The Tonic Trek: Bon Voyage!

Today we launch the Tonic Trek series, which takes this writer and our readers on a journey around the globe. I have committed myself to a yearlong trip covering the far reaches of our wonderful world and reporting back with insights, ideas and inspiration.

From magnificent museums and green tourist initiatives to volunteering and crazy adventures, Tonic Trek will cover it all.

The travel section will continue to feature places to go and out-there vacation ideas, but now these topics will be covered with an up-close perspective. This is my first adventure of this sort, so the Trek will be about lessons learned (sometimes the hard way), websites found and other helpful tips from an amateur traveler. Our hope is that we can inspire similar travel newbies to take the same plunge, though hopefully with info learned from my sure-to-come mishaps.

For example, I have been told I can ride into a Ukrainian train station, and people will have maps and photos of apartments that I can rent that are cheaper than hotels. Is this true? I'll find out soon enough, just don't be surprised if I post one of my stories from a bench in a train depot.

My Trek begins tomorrow morning when I land in Berlin. After a few days there, I will be able to recommend areas to stay, places to go and experiences to seek out. I've also been told I'd love a bar named White Trash. I don't know if this is a setup or a reflection of what my friends think of me, but either way, I'll take a double-wide trailer of Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Through the rest of this year, Tonic Trek will take you to Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Istanbul, Kiev, Yalta, Odessa, Lvov, Krakow and hopefully Croatia, Romania and even Northern Africa. In honesty, though, many destinations will be picked as I go. Then starting in 2010, Tonic Trek picks up again traveling throughout all of South America with plans to jump to India and Southeast Asia by summer.

Sound like fun? Please help me! If you have your own ideas or tips, please post them in the comments section below or email them directly to me at davidjenison@aol.com. If our travel writings inspire you to follow suit, please write me with your own adventures, and we might just share them on our readers.

Tonic Trek is about showing what a wonderful world we live in and that we are all an integral part of it. We hope Tonic Trek inspires you to experience this firsthand as we will over the next year.

Buckle up because here we go!