Author: mattathomeintheworld

I was born and raised in New England, but spent almost 40 years living in southern California and San Francisco. I'm a retired psychology professor with a strong interest in natural disasters, media influences, and travel. I used to teach a specialty course on the Psychology of Travel and created my own travel website at www.mattathomeintheworld.com I recently published my first book: At Home in the World: Reflections of a Travel Addict. Please come check out my site!

There’s No Place Like Home: Fall in New England

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Blogs, U.S.A., USA Roadtrips

Not unlike a salmon fighting its way upstream to return to the place where it was born, I go through considerable effort to make an annual pilgrimage to my native New England in October to experience the most wonderful time of year to be there: fall foliage season. Typically lasting from mid-September to mid or late October, the change in the foliage that occurs in the northeastern USA is an event that attracts tourists from all over the world and until I can manage to live back there permanently, I will continue to travel back for at least a few days to experience the show.

A back road in Vermont
Read on…

“They Won’t Kill You; They Just Rob You!” A Visit To Naples, Italy

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Blogs, Italy

You’d think I would have had enough travel over the summer: a month in Europe, a few weeks in New England, a cross country drive from California to Virginia, Boston and back, and 10 days in Hawaii. But during the second week of the school year I was selected to present at a conference in Naples, Italy…

Naples in all her glory, with Vesuvius looming in the background
Join me on a trip to Napoli…

When Tiziana Says, “Mangia”, You Better Mangia! – Sora Margherita, Rome

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Italy, Roma, Travel Recommendations

One of the joys of travel is meeting strangers who become new friends, and on my most recent trip to Rome, I met a man named Scott, a humanities professor from a university in the American Midwest who was living in Rome for several weeks while working on a book. After some conversation it was apparent that we were kindred spirits, and I invited him to join me at my favorite restaurant in Rome for lunch. Thankfully he liked my restaurant choice, and as we were parting ways for the afternoon, he said that the following day he planned to go to a small restaurant called Sora Margherita he’d been to a couple of years prior. He asked if I wanted to join him and I accepted, though I was a little unnerved when he mentioned something about a waitress who’d simply seemed to despise the friend he’d dined with there the first time.

Continue reading “When Tiziana Says, “Mangia”, You Better Mangia! – Sora Margherita, Rome” →

The Powerful Pull of Portugal’s Algarve

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Blogs, Europe, Portugal

After a week in Europe, the first rain of my trip came on the day I was driving from Lisbon to the Algarve region in the southwestern part of Portugal. It was the perfect day to be in a car, as I could only imagine myself slipping and sliding up and down Lisbon’s precarious hills on slick, unevenly tiled sidewalks.

Inside a sea cave, Algarve
Praia da Marinha, Algarve

The Algarve is calling… answer the call!

Music, Graffiti and Custard, Not Necessarily in That Order: Lisbon

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Blogs, Europe, Portugal

I grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a city where 30% of the residents are of Portuguese descent. I grew up with many Portuguese friends, my favorite pizza was covered with linguica, a Portuguese sausage, and every Easter morning my mom would stand in a long line at the bakery to pick up the Portuguese sweet bread that she’d ordered weeks in advance. Ironically, while I have traveled across Europe from Iceland to Turkey and Finland to Spain, I had missed Portugal, so this summer I decided it was time to make my first visit. After a few days in England, I flew into Lisbon and got my first taste, literally and figuratively, of Portugal.

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More on Lisboa…

The Battle of the Cream Teas: Devon vs. Cornwall – England, May 2018

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Blogs, British Isles, Europe

I think SuperShuttle has a vendetta against me. Last May, as I was heading off to Europe, I waited patiently in front of my building for the familiar blue van to pull up and whisk me off to the airport, but it never materialized. I kept getting texts from them saying they were outside my apartment waiting for me, but they were simply not there. I kept telling them I was in front of my building. They kept telling me I was simply not there. And then they said they had waited long enough and had to get their other passengers to the airport and were leaving. How do you leave if you’ve never arrived?

Let’s get to England!

Portland: City of Roses… or City of Donuts?

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Oregon, Travel Recommendations, USA

This past weekend I attended the Western Psychological Association conference in Portland, Oregon. This conference happens every year and is held somewhere in the western states. Some years it’s in an exciting destination like Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Cancun, Mexico or Vancouver, Canada. Other years we find ourselves in such lackluster destinations as  Sacramento, Reno or worse yet,  Irvine or Burlingame, California. Therefore, my students, colleagues and I are always excited when the conference is held in Portland, and thankfully this is the 3rd time in the last 10 years that Portland was chosen as the site.

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Portland’s Hawthorne Bridge
Continue reading “Portland: City of Roses… or City of Donuts?” →

A Successful “Bleisure” Trip to Italy

by mattathomeintheworld, posted in Blogs, Italy

A relatively recent phenomenon that is becoming increasingly popular has been dubbed, “Bleisure Travel”: the combining of a business trip with leisure travel. Business travelers who have a few days of meetings or a conference to attend may schedule a few days of pleasure travel before or after having fulfilled their professional responsibilities. A couple of days in New York for meetings may be followed by a weekend to explore the city; a conference in Hawaii might provide the chance to spend a few leisurely days on Maui before heading home.

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A rainy night at Piazza Navona in Rome, my “bleisure” destination.

Read on!