World Trade Center. On one especially warm summertime visit, shopping bags in tow, we passed a temporary space housing a nascent exhibit: the Skyscraper Museum, sitting, appropriately enough, in the shadow of some iconic specimens of the form. I’d made a mental note to check the place out, and over the years followed its progress in the wake of 9/11 to its eventual permanent home in Battery Park City.

“It’s like suburbia, or Jersey City,” Lake remarked as got off the subway downtown and strolled down Battery Place. Battery Park City’s a sliver of urban infill created when the original World Trade Center was built. It grew into an urban residential enclave over the past decades, a spot with medium-rise condos, mini-parks, and couples with strollers. A nook of quiet amid downtown’s bustle.

In the ground floor of one of the condo buildings lay our destination: just a few rooms of exhibits and models and such, but as I anticipated, quite fascinating: a history of the city’s Seventh Avenue garment district was on view, describing and explaining those mammoth ziggurat-like brick high-rises that surrounded me as I emerged onto the street on 34^th Street earlier in the day. Dizzyingly detailed wooden models – the love’s labor of an Arizonan with a passion for urbanity – captured the density and diversity of various swaths of Manhattan. And, of course, models and images of World Trade Center old and new.

As we rounded the bottom of the island, we spotted some of the still-in-progress repairs to Battery Park in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Although the New York City Transit Authority has worked miracles restoring subway service in the wake of the storm a few weeks back, one station remains shuttered: South Ferry, which was inundated with flood waters that stormy day that looked on TV like the drowning of the Titanic’s decks.

This led us to a conversation about the energy business – another obsession of mine – and what’s perceived as their inaction (or, worse, blatant obstructionism) in the wake of climate change.

“You know, in the basement of my building [at City College] they’re working on a giant new battery. Industry’s devoting a huge effort to this,” Lake said. “But activists talk like they want them to just stop everything they’re doing right now and bankrupt themselves. So industry doesn’t even bother reaching out.”

He’s got a point, I mused. I was gratified to hear that old-economy energy extraction concerns are in fact stepping up – and recognize that the environmental crowd, some of whom lack a grounding in the sciences, often dig themselves into a position of opposition to legacy industries without hearing them out. But then, at the same time, I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t, collectively, as a species, not devoting the vigor we once employed to, say, putting men on the moon or splitting the atom. Because, looking at Battery Park’s damaged and smashed sculptures, the Lower Manhattans of the world really can’t wait.

Wandering northward, we passed a gloriously lit-up One World Trade Center, now so tall it disappeared into the evening fog. We then hopped a train to Brooklyn, dining at a vegan restaurant in Park Slope, a neighborhood I’d also been meaning for ages to check out. It’s got the beautiful brownstonery and trendy hangouts one finds on the other side of the East River, but here the vibe is quieter, the rush and buzz of Manhattan conspicuously missing. Along Atlantic Avenue we beheld a giant hole in the ground, at the bottom of which ran subway tracks that disappeared into the glowing ovoid of the new Barclays Center. Like so many near-urban districts in burgeoning, pricey world cities, the borough of Brooklyn is filling itself in.

Next morning it was back to JFK for a very quick hop up north to Burlington, Vermont. My Mom and her realtor partner Ron met me and drove me north, to home and hearth and a holiday party in Montreal.

It was the second night of the Jewish festival of Chanuka, and we celebrated, as is our wont, with candle lighting, songs, and far too much food. The kids, I learned, are as addicted as I am to that mildly idiotic Korean dance tune “Gangnam Style.” I soon had them dancing in a circle as its beat pounded out of my iPhone. Through the flicker of candles, a portrait of my father, in his outfit graduating from law school some fifty-plus years ago, held silent vigil. His absence loomed large over the evening.

Indeed, that was true of the remaining two days of my visit, as I went through old photographs, diaries, and had a nice lunch with his sister Jeannette to discuss memories I’m starting to compile for a prospective second book, one combining my father’s nomadic meanderings with my own. On my last morning I joined my mother and her realtor colleagues for breakfast before heading to the cemetery to get my first look at my father’s tombstone. The pleasantly banal chatter of Montreal’s buoyant real-estate market (it’s outperformed just about everywhere in the United States over the past four years) gave way to solemn remembrance at his gravesite.

It was a day much like the one four years ago, when I visited the memorial where his kin lay in Rumbula Forest, just outside Riga, Latvia: crisp, clear, cold, with just a thin coating of crunchy snow. We struggled to break apart the ice over his footstone, where the words from the pop tune “L’Italiano” are inscribed: “sono un italiano…un italiano vero.” An Italian, a true Italian: my Dad only lived in the country for a couple of years as a teen, but its culture and language infused their way into his persona all his remaining years.

Driving through the nighttime streets of downtown Montreal, magically decked out for the Christmas season as the city does so well, my mother and I pondered the man we’d lost barely five months ago. He’d always considered himself a nomad, an outsider, a cosmopolitan without a home. Yet in his last years he’d found it, as so many of us do often without realizing, in the city he only reluctantly embraced. It held the one thing no other place, however entrancing, could hold: the ties of family, of friends, of community. The things that keep me coming back (amid the protestations of a recently-adopted cat, as I saw fit to remind everyone). In this place, the turning of seasons and years have witnessed my sisters marry, my nieces and nephews blossom and grow (one of my sisters here is again pregnant, in fact), and those family ties embrace me, in life and in death, in a blanket of eternal warmth.

Canada’s a small country, I always say, which typically provokes odd looks; yes, yes, it’s the second-largest in land mass – but most of that is tundra and 90% of the populace lives in a narrow band hugging the U.S. border.

And yet, my notion of “small” is also, vaguely, blinkered. My entire youth and young adulthood was spent in what’s known as the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, Canada’s answer to the U.S. northeast. The West? It was always seen as far-off, smaller, irrelevant. Certainly as compared to the flashier U.S. West: Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, San Francisco Seattle. Images of surfers and movie stars and hipsters and computer wiz kids. What did Canada have? A nice, inoffensive little city called Vancouver.

A couple of friends aimed to alter that that when they said they were getting married there and invited me to join. I’d met Gus and Adam, Aussie natives, at a party in Sydney last year. We hung out a second time in London, and just hit it off — intellectually, socially, professionally… though in truth, I think the thing that united us most was our status as world wanderers: they live half a world away from home, and I… well, my past speaks for itself. So when they asked if I’d join in their “official” wedding (they were set to have a commitment ceremony in Sydney beforehand) in gay-marriage-legal Canada, I jumped at the chance.

