If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be the Great Barrier Reef

During his youthful travels, San Francisco Chronicle columnist John Flinn moved from place to place at lightning speed. “It seemed an unforgivable squandering of time to spend more than one night in any town,” he writes. “My wife, Jeri, and I covered nearly all of Switzerland and a good chunk of France on one three-week vacation, the entirety of New Zealand on another.” Now he likes to travel slowly, taking the time to savor countrysides, parks and, sometimes, pubs. “I’ve never found London pubs to be as convivial as the ones in the countryside, but after several visits, the one on the corner became my ‘local,’” he writes. “I was quite ridiculously flattered one day when I walked in and the barman greeted me with, ‘Your usual then, is it?’” A traveler looking for cultural immersion could hardly ask for anything better than that.

©2026 World Hum, All Rights Reserved