At this singular time in history when 7.8 billion humans on this planet are facing a common enemy, too tiny for us to even see, our weapons are hand washing, and social distancing and isolation.

My 2020 AtoZ Blog was originally going to be about genes, epigenetics and healthspan. But instead I found myself thinking about how, today, our world is connected rather than distanced. Travel is a modern day gift that introduces us to different cultures, different histories, different foods and different people. But this very gift that connects us globally has made us vulnerable to this pandemic.

In these 26 blog posts I want to celebrate travel as a force for good. I have visited every continent except Antarctica - still on my bucket list. Although some travel predated my ballroom dance years, since I took up ballroom dancing, dance-cruising has let me combine my desire to travel with my passion for dance.

I have dance-cruised along the east and west coasts of North America, north to Alaska and south to Mexico; through the Panama Canal, over the Pacific ocean,  the Atlantic Ocean, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Amazon Jungle, and South America.

My website www.ReviewFromTheHouse.com  was founded in February 2006 as a place to post my reviews of theatre, and for the first 8 months, theatre reviewing was my sole focus. In September I travelled to London to see plays and check out the food scene before heading to the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France for a food writing course. 

At this time, I coined the term Travelblogue for my on-line journals about my travels, and I broadened the scope of my website to include travel, food and wine writing. My first Travelblogue was Travelblogues London 2006. The second was Food and Wine Writing in Languedoc-Roussillon.

Each future post will relate back to a land or dance cruise adventure.

Tomorrow:  B is for Baltic