In my enthusiasm to avoid both United Airlines and Air Canada, I opted for a two-hop trip via regional fave Alaska Airlines. What looked like a connecting-flight nuisance, however, turned magical on leg two, arguably the shortest commercially-scheduled flight I’ve ever taken: Seattle to Vancouver, 127 miles on one of the bigger Bombardier prop planes. It was a clear, moonlit night as we lifted off from Sea-Tac. From my window perch I beheld the lights of Seattle’s downtown; ahead, the San Juan Islands, surrounded by dark, ripply waters reflecting the moonlight; a languid descent into YVR (why oh why do Canadian airport codes all meaninglessly begin with the letter “Y”?), an easy customs/immigration pass-through (love that NEXUS card), and I was soon in a taxi headed toward town. As I stepped out of the cab, a waiting couple on the sidewalk politely inquired:

“Are you getting eout?”

Yup, I’m back home.

Vancouver may be known for rain, but the next day was as glorious-blue as any in Southern California. Dressed in my Sunday best, I hopped in a yellow Prius cab, out to a church in the posh western suburb of Point Grey. Rolling past elegant homes – newer steel & glass and older wooden Pacific Northwest-styled – we passed an elderly man on a motorized wheelchair; flapping from the back of his conveyance were two old-time Canadian Red Ensign flags.

I’m definitely back home.

Adam and Gus were on hand to greet us outside the church, as was their posse who’d come from near and far for this event: a (straight) couple from Australia who now live in Bangkok; two gals from middle-Canada (Edmonton & Winnipeg); a friend from Sydney who’d just moved to Vancouver; a fellow from Washington D.C.; two more Sydneysiders living in the U.K.; and one of the grooms’ moms, a headstrong woman from a farm near Bathurst with a background in technology and education. Nomads indeed.

The ceremony was short and sweet: a female minister, a smattering of readings, the signature of some official papers. I’m not one of those mushy types at weddings, having been to around a hundred of them as a put-upon assistant videographer… but when this couple looked into each others eyes, kissed, and the church bells began to peal, I couldn’t help but get choked up. I’ve known so many gay couples who play-act at marriage, and so many more who are legitimately fighting for the right, that it was wonderful to see it live and in person in my mother country.

I’ve never been so proud to be Canadian as I was at that moment.

After the ceremony we  bundled into a bunch more Prius cabs, and headed to a waterfront seafood restaurant in Coal Harbour for lunch. The glorious day was capped off with some drinks near the seaplane port nearby. We all parted around dusk – impressive that I spent a full, wonderful day with a gang of people I hardly met – and I called it an early night.

Next morning, Friday, I rose bright and early again to meet the two Canadian gals, Angie and Selena, for a bit of touristy fun at the Vancouver Aquarium. As befits a maritime city, Vancouver’s got a pretty good one, and we spent a couple of pleasant hours communing with cute sea otters, majestic snow-white Beluga whales, and most of the cast of Finding Nemo. Having had at least one nephew who was totally bonkers for the film, I found myself able to recite a virtual play-by-play of the movie as we passed tank after tank of brightly-colored sea life. The ladies were duly impressed.

I then hopped in a cab across town to the Botanical Gardens to meet my sole relation here in Western Canada, my great-aunt Lou. She not only looks grand for a near-centenarian, but is of remarkably sound mind and body. I learned some more detail about my family’s past, including how she met my great-uncle, their time in Japan (they were there before and after the Second World War, unlike my father’s family), and their ultimate return to Canada (they came back in 1976, though Lou, who originally hails from Vancouver when it was a far smaller outpost, quipped “I practically belong in the Smithsonian.”)

I started out my last full day in the city with a bit of uncertainty: Just about everybody from the wedding party had gone, and I’d done all the socializing I’d planned to do. What am I still doing here? rang the little voice in my head, particularly with a new kitten at home that I was missing terribly (though friends were seeing to her needs quite capably). Still, I was determined to make the most of it: Heading down to a quasi-industrial area not far from the old Expo site, I rented a scooter for a few hours and took myself around town. I opted for big circuits and farther-flung spots than I would have covered on foot, and in spite of a bit of chill at 30mph, that proved a stellar choice.

I rode north to Gastown, site of the original settlement (and not so named due to gaslit lamps, as I’d thought, but rather due to “Gassy Jack,” a bit of a windbag who founded the place – I guess something of a Vancouver variant on Chicago’s Windy City moniker). Touristy, in that way many revived historic settlements can be.

But up the road lay something more my speed: the city’s “Vansterdam” block of shops dedicated to cannabis culture. In the case of one, literally Cannabis Culture, the magazine published here. The New Amsterdam Café is this city’s answer to Holland’s “coffeeshops,” though here one can smoke or vaporize one’s buds, but cannot buy any. Reminders that the seesaw battle for the legality and acceptance of this substance are, even in liberal Canada’s pot capital, far from settled.

From greenery to more greenery: I rode across downtown to Stanley Park, the huge green space on the westernmost bulge of the peninsula that holds Vancouver’s city center. Lots of cities sport majestic parks in their urban heart: New York’s Central Park, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Montreal’s landscaping of Mount Royal. But I think none quite hold a candle to Vancouver’s entrant, both in sheer relative size (the park’s about as big as the rest of the city’s core), and in eye-popping natural beauty: giant coastal conifers with trunks as big as California redwoods form a thickly forested canopy enclosed by a stately seawall. It’s as if California’s Muir Woods (itself impressively close to urbanity) had just parked itself off San Francisco’s Financial District.

It’s safe to say I was finding Vancouver fairly fetching — but as a mostly new city with oodles of steel-and-glass high-rises and only a smattering of historic architecture, it’s not as dramatic as, say, Chicago’s massive splendor or San Francisco’s gingerbread Victoriana. But as I turned out of Stanley Park, I found the neighborhood to fall in love with: English Bay Beach.

A seafront community on the far side of the West End, its interplay of mostly older high rises fronting glorious waterfront evoked Sydney or Santa Monica by way of the cool Pacific Northwest. And palm trees – palm trees! – bunched on the green strip fronting the sand. Am I still in Canada? Should I ever choose to return to my homeland, I think that’ll be my spot.

From there I crossed the Burrard Street Bridge, a thirties, deco-ish steel truss viaduct, toward the lower mainland. I tootled through Kitsilano and back toward Point Grey, then headed out all the way west, through more glorious forests, to the University of British Columbia. On the way back, nature called again. Literally – a stop in a parkside porta-potty came first – and then figuratively, as I took a stroll through Pacific Spirit Regional Park, Vancouver west side’s mammoth dog park by way of Return of the Jedi’s forest moon of Endor.

My mother and sisters had all had moments of reflection over the past few days — during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur — to remember my father, for whom that religious day held much significance. I think this walk, listening to the mix of somber melodies I’d compiled after his funeral, had something of the same effect for me. I remember going with him and my mother to Muir Woods some fifteen years back. A lifelong city dweller, he nevertheless held a reverence and fascination for nature that he instilled in us all. I sat on a log amid the ancient trees and wept.

