Traveling Tall

The more places you go, the more people you meet, the more you enjoy what makes us different — and what brings us together.

It can mean touching a Filipino person’s hand with your forehead as a sign of great respect … it means you’re asking for a blessing. Or it can mean asking a new Chinese acquaintance, “Chi fan le ma?” as a casual greeting … it means “Have you eaten yet?” Or it can mean swirling a vintage Bordeaux in its glass during a tasting, first to watch the inky “legs” develop as the plum-colored wine runs down the inside of the glass, then to release rich aromas of blackberries, spice, and black coffee … which you can actually smell, one by one.

Or it can mean meeting people you’d never talk to back home: a Bajan street vendor, an Alaskan Native sculptor, a saffron-robed Buddhist priest, a barely dressed Queen of the Drummers at a Brazilian samba school. It means a lot of different things, and learning to enjoy all those differences. In Porthole, we’ve always treasured the differences.

This issue, we’re celebrating the differences that make us all proud of who we are, as we are, no matter where we are. We are…

▪ … traveling along with Lola Méndez for a Pride-focused visit to Portland, Oregon, on page 22.

▪ … going to Galveston with Richard Varr to see where Juneteenth came from and how it lives on today, on page 52.

▪ … exploring the Arctic Circle and visiting a remote Inuit village with Judi Cohen, on page 60.

▪ … tasting the pride of Scotland with Kate Wickers’ tour of Edinburgh’s new fresh cuisine, on page 26.

▪ … reminiscing about the Golden Age of cruising to our near neighbor Cuba (with our ongoing political differences) as revealed by E.P. Roorda, on page 42.

▪ … savoring the proud rebirth of Crystal Serenity, a stately ship now sailing for new owners with an all-new interior as experienced by John and Sandra Nowlan, on page 34.

Everywhere we travel, we find people who have something to be proud about, and some new and different ways to appreciate all the things back home. We’re pretty proud of the stories in this issue, too. I hope you find something different here to look forward to traveling to.

Bon voyage,

TRAVEL OPENS YOUR MIND, PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY, WITHOUT REALLY THINKING WHAT THAT MEANS.