The Wandering Scholar (TWS) ✈️

West Africans deported by US to Ghana dumped in Togo without papers West Africans deported by the United States to Ghana are now fending for themselves in Togo after being dumped in the country without documents, lawyers and deportees have told AFP.

Last week, I and others reported 5+ ICE flights had landed in Ghana since it began taking third-country nationals on Sept. 5.

Now eNCA confirms at least one of those flights held Liberian, Nigerian and Togolese nationals, who were driven to Togo and dumped w/o papers. www.enca.com/news/west-af...

Travelers to the U.S. must pay a new $250 'visa integrity fee' — what to know Travelers to the U.S. must pay a new "visa integrity fee" to visit, but questions remain as to how and when it will be implemented. Here's what we know so far.

Tourists visiting America:
*Hand over your social media
*At risk of being detained, imprisoned and deported for the vaguest of reasons
*Now being asked to pay $250 for the privilege

Intl tourists contribute more than $200B to the US economy. But lets fix that problem!
www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/v...

‘Bonjour’ Sets Off a Linguistic Dispute on a Belgian Train

A train attendant’s use of both Dutch and French — “goeiemorgen” and “bonjour” — to greet passengers during rush hour last year could easily have gone unnoticed in multilingual Belgium.

But it rubbed one Dutch-speaking commuter the wrong way.

‘My parents got me out of Soviet Russia at the right time. Should my family now leave the US?’ When he left the Soviet Union for a new life in America, the novelist never imagined he would live under another authoritarian regime. Then Trump got back into power ... Is it time to move again?

‘My parents got me out of Soviet Russia at the right time. Should my family now leave the US?’

Alternatively, are there things about traveling in 2025 that you’d never want to give up, no matter what?

open.substack.com/pub/postcard...

For those who don’t know (or forgot) what it’s like, we take a trip down memory lane on our Substack and also ask whether some of that nostalgia is a trap. We’re also curious to know where you land. Is there any part of traveling in the 1990s that you’d like to bring back, or try anew?

The July Postcard This month we're indulging in a bit of 90's nostalgia, but not too much

In case you haven’t noticed, the 1990’s are really having a moment. We’re right in right in the middle of #90sSummer, which is trending as people try to get away from screens and enjoy simple pleasures. Which got us thinking: is it possible to travel like it’s the 90’s? A 🧵

A historic Grand Canyon lodge has been destroyed by wildfire, park official says The Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, was consumed by the flames, park Superintendent Ed Keable told park residents, staff and others in a meeting Sunday morning.…

The Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, was consumed by the flames, park Superintendent Ed Keable told park residents, staff and others in a meeting Sunday morning.

A global sense of workplace? rethinking the (dis)locality of digital nomads - Erika Polson, 2025 The growing ‘digital nomad’ movement flourishes amid concerns about the impacts of remote work on workplace culture. This ethnographic study combines a Massey-i...

PhD alum Erika Polson is the author of "A global sense of workplace? rethinking the (dis)locality of digital nomads." journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Tourist Arrivals to U.S. Drop Again – Now Just 80% of 2019 Levels U.S. overseas tourism remains 20% below 2019 levels; June arrivals fell 3.4% year-over-year amid geopolitical concerns.

The U.S. inbound tourism recovery is stalling, not strengthening. June's roughly 3% year-over-year decline masks the real story: overseas arrivals remain stuck at just 80% of 2019 levels, six years after the pandemic.

skift.com/2025/07/09/t...

In Myanmar, a rush for rare earth metals is causing a regional environmental disaster A drastic increase in unregulated production of rare earth minerals in Myanmar is causing serious environmental concerns downriver in Thailand, as China's influence in the sector looms large.

A drastic increase in unregulated production of rare earth minerals in Myanmar is causing serious environmental concerns downriver in Thailand, as China's influence in the sector looms large.

Camp Mystic appealed to remove buildings from FEMA's 100-year flood map, records show Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic's buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the…

Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic’s buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the years before flood waters swept away children and counselors, a review by AP found. buff.ly/JlzquQZ

How U.S. Tourists Are Dealing With a New Animosity Overseas — The Wall Street Journal Travel agents and travelers share their playbook for overseas visits in the face of antipathy toward the U.S.

As usual the answer is: try to "blend in." That works for some people (what about the ones who *can't,* in racially homogenous places like Estonia?) but also it is cowardly. Why not either speak out against or (more likely, for typical WSJ readers) stand in their support of the admin's policies?

Does the modern way of trip planning, which seems to boil down to searching for hotels, restaurants, and major sites on websites rather than leafing through context-rich guidebooks, make it so we know little more than points on a map at our destinations rather than anything about who lives there?