Back in town, a nighttime meetup at a nearby watering hole with a couple of the fellows I’d met from the wedding who were still in town. After discovering a certain fondness for pear cider (and getting tipsy on two of them — I remain a cheap date), we headed to a nearby Malaysian spot for dinner (Vancouver really does have everything dining-wise), then off to the happening nightspot on Saturdays.

Happening indeed: the modest line was hardly moving, and only payment of a “premium” cover ($15) got us in relatively quickly. I was tempted by a couple of tipsy girls who introduced their (male) friends to us; one, a tall, very handsome film student, quickly caught my eye. Let’s just say he proved those cliches about friendly, laid-back Western Canadians to be truer then ever.

Okay, staying an extra day was most definitely worthwhile.

An early-morning flight home (nonstop this time), over the craggy peaks of the Coast ranges back into California aridity. Sometimes I wonder if I’m a bit too demanding on my travels, aiming for always-contented, hitch-free journeys comprised solely of wonderful people. But this trio of days in Vancouver actually delivered on that promise, proving that nomads of the world can unite, marry, and form bonds and memories for the ages.

In Greek mythology, many early heroes concluded their quests with the founding of a city. So too in our inestimably more humble lives, where an era of travel often gives way to a more settled impulse. Instead of slaying minotaurs and unifying Athens, however, in my case it was my round-the-world trip (and some follow-0n adventures) preceding a bit of playing Bob Vila in my place here in San Francisco.

Interestingly, as I set out on a somewhat ambitious round of home improvements, I was greeted with much the same incredulity as when I hopped on that British Airways flight to London and points beyond for seven months across the globe:

“You’re doing it by yourself?”

Why, yes! I’d worked for a contractor in high school and early college back in Montreal (to this day I still hear words like “alkyd” in quebecois French in my mind); I’d also done a fair bit of fixing up of the home I had before my travels, a little condo on Chicago’s lakefront. Some of what I was setting out to do — replacing base moulding; repainting walls — was familiar. But some pretty big stuff — redoing all my living room, kitchen and entry area flooring; repainting a metal spiral staircase in pretty tight confines — was new.

The lessons of travel, I learned, seep far and wide into one’s workaday life — even, surprisingly, into such mundane bits of domesticity as home remodeling. I’d always been struck by the clean, modern, space-efficient kitchens and bathrooms I found in my wanderings around Europe (information I’m filing away for next year’s projects); however, the Continent offered another bit of salvation as I pulled up old, dusty carpeting (amazing how filthy it gets after 15 years!) to reveal bare concrete subfloor beneath.

At first my heart sank: I’d wanted to put in 3/4″ thick hardwood flooring, the stuff that’s standard in homes the world over. Normally, to do that over concrete requires an additional plywood subfloor, railway-crosstie-style “sleepers”, or else abandoning real hardwood altogether and going with some cheaper stuff.

Enter Elastilon. Originally developed in the Netherlands, these rolls of fibrous mats with adhesive on one end, turn hardwood floor installations into a process of “apply and peel.” Oh, it’s still an art form of sorts, mixing and matching boards of different lengths and ensuring they’re all level and flush. But with no need for a nail gun (which I’d been warned is notoriously tricky to use correctly) or for messy, smelly liquid adhesives, this process was smooth, straightforward, and came out great. Chalk up another one for Old Europe.

Oh, don’t be fooled: this monthlong-plus adventure was hardly a cakewalk: my weekends and evenings were fully taken up with this project; prepping the concrete subfloor was a nightmare of sanding and leveling; I suffered the odd cut and bruise; I overcame some interesting engineering challenges — such as installing wooden boards around large circular stairway bases, becoming familiar with power saws loaned me by good-hearted fellow-DIY co-workers, and trimming boards by just the right amount to fit my oddly-angled front doorway (16 1/2 degrees to be exact).

Would I do it again? Well, like every home improvement project, I ended it with a weary sigh and a whisper of “oh, god NO!” But that sentiment was only temporary: the results are predictably fabulous (thanks to some design advice from numerous friends and family members) and I remain as eager to keep feathering my nest as I do to embark on further faraway adventures.

Okay, time for a day off.

This statement is a toughie for some of us on vacation, especially on shorter trips where we feel compelled to maximize our time. But it’s something I learned to do on my big world trip, and can attest to its powers to enhance almost any kind of holiday.

So what the heck was I going to do in a ski town if I wasn’t skiing (or boarding)?

A bit of shopping, for one: yes, it is possible to find not-too-expensive gifts for nears-and-dears in this place… and they don’t all involve chocolate. Oh, who am I kidding; I bought a pile of that as well.

Fraternizing with the natives, for another. Zermatt’s not much of a gay destination (though come to think of it, I haven’t found snow resorts anywhere to be so), but I had had some success chatting online with a smattering of fellows. I was halfway to putting on my snow gear and opting for an easy half-day on the slopes when one guy I’d been talking to messaged me; he was off work today and was up for a rendezvous.

We met around the corner from my hotel, outside the church in Kirchplatz. Jan was fair-featured and athletic, hails from Interlaken and has been working for the season at the restaurant in the classiest spot in town, the Grand Hotel Zermatterhof. The quaver in his voice indicated he was interested in more than just a chat.

“It’s not so nice,” he said of his gorgeous, $800-a-night workplace. Lordie, not another one. It seems that faux-jaded gay youth are a constant the world over. This translated into an equally tepid performance back at my hotel room. It was all over in less than fifteen minutes as he put his clothes back on.

“I hate the spa,” he said, when I asked him about where in town I should go if I wanted a dunk in a jacuzzi somewhere. “And if you find one, it will cost you at least 75 Francs.”

“Really?” That’s north of 80 Yankee bucks.

“Welcome to Switzerland,” he replied, as he headed off. The whole thing felt like one of those furtive gay encounters you read about from the Mad Men 1960s. Heck, I’m all for casual encounters, but call me a romantic as I prefer even those to retain a measure of intimacy and warmth. Oh, well. Still not too bad for a day off.

It was too late to head out on the slopes, so I opted for more cultural offerings: right by my hotel was the newly-built Matterhorn Museum. In spite of its name, it’s really more a historical exhibit on Zermatt tiself – which suited me just fine. I’m curious to the point of obsessive about how places came to be the way they are; some have criticized Wander the Rainbow for delving a bit too heavily into factoids cribbed from Wikipedia, but in truth, the discovery of a place’s origins and evolution ranks near the top of my travel interests.

Surprisingly, for a place so world-renowned, I hadn’t been able to find out a whole lot about Zermatt or this region among my usual suspects of online research sites. Maybe because snow enthusiasts aren’t terribly interested in the vagaries of ski-resort history; indeed, most resorts Stateside have a fairly straightforward past: either they began life as rugged mining towns that transformed themselves mid-20th-century into ski towns (Aspen, Breckenridge); or else were synthesized out of whole cloth to mimic alpine resorts in the Old World (Vail, Whistler).

