By Michael McCarthy 

Boudinath Square bustles with pilgrims, mostly Tibetan refugees circumnavigating the world’s largest stupa, where prayer flags and pigeons fly gaily in the mild breeze.  A handful of western tourists sip mint teas in neighborhood cafes in this northern neighborhood of Kathmandu.  After many years of civil war, peace has finally returned to Nepal, and slowly tourists are trickling back to what was once of the world’s hottest travel destinations.

By Michael McCarthy 

The brain is a most curious creature.  This tiny lump of gray matter in your skull combines intellect, ego and intuition all in one clever package, and when those three components are in sync good things are known to happen.  But standing on the edge of a 1,600-foot free fall at Whistler’s Cougar Mountain zipline, when my ego said “go” and my intellect said “you paid all this dough,” my intuition countered: “You must be kidding!”

By Michael McCarthy 

The bedside phone emits the soft hum of a wake up call.  It’s five a.m. on a Saturday, way too early for most folks but rise n’ shine time for some guests at the upscale Tiburon Lodge.  If you want to go swimming with Great White sharks, you can’t be caught napping.