Galapagos – David J. Kent

Galapagos Giant Tortoise It’s time for my annual Year in a Traveler’s Life even though I’m not quite done traveling for the year. You can read about 2024 year here and follow the links to previous years.

I repeated my pattern of the last few years by starting off slowly. The first quarter of the year is usually kept close to home to meet Abraham Lincoln-related obligations, including the Lincoln Memorial birthday wreath laying and various Lincoln Group of DC events. March is always tight because of the Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium held at Ford’s Theatre, which I always attend and often have introduction duties (and in 2023 was a speaker). I also was locked in front of my computer most of the spring writing Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours, which is scheduled for release March 3, 2026.

April got things rolling with a road trip. The previous two years I had road tripped around New England doing research for the book. This year took me through upstate New York on my way to Vermont to attend the very first Lincoln Forum Spring Conference at Hildene, the Robert Lincoln family home in Manchester. I drove from DC up to Westfield, NY to see the statues of Lincoln and Grace Bedell, the 11-year-old girl who had written Lincoln to encourage him to grow “whiskers.” From there it was on to Buffalo for two Lincoln statues, with a quick trip over the border to Canadian Niagara Falls for the Tesla power plant (which caused some consternation with the border agent who couldn’t understand why I had driven from Virigina to spend only three hours in Canada). Next was over to Rochester for Lincoln-Frederick Douglass, around two finger lakes an on to Seneca Falls for the women’s voting rights exhibits, to Auburn for the William Seward house, to Syracuse for two Lincoln statues, and finally on to Hildene.

The rest of the spring I was writing, with a day trip to tour Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC with the Lincoln Group’s ace tour guide, Craig Howell. I also joined Craig for a tour of Congressional Cemetery in October, where I got my own 15 minutes of fame touting the history of Alexander Dallas Bache. On May 30, I submitted my manuscript to the publisher!

July began a whirlwind of overseas travel. An invitation to a wedding at Oxford University provided a great excuse for the UK road trip we had been talking about for a long time. A flight to Edinburgh gave a few days in Scotland before renting a car (manual shift, left side of the road) to wiggle down through England and Wales over several days before the wedding. Mostly the trip was guided by locations of Lincoln statues, necessitating stops at an old novitiate, Manchester (I’ve been in Manchester cities in multiple states and countries now), Newport (Wales), and Bath. One of the greatest thrills was a stop along the English/Welsh border to visit the home of a famous sculptor whose double-faced Lincoln bust is one of the most unique in the world. I then had to convince the people at the American Museum and Gardens in Bath that they also had a copy, which I eventually talked the one person who knew about it into showing me in the private spaces not open to the public.

The following month really got things going. In mid-August we flew to Lima, Peru to start a Road Scholar tour. From Lima it was on to Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu, where we climbed up to the terraces to get the ubiquitous photograph before hiking through the city itself. Luckily the altitude (up to 12,000 feet in Cusco) didn’t cause too much of a problem. Then it was on to Quito, Ecuador before flying out to the Galapagos Islands for a week on a boat hopping around between eight islands. Every perfect day involved a hiking trip to see birds, iguanas, sea lions, and more, plus also a snorkeling and/or kayaking trip to see them all underwater. Snorkeling with huge green sea turtles and kayaking with playful sea lions has been on my bucket list since my early marine biologist days.

The fall was busy but domestic. I attended a Lincoln statue dedication at the African American Civil War Museum in DC in September, then in November make my annual trek up to Gettysburg for the Lincoln Forum Conference, followed a week later by a longer road trip up to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving with family.

But the travel isn’t over for year. I have one short jaunt out of the country relaxing in the Bahamas over Christmas.

Which gets me to 2026.

Spring 2025 was writing Lincoln in New England, so Spring 2026 is promoting it. I have several speaking gigs already arranged and more in process, both in New England and in the DC area, that will keep me busy for several months after the March 3 release. I may go out to Springfield, Illinois for the Abraham Lincoln Association birthday symposium in February, but almost certainly will be in Illinois in June. I will definitely be in Vermont the first weekend of May as I will be on the program of the 2nd Lincoln Forum Spring Conference at Hildene. More info on that here soon.