But Zermatt’s another story entirely. Humans have been passing through the nearby Theodul Pass for eons. Neolithic tools, Roman coins, and remains of a 16th-century man have all been found nearby. With the advent of Europe’s Little Ice Age in the later Middle Ages, however, traffic slowed as the Simplon and Great St. Bernard passes rose in prominence. By the middle of the 19th century, Zermatt was a poor farming village filled with those now-iconic wide-sloped-roof Swiss chalets. I learned why these wood-framed structures (some specimens from way back lay across from my accommodations) sit on stone stilts: used for agricultural storage, they needed to protect themselves from prying mice.

So what transformed this sleepy farming hamlet into an elite class resort? Blame it on those Victorian Brits and their zeal to take on the world. This I learned about at my next stop, the nearby Hotel Monte Rosa, the oldest of the town’s high-end accommodations. In a walking tour and talk delivered by a prim young blonde hotel staffer – in near-effortless German, French and English – I learned that the so-called Golden Age of Mountaineering drew British climbers to this spot. The Matterhorn was one of the later peaks to be scaled in the region, and its summiteer, Edward Whymper, left from this very hotel in 1865. In spite of a successful climb, four people were lost in that endeavor and it became something of a scandal in the British press. Notoriety bred curiosity, however, and soon people were flocking to this isolated Swiss village. The Monte Rosa expanded several times; its owner, Alexander Seiler, became a local magnate with ownership of the lion’s share of the town’s hotels (though as a pushy entrepreneur he received a frosty reception from the town’s burghers). Rail links to Visp and up the Gornergrat followed by the end of the 19th century, though it was only after the turmoil of the World Wars and the ascendancy of winter sports that the town took on its high-tone appeal.

With that history lesson completed, I sought some relaxation; proving Jan decidedly wrong, I headed to the Mont Cervin Palace, the third of the town’s ritzy hotels, and for a modest sum whiled away the rest of the afternoon in their beautiful health club: two jacuzzis, a standard swimming pool, and a heated indoor/outdoor pool proved an excellent tonic.

To cap it all off, another iconic Swiss dish was in the offing: the nearby Café du Pont was widely recommended as among the best (and one of the more reasonable – though not cheap) spots to enjoy cheese fondue. Impressively, they even did it for my “table for one.”

As it grew later I received a message from another guy online: Pascal was getting off work late, around 11 p.m., but was open to a meetup after that. I wasn’t sure what to expect after my previous encounter, but something about the style of his messages gave me hope. I met him, too, outside the church close to midnight, and indeed, he was a total contrast from the previous encounter.

“I came here to visit a friend five years ago, and I loved it so much!” said Pascal. About the same age as Jan but way more gregarious, engaging, and positive. He took me for a drink at a nearby lounge-y spot where, apparently, the town’s few gays often congregate.

“There are maybe ten in the whole town,” he said. “They are mostly arrogant and not very nice.” Tell me about it. Happily, he proved different: we had a wonderful chat about life in Europe (he hails from western Germany, not far from Luxembourg), politics in America, the ski season, and myriad other events. He, too, came back with me, and this go-round was a damn sight better than the last one. I hit the pillow around 2 a.m. on an Alpine mountain high.

In spite of the late night, I rose on my own steam bright and early for a final day on the slopes. A bit of light snow had fallen the day before, but now skies were blue again, albeit with tendrils of cloud hugging and swirling about the mountains. I again did the gondola/cable car combo to the top of Klein Matterhorn; this time it was windier, colder, and less crowded. As I began my descent, I whooshed into some clouds and it began to snow. The dense fog meant whiteout conditions. But, as with fog back in San Fran, the murk shortly cleared and I opted for another far-flung adventure: taking the pistes all the way down to the other base resort on the Italian side: the town of Valtournenche.

This was the longest descent yet, as Valtournenche lies at an even lower elevation than Zermatt. But I paced myself this time, carefully navigating a couple of traverses and a mini-chairlift to get to the other side of this massive set of mountains. Here again, a narrow trail to the bottom, and, with the low elevation (1,524 m, about the same as Salt Lake City), mushy spring conditions and bare slopes all around us.

Valtournenche, too, wasn’t much of a place, so I hopped the gondola up to one of the Italian mountain eateries and had myself a seafood pasta, one of the better insalata caprese in my career, and (of course) a most righteous cappuccino on the sunny slopes.

Thus fortified, I embarked on my next adventure: getting back to Zermatt.

Given what I’d experienced so far, this ought have been a breeze. The resort is, as I’d mentioned, richly endowed with high-tech lifts to get around its mammoth acreage. On the first two days, between the cog railways, funiculars, gondolas and aerial trams, I never once planted my butt on something as prosaic as a chairlift.

No more, as the Valtournenche side isn’t quite as blessed. Aside from the minor nuisance of sitting out in the cold, however, to most skiers the reaction this would be a ho-hum “so what?” But a snowboard, admittedly a less practical conveyance, is trickier to navigate on fast-moving, ski-on/ski-off lifts. One of the toughest elements, in fact, in learning the sport is simply getting on and off chairlifts – and klutz that I am, I still fall a percentage of the time on descent.

But the chairlifts were not the issue (especially since some of them had enclosed bubble canopies to ward off the chill – why this had not been thought of years ago is beyond me). No, looking on the trail map, my heart sank:

The only way to get back to Zermatt from Valtournenche was to take a rope tow, also known as a Poma lift. This contraption – one of the earliest to ferry skiers up an incline – has the passenger sit on it on the ground while it pulls them forward; essentially, it’s like skiing uphill. Suffice it to say, it’s a nightmare on a snowboard; I’d tried riding some of these throughout my years as a snowboarder, and every time I’d fallen off midway, having to haul myself through deep powder to a nearby trail, panting and exhausted by the end. I was dreading this, but steeling myself for the inevitable all the same: if I fall off, I’ll just try it again, I mused.

Just as I got to the Lift of Death, I saw in line ahead of me an affable young British couple, the only other ones braving this thing on snowboards.

“How do you ride this thing?” I asked them.

“Just stay loose,” they replied, showing me how as the lift attendent placed the round red seat between their legs. I was next, and he did the same with me. I got in the typical “skate” position (one leg bolted to the board, another not), and…

Hey, I can do this!

I rode all the way to the top, and once there let out a victorious whoop. I’d been sensing that my skills as a snowboarder had grown surer in my time here on the massive slopes, and if nothing else, this was vindication of that.

By the time I’d reached the top of Plateau Rosa, on the Swiss/Italian border once more, skies had mostly cleared save for a few remaining wisps swirling about the mountains. Unlike the previous day, I was feeling assured and ready for the final run into Zermatt. I began heading down the mountain, the glorious Matterhorn again resuming its oft-photographed form. I parked myself on a quiet trail and stared at it for a spell.

