Rosanna Bird is never far from her grandfather’s illness, even thousands of miles away.IT’S SO BRIGHT OUT TODAY. It’s almost too bright to look at the yellow flowers of the squash plant or the new green of the climbing beans. The rows of muted verdigris cabbages and the grimy-green water in the old bathtub are easier on the eyes.

Image: NPCA photosSpencer Klein heads up to the Ansel Adams Wilderness Area for some lessons in silence.1. Horseshit Attila had the stove lit early. We ate raw oatmeal and diced apples that we soaked overnight, and had coffee for warmth. The sun rose over the eastern ridge that separated the June Lake loop from Mammoth and it hit camp like the morning bell.

What do you do when the overhead compartment won’t close?I HAD THE AISLE SEAT on a flight from Barcelona to Brussels when the gentleman in the middle tapped me on the arm and told me that he needed to grab something from the overhead compartment. I nodded, the way you do when you’re on a two-and-a-half-hour flight and you’ve read every article in the magazine except the Bill Murray interview.

Joseph Foley invites us into the mind of a conflicted teenage traveler.The authorIF THERE’S ONE THING this article is about, it’s freedom. It’s not about this city I went to or that place I went to. This article is about the freedom to travel alone at 16, and the desires, independence, and love of life this freedom has taught me to embrace.

Even after he’d moved to Moscow, Richard Cashman found the pull of Red Square irresistible.I FELL ASLEEP WITH THE WINDOW OPEN, again, and I don’t know if it’s the freezing air or the sound of the snow plough rattling past my window that wakes me. My alarm hasn’t gone off, so it can’t be 7.30 yet. I close the window and curl up under the covers a while longer.

Manners still count, even if you’re jetlagged.THE STINK PARADE is how my friend Mark refers to the processed feel of long haul travel. In airports, we always crack jokes about it. Everyone comes off a plane looking disheveled. Everyone could use a shower. Passengers shuffle in a dazed lockstep to the next terminal or the immigration queue.