Hi. My name is Greg, and I am an addict. I was five years old when travel became my drug of choice.

My first taste of travel came aboard the Sunset Limited bound from New Orleans to Los Angeles.

It was late at night, later than I’d ever been allowed to stay up. The train sat poised and glistening next to its platform. For me, it wasn’t just a massive string of steel wheels and long cars of fluted aluminum. It was a living thing of metallic aromas, dripping fluids, hissing steam.

The next time our feet touched land again, we would be in a city I’d heard of but never seen, in a different state…MORE

I sure hope that’s a multiple-choice question!

I want to return to Asia, where Ifirst visited in the mid-1970s. Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand. I want to see India, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia.

I love London; I can’t get enough of the place. Paris? J’adore Paris! I’d like to return to Germany and definitely want to see more of Italy and the Netherlands. Spain is calling me, too.

Just visited Africa for the first time, and I can’t WAIT to go back!

A week ago today, I returned from my first visit to Africa, a fortnight spent in the Gambia and Senegal. The occasion was the International Roots Festival in the Gambia. While we were there, we met African scholars, musicians, dancers, writers, journalists. We met Americans and Europeans who had come to the Gambia to stay.

We met the descendants of Kinta Kinteh, the original family of author Alex Haley who penned “Roots: The Saga of An American Family,” and saw the island that sent Kinteh into slavery in America.  We met the people of a village who gave us a taste of their traditions and formally adopted us into their families.

When I came to this place, it was as a black man form the United States with an identity and a name. When I left, it was as an African-American with a new identity — and three names!

Sound incredible?  Trust me, it was. 

Share my journey on my blog, “I’m Black and I Travel.”

Hello, world! It’s me, checking out this incredible neighborhood we call planet Earth. I love food and music from all over the world.  I’m a diehard railfan, an unabashed photographer-wannabe and I’ve been writing since I was 5.

You can follow me and all my journeys via my blog, “I’m Black and I Travel.”

Why that name? Because Americans — especially black Americans — really don’t get out enough. And I want my brothers and sisters to know it’s okay to step our of our cultural comfort zones and see the world.

Why a blog?  Because leaving a trail of bread crumbs is just too messy.

You ready? Then follow me!