It’s all small stuff, I mused, about the myriad stressors and ups and downs in my life of late. Sometimes it takes a week or so of staring a glorious scenery to remind one of the bigger picture. I turned back toward Zermatt – still toylike down in the valley below – to call it an afternoon.

And then, just as I’d found inner peace, and all was well with the world, the other shoe dropped. Literally, in fact.

Once more reaching the lower elevations, the trails became narrow, of modest pitch, and a bit icy. Perhaps sensing this, skiers and riders began to pick up their game: where before they floated down the mountain, now they powered down it. No problem, I thought. With my newfound skills and confidence (I rode up a Poma!) I figured I could do so as well. I amped up my usual methodical style, and whooshed down the hill like a pro. And then…

WHAM!

It all happened so quickly, as it so often does: my board caught an edge on the hard-packed snow and I went tumbling, end over end, finally falling hard on my back. My worst fall this trip by far.

I wasn’t hurt, aside from a slightly sore butt; I’ve learned to take no chances in snowsports, and I ride the pistes with wrist guards and protective shorts that include a tailbone guard (my nine-year-old niece Lola calls it my “special underwear.”). I also equip myself with one of those Camelbak daypacks that includes an insulated water bladder – much needed at altitude with these exertions. As I’d landed on the pack, my fall was cushioned. Still, I’d heard a tiny crack when I slammed my back on the snow, and instantly knew what it was.

Oh, shit. I thought. My camera.

Taking electronics up and down ski slopes probably sounds like asking for trouble. Still, it’s a risk I’ve opted to take in exchange for capturing the jaw-dropping vistas for myself. Much has been said and written about the notion of actually just experiencing travel instead of constantly trying to capture it… but for me, documenting is part of the experience. That’s why I keep this blog, why I wrote Wander the Rainbow, why I take photographs at times like some stereotypical Japanese tourist. Chronicling my adventures are an integral part of my adventures. Perhaps it’s my background in communications or my love of movies, but I can’t imagine travel without it.

Making sure I was on a spot on the trail where I was clearly visible to the skiers and riders above, I opened my pack and took out the camera. It was embedded inside a scarf and myriad other padding, and thus far looked okay. I turned it on. Still okay… but the lens expanded out all the way out, froze in place, then the screen read: “lens error.” Fuck. It’s one of those higher-end Canon point-and-shoots with interchangeable lenses, so I tried unscrewing the lens – and pieces of the assembly fell into my gloved hands. The camera’s four years old and has already been with me on many outings (including my global circumnavigation), so the loss of it (or the need for a costly repair) may be hurt a little but not a lot. I gingerly put the pieces back in my pack and make ready to resume the ride into town.

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT, WHAT’RE YOU DOING!??” came a cockney-accented voice whooshing past. A gaggle of skiers and riders roared by, one of them obviously enraged that I caused him to slow. Indeed, the trail does feature flat bits that need to be negotiated at some speed (part of the reason for my fall), but up ahead, it wasn’t too bad. I suspected, with the day ending and the trail narrowing, flattening, and icing up, that the crowd has turned more belligerent. Still, I wondered, in the midst of all this glorious scenery, was that really necessary?

I head toward the bottom, more gingerly than before. At one particularly flat, narrow bit of trail I gathered some speed – only to see a pile of skiers sitting down, blocking the trail far worse than I had earlier. I tried to navigate around them but no dice: I crashed into one of them (albeit not at speed). I apologized profusely, indicating they were in the way. He was a middle-aged man, a cockney Brit, possibly the same guy as before. And he was having none of it. He cussed, swore at me, fulminated with rage.

“Come on, we’re on vacation,” I offered. This only seemed to make him angrier – so much so that skiers around him began to look askance.

“It wasn’t your fault!” said a pleasant young lady beside me, German accent. She was right, of course, but somehow it failed to soothe me. I rode the gondola a smidge down to the village (I’d had enough of riding after all this), and mused about this whole affair on the walk back.

On top of killer snow and mountain-town authenticity (and great eating), I’d come here hoping for more congenial experiences than I’d sometimes encountered at similar such American spots (see my previous post for specifics). Indeed, even with the dour Swiss I’d found a general courtesy; when people got pissy, they did so in a reserved, guarded fashion. But this explosion of rage I’d experienced harkened back to the worse of American redneckery – or, perhaps, British football hooliganism. I’d mused about such behaviors throughout my great world journey, and suspect I may have run afoul of it here. And money these days doesn’t always translate into good behavior… heck, has it ever?

Or maybe I’m just overthinking it all. Lord knows I’ve been guilty of that in the past.

After relaxing at the hotel and taking care of a few packing-related logistics, I opted to treat myself after this end-of-day turnabout: I’d already enjoyed a myriad of Swiss and Italian dishes in my time here, but have never before tried another variant of fondue, that involving meat. Calling it “fondue” is probably a bit of a stretch – although the principle of dipping stuff in a hot liquid still applies, here you boil raw shavings of beef and lamb in flavored oil, and apply dipping sauces to it. Still, it was fantastic, and capped off my time in this town very nicely.

I wandered through Bahnhofstrasse once last time, drinking in the lit-up shops and weekend crowds just beginning to arrive for their snow holidays. The past couple of days have given me a veritable banquet for thought, most especially about this part of the world so connected to yet still quite distinct from North America.

Since rediscovering the Continent as an adult on my great world trip, I’ve had a tendency to mythologize it: its lifestyles and social benefits; its speedy trains; its top-notch (and better-priced) mobile phone service; its populace seemingly less agro than the martial-oriented Yanks back home. But maybe it’s important for me to be jolted back to reality once in a while – on this trip, all of those elements failed in some way. No, Europe isn’t perfect… and coming here for the third time in three years offered me – in addition to splendid sights and remarkable attractions – an object lesson that, even if a place doesn’t live up to some mythic standard, it’s still capable of delivering a legendary time, and experiences that stay with you all your life.

Okay, I (sort-of) lied: my tale of the voyage from London to Zermatt won’t be found here. I’ll be posting that story, along with videos and images, as an upcoming guest blog on my travel cohort Brock Groombridge’s site, Backpack With Brock. He too went around the world solo and blogged about his adventures, and is now parlaying his experiences into a career in travel coaching. Oh, and he’s Canadian, too!

They say first impressions are everything, and if so, the initial night-time glimpse I got of Zermatt after my long, long, long day of travel offered hope. Still, I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from this place; it had been so built up in my mind and in the hosannas of others  that disappointment seemed entirely possible (look no further than here for an example of such a letdown).

All that evaporated next morning inside of ten minutes.

