One of the early highlights was to spend a night in the Usonian Inn in the town of Spring Green. The hotel was designed by Jesse Claude ‘Cary’ Caraway, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1948 and built in 1952. It’s relatively modest (and nothing like the luxury you might expect), but I really appreciated the low-slung, functionalist approach. Roadside motels have a lot to recommend them. Photo by Mark Baker.
I’m an independent journalist, travel writer and author who’s lived in Central Europe for nearly three decades. I love the history, literature, culture and mystery of this often-overlooked corner of Europe, and I make my living writing articles and guidebooks about the region. Much of what I write eventually finds its way into commercial print or digital outlets, but a lot of it does not.
And that’s my aim with this website: to find a space for stories and experiences that fall outside the publishing mainstream.
In 2021, I published “Čas Proměn” (“Time of Changes”), my first book of historical nonfiction. The book, written in Czech, is a collection of stories about Central and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and early ‘90s, including memories of the thrilling anti-communist revolutions of 1989. The idea for the book and many of the tales I tell there were directly inspired by this blog. Czech readers, find a link to purchase the book here. I hope you enjoy.