Where to start . . .?

I recently joined an on-line group of travel writers, only to wonder what makes me one.

I've seen a gorgeous volcano in Ecuador and an amusing one in El Salvador. In Sri Lanka, I visited centuries-old water reservoirs, encountered an elephant in the wild and sat under the Bodhi tree grown from a shoot of the original one under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment. I've admired the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Big Ben in London and Mont Blanc in the Alps, walked the black-sand Pacific Coast beaches of Central America and seen Imelda Marcos's shoes at Malacanang Palace. I've eaten pasta in Milan, ceviche in Guayaquil, kim chi in Seoul, curries in Mumbai and arroz con pollo in Tegucigalpa. I've seen Lake Geneva angrier than the Gulf of Mexico.

And I don't want to travel any more (at least not all those long distances), so why did I declare myself a travel writer?

Ah . . .! Have you ever been to North Georgia, with its delicate spring wildflowers and its robust fall foliage? Or visited Asheville, Mobile, Fort Matanzas, the Great Smokies, Hilton Head or Cumberland Island - that place of strong women and wild horses, a book title some of us think should have been 'wild women and strong horses'? Have you?

Come back to this blog some time and we'll visit those places together.