Zermatt’s a pricey place: snowsports are not cheap to begin with, and above and beyond that there have always been a cadre of top-flight resorts catering to the elite. We know their names all too well: St. Moritz, Vail, Aspen. I’ve had mixed feelings about such places: on the one hand, they’re often situated astride some of the best skiing around; on the other hand… well, I’m not a fan of snootery. Back in the States I’ve had mostly good times at such spots, but a few experiences marred the total: at Aspen, one of the last mountains to allow snowboarding, two middle-aged, agro New Yorkers let forth venom and vitriol at those of us who’ve migrated over to the board side. At another Colorado resort, a gaggle of Texans on a chairlift gave me an earful on how global warming was a hoax cooked up by “liberals who don’t have god in their lives.”

Yes, really.

I was hoping for something different here, even in oft-dour Switzerland. For one thing, I’d heard Europeans welcomed snowboarding, or indeed any contraption people have dreamed up to get down a mountain. For another, although prices did seem rather steep, they didn’t seem greater than at posh Stateside spots such as Aspen or Vail. Oh, sure, Zermatt’s got its glorious belle epoque hotels that command rates at least as as high as its brethren back home – but the town also offers some budget lodgings. At Le Petit Hotel, my chosen spot, I found a tiny room (fitting its name), uber-friendly staff, excellent breakfast (how oh how do Europeans do bread so well?), even a separate ski room (complete with boot warmers) for storing gear. All at the price of a Best Western back home – if one could ever find such a creature walking distance from an elite ski slope.

And here, too, Zermatt enchants: to prevent L.A.-style smog in the valley, internal-combustion vehicles were banned from the city ages ago. The odd taxi or service vehicle is miniaturized, electric, and downright adorable. The town is a maze of narrow, pedestrian-friendly streets and byways; elevators allow access to some of the hilltop chalets stairstepping their way up the valley. It’s no wonder North American ski towns like Vail and Whistler have tried to mimic this formula: it’s the way all cities ought to be built, if you ask me, the way humans lived in urban agglomerations for millennia before the advent of the automobile. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no car-hater; I relish the periodic road trip. But I feel that urban spaces work best with less vehicle traffic, and hope that, as the effort goes on to perfect the electric car, urban planning goes the way of towns like Zermatt.

The town continued to work its charm as I marched down Bahnhofstrasse, its main drag. The old church a stone’s throw from my accommodations played the opening bars from “Three Blind Mice” on the quarter hour. The Matterhorn – that bewitching, Platonic ideal of a mountain – peeked its corkscrew top out from between the chalets as I headed, snowboard in hand, to a most unique ski lift. Not a lift at all, in fact, but a cog railway: the Gornergratbahn.

Completed in 1891, long before snowsports had taken hold, the railway now ferries tourists, skiers, and snowboarders from the village base (at 1,620 meters, around 5,200 feet, or about the same elevation as Denver) to the top of the Gornergrat (elevation 3,089 meters, around 9,900 feet). That’s a vertical rise of 4,700 feet – more than practically any ski area in North America – and far more vertical than can be achieved with a single aerial lift. And this isn’t even the highest point this resort offers. For now, however, it was plenty.

As we rose above the town the treeline quickly faded away, and all in front of the twisting tracks was a wall of white. Zermatt’s had a bit of an odd season this year, with huge dumps of snow in December and January; extreme cold in February (but no snow); then significant warmth over the past two weeks (and still no snow). Luckily, they got a healthy bit of the white stuff right before my arrival; sometimes providence does shine on the traveler.

With wide open spaces and no trees, where does one go? Fortunately, trails are marked with fluorescent poles, thogh a few brave souls can always venture “off-piste” (alas, I’m not one of them). Zermatt has been faulted, in the snowboarding community, for a plethora of long, narrow-ish, moderate runs with occasional flat bits (a nuisance on skis but a nightmare on a snowboard). For me, however, this was heaven: I’ve constantly sought out bigger and bigger mountains and endless intermediate “cruiser” trails. I think I’ve found my mountain.

After a bit of riding, time for lunch. Here Zermatt shone as well, ofering mountain restaurants offering delectable (albeit not cheap) dining; no flavorless ski-hill cafeteria fare here. I stopped at Berghaus Grünsee and had a melted ham-and-cheesy-something-topped-with-fried-egg bit of yumminess that saw me handily through the rest of the afternoon.

And what an afternoon! I soon discovered that this place must be vying for the title of “most insanely diverse set of ski lifts.” In addition to the cog railway, there’s an underground funicular, several bubble-canopied chairlifts, and a combo gondola and chairlift running on the same line. Each lift, though only going a fraction of the way up the sprawling expanse of mountains (it takes roughly three to reach the several different peaks), is about equal to one of the bigger resorts back home. My father’s tale of taking all afternoon to do one run down the mountain wasn’t apocryphal.

Only issue: the massive vertical comes at some cost. As with Whistler, the only North American resort to approach Zermatt’s top-to-bottom immensity, conditions and trails vary enormously between bottom and top. As I descended toward the village, the runs became narrow, flat, and icy. Skiers raced by as I struggled to both maintain speed and not cause a collision with a sudden turn. I mostly succeeded on that front, though one move by me earned me an angry “achtung!” from an athletic local lady coming up behind me.

The bottom of the mountains does offer its pleasures, however: mountainside bars dot the lower runs, including – oh, Europe! – a champagne bar.

Next morning, all lingering travel weariness vanquished, I walked to the other side of town to experience this resort’s signature experience: a ride all the way to the top of its highest skiable terrain (indeed, the highest in Europe), and a descent into –yes, really – neighboring Italy.

The slow cable cars of yore have been mostly replaced by efficient high-speed gondolas or newer, bigger cable cars. Riding to the top, I watched the Matterhorn change shape, its iconic kinked summit transforming into a more conventional peak as our perspective changed. Then, a transfer onto the highest cable car in Europe, up Klein Matterhorn. Not the huge peak itself (it’s too steep and rocky to be skied) but a neighboring mountain whose rocky pyramidal pile does echo its larger sibling nearby. At the top, a walk through a tunnel dug into the mountain before emerging out onto the other side’s glorious vistas.

The Matterhorn – known in Italian as Monte Cervino – sits astride the Italian/Swiss border. So too the resort, whose pistes meet with the Italian resort of Breuil-Cervinia/Valtournenche. Even though Switzerland isn’t in the EU it’s still part of the Schengen Zone, and so crossing into another country involved no greater formality than hopping across U.S. states. Now… when are Canada and the United States (my native country and my current homeland) going to go the way of Old Europe and do the same?

And I thought yesterday’s runs were long. It took me well over an hour to get down to Cervinia (it’s at a slightly higher elevation than Zermatt – “only” a 5,800 ft drop from the top). At the bottom I found a disappointingly generic ski town: a cluster of modern-looking ski condos shaped in the familiar broad triangle of a Swiss chalet; rows of parked cars; nothing much in the way of on-mountain dining. Change the signage and this could be Montana.

