Fried Green tomatoes.. by Mark & Ciara

Interested in traveling the United States by train? Check out Mark & Ciara’s trip by rail from Boston to Miami Beach with many stops in between.

One of the highlights of their trip was stopping in Charleston, South Carolina to view historic homes, pretty trees and to soak up the Southern Hospitality:

“The town itself is small - but incredibly beautiful. As you’ll see from the pictures, each street is lined with gas lit lamps, old style wooden colonial houses lined with Spanish moss, and multitudes of restaurants and B&B’s.”

They hopped on bikes that were provided for free from the B&B, and toured the town:

“First stop was the fantastic Charleston aquarium, the towns most visited attraction apparently. Here we saw sharks and jellyfish and piranhas and lots of things that live in the sea. It was good fun and Ciara got to feed a crab, which was more interesting than you would think (Ciara also wants to adopt an otter or two)..

One thing we have both become acutely aware of here is how unbelievably great southern food is. It’s the best and cheapest we’ve eaten since we got to the states. If you want a proper steak or good BBQ then the south is where it’s at.

We wandered up and down King St. (Charleston’s rodeo drive - kind of), Market street (full of basket ladies, stalls, tacky shops and the usual market crap) and took a cycle down by the east battery on the river bank where there is a beautiful park full of swinging chairs and palm trees.

From the park you can see Fort Sumter, on an island about 4 or 5 miles off the coast. This is where the first shots of the civil war were fired, and although we didn’t visit it, it sure looks nice.

I’ve pretty much described what we have done both days here, as the pace of life is so slow it just makes you wander about and call in places for coffee (especially if they have free internet) and sit in parks just watching the world go by. Charleston and New York are poles apart, but it definitely joins the big apple as favorite places so far…” (more…)

For more tales from the rails, visit Mark and Ciara’s travel blog.

Other Useful Links
Charleston Travel Guide
South Carolina Travel Guide
Vacations by Rail

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Settling In and Sights by little haxby

Little Haxby spent most of this year on an extended roadtrip, seeing both famous and off the beaten path sights in the United States. Now she is off on a tour in Uganda and Rwanda that “introduces travelers to the world via the lenses of human rights and conservation.” She shares her experiences of visiting Uganda, including a trip to the Kings Tomb in Kampala:

“Our next stop was the King’s Tomb, which also happens to be the largest thatched hut in the world. UNESCO added the site to the World Heritage list in 2001. The Kabaka is the title of the kings in Uganda, or Buganda, the kingdom over which they preside. Around the tomb were houses, where wives live. The estate was bustling as women prepared for a celebration. Nothing special, the tour guide told us, they celebrate often.”

They headed inside the tomb:

“The tomb itself was massive, a great circle supported by fifty-two columns, for the fifty-two clans. The columns are wooden, and covered in the bark of the fig tree, which looks and feels similar to suede. We removed our shoes; the women wrapped themselves in cloth to give the appearance of a skirt, and entered the great room to the smell of dried thatch. A great stink, redolent of, I offer, toasted desert. It took me a while to think of that, and although I’ve never actually smelled a toasted desert, I also had never inhaled air wafting through that much dried thatch, and toasted desert sounded right. It was heady and old; warm even, from over a hundred years of sun exposure.” (more…)

Visit Little Haxby’s travel blog to hear more about her trip.

For more on Uganda, visit:
Uganda Travel Guide
Uganda Tourist Board
Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi

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