It was dawn when the soulful call to prayer woke me up, lifting me from my bed, the ethereal quality of the cries wafting into my window like the scent of a freshly baked cartoon pie. Suddenly, a train clattered by underneath my window, breaking the spell.

I was waking up in Istanbul, near the old city walls of Constantinople. Despite the fact that I had just gotten back to sleep after waking up at 3:30, suffering from the dreaded effects of jet lag — having recently arrived...

Live like a Viking. These were the last words that my professional author son, Jeff Carlson, wrote to his boys before he died. So off to find our Vikings we went.

Together with Jeff’s 13- and 15-year-old sons, Ben and John, a 16-year-old cousin, Sam, and my daughter-in-law, Diana, I put together a family trip to Norway for June-July 2018 that would include a 14-night Princess cruise. We invited Diana’s mom and stepdad and Diana’s twin sister and her new wife.

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I had been to Africa a number of times, but I had never been to Ethiopia. The only African country not to be colonized, it has its own language, writing system, music, dancing style, dress, food and way of telling time. All of that fascinated me.

Heading out

My 22-day trip from March to April 2018 began with seven days in the northern part of the country, which is what I will cover in this article. With my guide, Tefera Alemu of Tefera Tours (Addis Ababa; tefera.tours), and his...