One other problem with a mountain with massive verticals: the planned “last run to get down” needs to be, well, planned differently than I’m accustomed. After another long up-and-down, I was starting to feel peaked and a bit dizzy – and I still had the long, long trek back to Zermatt ahead. I powered through it, though, feeling increasingly out of sorts. Even though this was my second day here, the unprecedented exertion – coupled with the 12,000-plus-foot altitude at the top and the mile-high elevation at the base – translated into my contracting a touch of altitude sickness. I trundled back to my hotel (score another for centrally-located lodging) and called it another early night. Haven’t felt this woozy since Cusco, Peru. That’s another thing to remember when traveling: too much of a good thing…

Up next, a bit of a break from the snow, as I discovered what really put this town on the map (as well as a bit of fraternizing with the locals).

They call it a travel bug, but it’s really more of a lifelong illness (though happily benign).

At least that’s what I thought as I boarded yet another “Speedbird” (the British Airways callsign) from SFO back to the U.K. and beyond. It’s my third such international trip this year, and my second to Europe.

To which more lucid observers might say: Europe in early-March?

This is particularly true this year, a winter that’s seen much of continental Europe bounce from near-drought, to epic mountain snow, to extreme cold and snow as far south as Rome, to returning warmth (and a bit more snow in spots). For you climate change skeptics, I present you the Continent, 2012. And yet in that meteorological stew lay the seeds of this latest journey.

Well before I was born, my father was an avid skier. So avid, in fact, that, craving an experience beyond the local mountains of eastern Canada and New England, he visited the Swiss resort town of Zermatt in 1966 and has spoken of the journey all my life: the gorgeous, utterly genuine, car-free village;  the three cable cars to get to the top of mountains flanking the iconic Matterhorn; the above-treeline splendor; the descent taking almost an afternoon in itself. Even though I’d switched to snowboarding a few years back, and have been all around North America’s Rockies, Sierras, Appalachians, Laurentians — heck, even did a stint in Hakuba, Japan on my great world journey — I knew a visit to Switzerland was in the cards for me one day.

This year, with some huge dumps of snow having fallen in the Alps mid-season, coupled with relatively dry conditions throughout much of North America, I felt nature was literally calling. But before the mountains, a visit to one of my favorite cities (and home of a number of friends old and new) was on the agenda.

Two days in London proved a perfect spot to chill out and (mostly) get over jetlag. Sadly, my compatriot, partner in crime, and confidante from prior journeys, the fabled “Renaissance Man,” had flown the coop for new job opportunities in warmer (and noisier) climes: he moved to Mumbai a few months back. So this time around, I stayed in suburban North London with old family friends.

“Don’t let me sleep,” I exhorted to my pals as I arrived at their home midafternoon Saturday. I was determined to ward off jetlag the old-fashioned way: by getting onto the destination’s daily rhythms.

As it got dark, however, I had something more to keep me going: A rendezvous with some pals in the now-burgeoning Southwark district (I finally figured out how to pronounce it, too: “SOUTH-erk”.)

A train and Tube ride later and I was there – and, as I always am when discovering a new neighborhood in this town, suitably impressed: London’s noisy vibrancy and wall-to-wall shops on commercial arteries feel just right for a city boy like me. Southwark is a melange of old and new, from a cathedral that bills itself as one of the first Gothic incarnations in Europe, to historic commercial structures fronting the Thames, to the still-under-construction Shard of Glass (set to become the tallest building in the EU), to The George, where we were to meet — a historic pub with roots in Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. It was a cool but not overly frigid night, and people tippled along outdoor tables beneath gas-fired heat lamps that I associate with California more than moody Northern Europe.

Gus and Adam showed up a few minutes later. Handsome, gregarious, intelligent late-twentysomethings from Sydney, they moved to Old Blighty a year or so back and are currently making a home for themselves in Winchester.

“It’s like a rite of passage,” Gus said, Aussies coming to the U.K. to live for a year or two. I maintain that London is a New York for the rest of the world, as it seems practically everyone, from so many different nationalities, seems to do the same. In their case, Gus’s engineering job brought him here, and Adam continued his career and studies in journalism. But their biggest leap into the brave new world is more romantic:

“We’re getting married in Vancouver this September,” Adam said.

Whoah, I thought. They’re twenty-nine (and look even younger). How long have they been together?

“Nine years,” Gus added. That was heartening to hear: with the struggle for gay marriage at a fever pitch in the States, I maintain that the gay community is waging its own internal battles in this area. Having been denied this form of emancipation for so long, the current crop of young and youngish gays back home seems almost hell-bent on “marriage or else.” A noble sentiment, sure, but for the fact that it echoes the notion of the dog chasing a car. What will he do if he catches it? I’ve watched so many of my contemporaries back home pine for a marriage that feels positively retrograde – housewifery, children, a home in the suburbs. Yet most of them also lack emotional maturity, and lurch back and forth between dysfunctional serial monogamy and guilty, furtive one-night-stands.

But these guys seem different. So eloquent, so well-spoken, so genuinely happy together without that forced artifice of “couplehood” I’ve seen in so many of my peers back home. Maybe it’s also the connection we nomads feel with each other: Gus, Adam and I spent  over three hours eating, drinking, comparing life experiences, political viewpoints, and a million other things. They even invited me to the ceremony they plan to hold in Canada and by golly, I plan to do my damndest to show up.

A hefty pile of sleep later, and it was time for a social Sunday with the remainder of the Lightman clan.

We started out in Golders Green, where I again paid a visit to the octagenarian Ray and Sidney. Ray’s hanging in there, warding off a myriad of health problems with a brave staunchness and a surprisingly lucid disposition. Keep calm and carry on, indeed. Sidney, meanwhile, remains a wonder: pushing ninety, he retains youthful energy and mental acuity and is still working (!) as a freelance translator; we managed to get into a discussion about, of all things, the coffee in Israel. The Jewish state has got a big café culture, and when Starbucks tried to move in there, they flopped (same story in Australia, too). While he wasn’t sad to see big American corporate coffee fail to conquer another land, he did have one regret.

“I had the contract to do their translation… and suffice it to say the pay was alright!”

Our next stop was East Finchley, where the Lightman family member closest to me in age, Joy, had just moved into a new home with her still-adorable daughter, Bella. It’s a cheerful two-story townhome that’s a bit remniscient of my home across the pond. Once again, I’m reminded of how similar we can be to those near and dear to us, even separated by great distances.

And so, that was it for my London sojourn. Up next: how I got to my snow destination (an insane day of travel!), and my reactions to the place once I got there. Stay tuned, snowsports (and train travel) fans.

As promised, here is a selection of photos from the Great Barrier Reef — though in truth, the waterproof disposable camera doesn’t do it justice. For you eagle-eyed fish watchers, however, you may spot a few, including the ever-famous clownfish, inspiration for the famed Disney/Pixar creation. Click on the pictures to see them in a separate page, then click again on them in that page to see them larger size.