Beyond that, I am booked on a long overseas trip that will take me first to Mongolia in September, led by a friend of mine who arranges cool trips every year. Four days after that ends I’ll start a Road Scholar tour of Southeast Asia covering Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. I’m obviously not coming back to the states in between, so will be adding in a short trip, probably to Taiwan.

November will take me back to Gettysburg for the Forum. I’m sure I’ll squeeze in other shorter, domestic trips during the year, with spots like Philadelphia, New York City, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia high on my “go to” list next year. We’ll see if I hit the 5 new countries goal. I might not, since I’ve already been to Thailand and Vietnam. Still a lot of places I want to go.

I’ll have my annual Year in the Writer’s Life post up shortly before New Year’s.

[Photo of Giant Galapagos Tortoise, David J. Kent, 2025]

Lincoln in New England book cover

Coming in March 2026: Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours

Also see – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America.

Join me on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

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David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Red-billed tropicbird I finally made it to Machu Picchu!

I had planned to go back in 2016, but that trip got punted in favor of a trip to Serbia instead (which I documented here). No problem, I thought. I’ll schedule it for the next year. That didn’t happen (I went to South Korea, China, Australia, and New Zealand instead). Another 40+ countries and nine years later I finally did the Machu Picchu trip. And threw in the Galapagos Islands as a bonus.

We booked a tour with Road Scholar, a 50-year-old company specializing in educational learning, which was important to us. I’ll have more details later, but here are some highlights of the trip. Joining fourteen others from around the United States, we flew first to Lima, Peru. Touring the city one day, we then flew on to Cusco, only to head out to the Sacred Valley to climb the Ollantaytambo ruins and visit an alpaca/llama/vicuna farm. After a day or so there we headed back to Ollantaytambo to take the famous rail line to Aguas Calientes (aka, Machu Picchu Village), where we spent the night. Taking the treacherous bus ride up to the Machu Picchu gate was worth it. Finally being able to stand in the iconic viewing spot to get a photo of the ancient Incan village was a dream come true. We also got to hike around the village itself and learn from a guide with traditional ancestry.

Machu Picchu

Eventually we headed back to Cusco for a couple of days, touring the city and going out to the Sacsayhuamen ruins just outside of town. In both Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuamen we got to see the amazing Incan craftmanship, with many-ton blocks of rock placed together so tightly you can’t slip a piece of paper between them. We also got to experience local Peruvian music and hear lectures on Peruvian agriculture (including 4000 varieties of potatoes and corn), Inca and pre-Inca history, and musical instruments. We even had a lesson in making ceviche.

Then it was off to Ecuador with a quick flight from Cusco to Lima and then on to Quito. After touring Quito for a day or so, we hopped on another plane, stopping in Guayaquil to refuel and trade passengers, then out to the Galapagos for the second half of the adventure. This really was two trips in one. The Peru part was all about ancient culture and civilizations. The Galapagos part was all about communing with nature.

Galapagos map

In all, we visited eight Galapagos Islands in the middle and eastern part of the archipelago (there is a separate tour for the western islands). We arrived in Baltra, which is mostly airport, then spent time on Santa Cruz, the amazing bird island of Genovesa, Plaza Sur (South Island), Santa Fe, Floreana, Espanola, and San Cristobal. Mostly we were by ourselves on the islands, sometimes overlapping with another tour boat. All tours are limited to no more than 16 passengers to help protect the native flora and fauna. During the week in the Galapagos, we had plenty of opportunity to snorkel with green turtles and sea lions, kayak around the rocky inlets (often with young sea lions frolicking around us), and hiking in the bird-filled environments. There were plenty of blue-footed, red-footed, and Nazca boobies, albatross, and tons of other birds and their babies, not to mention land and marine iguanas, and unique species like lava lizards and lava herons.

It was hard to come home after 17 days on the road (and in the air and on the water), and it didn’t help that I got a bad cold upon my return. But the time spent in both Peru and Ecuador is something I’ll treasure forever.