Thinking about this again after coming across influencer talking about their vacation to Belize; for which they "did a ton of research, read so many reviews on Reddit and Trip Advisor," but didn't know until they got there that English was the official language. Would this have happened in the 90s?

Why culture shock is a valuable part of ‘thoughtful travel,’ according to Rick Steves Millions of Americans are expected to go on a European vacation this summer. Many of those going for the first time are likely to be following the advice of travel writer Rick Steves, host of “Rick St...

John Yang recently flew to Edmonds to interview me for @pbsnews.org, and we had a wonderful time strolling through my hometown, participating in a little civil disobedience, unearthing my 1977 journal & sharing laughs as he artfully drilled into my travel philosophy.

Got 10 minutes? Check it out!

"Is [USAID] a good use of resources? We found that the average taxpayer has contributed about 18 cents per day to USAID," says James Macinko, a health policy researcher at UCLA... "For that small amount, we've been able to translate that into saving up to 90 million deaths around the world."

How three young Londoners set out to explore the countries of their parents’ birth – and redefined the travel vlog ‘No resorts, no tourist traps and no fancy restaurants’ – the friends behind the Kids of the Colony YouTube channel go in search of real connections in their countries of origin

“[The name] references children of immigrants from ex-colonies. But when we come together, we can create a colony of our own – like ants – to be a nice and powerful force.”

ANTHONY BOURDAIN IN LATIN AMERICA º Anthony (Tony) Bourdain was one of the first chefs that had a travel show. (Well, he had four gastronomy-travel shows in total, all truth be told.)   But his world jaunts were not only exploratio…

HAPPY BOURDAIN DAY!

To celebrate, let's hit the open road with …

ANTHONY BOURDAIN IN LATIN AMERICA
latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com/2025/06/25/a...

Safe Journeys!

#AnthonyBourdain #BourdainDay #travelogue #TVShow #gastronomy
#travelbloggerscommunity #travelblogshare #traveladdicts

There's a lot of content out there about embracing the idea of a 90s summer, which raises an interesting question: what does that look like when it comes to #travel? Is it about using printed guidebooks, maps, and generally going analog as much as possible? Is anyone considering it?

‘My experience confirms that US ‘citizens’, especially Black and Muslim ones, are also targets’ - Musa Springer on their unlawful detention Mondoweiss writer D. Musa Springer was detained, interrogated, and had electronic devices confiscated by DHS agents upon returning from international travel. Here they detail their experience and…

READ: U.S. citizen and journalist D. Musa Springer was detained, searched, and had his devices seized—for supporting a friend targeted for Palestine activism.
mondoweiss.net/2025/04/my-e...

Salvadorans share their opinions with CNN after a Maryland man was mistakenly deported from the United States to El Salvador and is currently being held in CECOT, a maximum-security mega-prison.

Federal Workers Are Facing a New Reality The problem for government employees isn’t just low morale. It’s the manufactured chaos.

“The Trump administration is asking us to reimagine America as a country that not only does not value public service but actually torments its public servants,” writes @elainegodfrey.bsky.social :

Greenland documentary forces Danes to confront their colonial heritage As Donald Trump threatens to take over the territory, film claims its cryolite mine was plundered by Denmark

Greenland documentary forces Danes to confront their colonial heritage

1 Week Language Immersion Program vs. 1 Year Online Learning - Carey On Travels After a year of daily Duolingo work and a week in a language immersion program, here's my take on how these two different approaches compare.

This week’s #TravelBlogShare is Fave posts. This one is on language learning, comparing a year of Duolingo and 1 week of immersion class. Interested in hearing your experiences.
#TravelBloggersCommunity
#TravelAddicts
#Portugal
careyontravels.com/language-imm...

NEW: Elon Musk's DOGE guys are dismantling the Wilson Center, a key foreign policy research group funded by private money and Congress. Its head, Mark Green, a former GOP Congressman, resigned after DOGE entered this week. Our @nytimes.com story: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/u...

A Journey on the Blue Train: Gilded Luxury in the World’s ‘Most Unequal Country’ (Gift Article) On a trip from Cape Town to Pretoria, a reporter grapples with the whiplash of traveling through South Africa’s two worlds, from majestic mountains to struggling shantytowns.

"My wife and I accounted for two of the four Black passengers. The dozens of other passengers were white — mostly foreigners, but also a handful of South Africans. It was the other way around for the staff..."

#travel #blackskytravel

Our application for Summer 2025 is now live! If you know any rising high school juniors or seniors who are interested in going to either Italy or South Africa with our partners at Global Leadership Adventures please forward this link (deadline is Friday April 4): www.thewanderingscholar.org/apply

Moreover, should they be able to travel unencumbered, free of hurdles and hardships, when so many people are being searched and detained coming into the US?