After my trip to the tropics I felt I’d packed in enough adventure in Australia to make it feel like a much longer trip; Christmas with my family in L.A. already felt like ages ago. But I had a couple more loose ends to tie up in Sydney for the daylong layover I was to have there between my return from Port Douglas and my flight home.

To mix things up I opted to stay this time with my pal Sarah at her tidy flat in a walk-up in Woollahra. Unlike the beach shack in Coogee, Sarah’s housing choices – both in terms of location and style – mirror mine so closely it’s almost hard to believe we’re a vast ocean apart: a restored vintage condominium-type residence in a small, close-knit building (okay, hers is a bit closer knit than mine: she filled me in on some colorful neighborhood gossip that echoes the show Melrose Place). Only significant deviation: she’s got a fourteen-year-old son.

Yet there, too, there’s common ground: the oldest of my nieces and nephews turns ten this year, and in talking to Sarah about Huwie I got a glimpse of what’s off on my familial near-horizon. It’s been fascinating to watch, for me at a bit of a distance but still very much engaged, how the little ones develop and blossom into the people they will become.

I also managed a meetup with the very first person I’d met in Australia: Dean’s mother was good friends with some friends of my parents back in Montreal. We did the usual life-catch-up that occurs on so many of my visits where I make acquaintance with a long-lost chum.

On that note, the subject turned, as it often does, to travel; Dean and his family have done a fair bit of it, even doing bigger en-famille adventures (they were all headed to Hawaii in a day or so, in fact); but when I told him about my trip he had two observations.

“I couldn’t travel alone,” he said. “When I travel by myself, the journey feels like this,” he added, crimping his thumb and forefinger together with little space in between.

“But when I go with a friend – if I can find one who’s got the same time and budget – the trip becomes like this.” He held out his hands wide apart.

Fair enough, I nodded. But what about the notion of longer journeys such as the one I took?

“I could have seen myself doing it maybe when I was younger,” he said. “But now? I feel that now’s the time we need to be building up our lives and our careers.”

Aha! It’s instances like this one when my “career break flashpacker” light goes on.

“I hear ya,” I replied. “But if it is something you ever did want to do, your career will still be there when you come back.” This was a fear I had to overcome, one every midcareer professional lies awake at night considering: what if I’m no longer viable/needed/in demand? The amazing discovery so many of us have made who’ve gone on longer journeys is that, more often than not, aside from the short-term economic hit of traveling and not working, a career break really doesn’t adversely impact one’s career – and often augments it, bringing the career-breaker new perspectives and (sometimes) new skills to the table when returning to the workplace. Granted, not everyone is in a position to simply take a lot of time off and be able to count on a soft landing upon return… but many more people are in that position than realize it.

Some final packing, then a hop to the center of town, where the summertime Sydney Festival was just getting underway. I was going to miss it, but I did catch a sliver and enjoy a nice little rendezvous with a career peer: fellow writer and travel memoirist (and accomplished actor and screenwriter as well) Jesse Archer.

Jesse had been one of the early champions of my book back in its pre-release days, when I contacted him in a “what the heck” moment after reading his book about traveling in South America some ten years back. We’d traded e-mails and tips and such, but as he moved from New York to Sydney with his boyfriend last winter, we’d never had a chance to meet up. Even on this trip that looked unlikely: he was up in northern New South Wales at a New Years camping event when I arrived, and was recovering from a bout of flu this week from, shall we say, a little too much fun in the forest. But he made time for me and we sat on the grass swapping war stories.

“I love Sydney; the place is like a postcard,” he said. But it’s been tough for him as an indie gay filmmaker to be away from the burgeoning scene in New York. We’d chatted about my still-in-the-early-stage work on adapting Wander the Rainbow into a screenplay and he was able to offer some ideas to help make it more producible – though he conceded that the challenges of shooting overseas on a microbudget could be daunting.

As it grew later it was time for me to head off; bidding Jesse and his galpals goodbye I walked in the opposite direction of the human tide heading toward the festival, a bit sad to be leaving this place one more. I hopped on the train to the airport and checked in for my long, long flights back Stateside.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be nice if I could end it here. Unfortunately, the vagaries of sky-high holiday-season fares meant that I wasn’t doing a direct-to-San-Fran hop home but instead a bordering-on-ludicrous itinerary: two flights with Air China: an eleven-hour haul from Sydney to Beijing; a ten-hour layover in Beijing; then another eleven-hour jaunt across the Pacific to San Francisco.

I went for it partly because I knew the lay of this land, having been both to Beijing and its gargantuan new airport before. Still, this was to be a journey of eleven thousand miles and thirty-three hours total – about a sixth of the total mileage of my entire seven-month world odyssey.

Long-haul air travel has always been a challenge for me, who’s too tall for those economy seats. Our first flight, out of Sydney, however, confirmed a suspicion I’d had this past spring when going from San Francisco to London (a flight of similar duration): ten or so hours international, on a widebody plane with two meal services and a longer chance to sleep, is actually a better experience than the six-hour misery that has become domestic transcon travel. As suspected, Air China’s still finding its way in the overseas marketplace, but I’d say they’re still putting on a pretty decent showing.

Arriving before dawn into subzero Beijing, we entered the spaceport-like Terminal 3. A quick stampy-stampy at International Transfers and we were in the main lounge. I’d done my homework and knew where I wanted to go: as a newly-minted major overseas transit hub (a distinction it didn’t enjoy as little as five years ago), Beijing airport is now endowed with a number of options for passengers needing to while away too many hours – and who don’t relish the prospect of sleeping on a public airport bench: short-stay hotel-like lounges. Ordinarily reserved for elite-class travelers, the airport now offers a “pay as you go” option for we regular folk. Comfortable and cozy (though by no means cheap) it made for a great way to sleep off a bunch of hours and surf the Internet (albeit behind the Great Firewall of China – sorry, Facebook, I couldn’t get to you).

A respectable (and also not cheap – China really has “arrived” as a travel destination, I suppose) meal of Chinese fare, some amusement at a few brilliantly-worded “Chinglish” signs, and it was time for leg number two: the voyage home.

On this run, another pleasant surprise: instead of crying babies or moribund fellow flyers, my seatmate this time around was a San Jose State sophomore returning to school. Frank’s from Beijing and is majoring in Computer Science; how oh how do they always find me? Friendly and outgoing, he told of stellar experiences as a newcomer to America; I’m always heartened to hear such stories, proving my adopted homeland is a lot more open to would-be immigrants than we sometimes realize. Frank and I got to comparing notes on travel tales and (of course) computing; again I’m reminded that encounters like these are what really makes world travel magical: you really never know who or what’s around the next bend.

That’s it for Australia, but the adventure goes on… I’m slated to head to Europe this winter for a bout of snowboarding in the Alps. Stayed tuned, Wander fans!