Travel Writer Rick Steves to Speak in Sacramento Tonight

If you are in the Sacramento area, make plans to be at St. John's Lutheran Church tonight!  Travel guru Rick Steves will be speaking about his book "Travel as a Political Act" which was awarded the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism best travel book of the year just last week.

Who: Rick Steves
When: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 6:30 pm (doors open at 6 pm)
Where: St. John's Lutheran Church (1701 L Street in Sacramento; parking information)
Cost: $40 per person -- tickets available at the door

The event is a benefit for Lutheran Social Services of Northern California and The Rwanda School Project -- two tremendous organizations.

I'll see you tonight!

Promise to Write: a Global Postcard Blog

A few days ago I found a postcard sitting by the mailboxes in my building.  It was stamped and addressed to "Promise to Write," but it was blank.  A small sheet of paper was taped to the postcard reading, "Since I know buying a postcard/stamp and writing out the address is the hardest part, I have already done that for you.  Hopefully the city is right, if not feel free to cross it out and write where you are on the front.  So send in your story and see if it makes it onto Promisetowrite.com."

I was intrigued.

It turns out Promise to Write is a new enterprise started in July, 2010.  Here's how it works:

  1. People send postcards to the Promise to Write address.
  2. Promise to Write photographs each postcard and posts it on their blog, sometimes with commentary.

I will say, the commentary when offered isn't always witty or interesting.  It sometimes tends toward the sneering.  But I can see this being a fascinating project, if it catches on.  Travelers sending postcards about their best or worst travel days all over the world... and they are collected together in both a high-tech and very low-tech way... and my advice would be to allow the postcards themselves to be the stars.

Yes, I am still intrigued.

You, my dear readers, are all over the world.  Stick a postcard in the mail to:

Promise to Write
P.O. Box 425695 
San Francisco, California
94142-5695

Give our friends at Promise to Write something lovely to write about!

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