GREETINGS

Those of you accustomed to seeing the map that used to appear in this space will notice something new in its place: me.
A month ago, I was named PG travel editor.
Though I am new to newspapers, many public radio fans are familiar with The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL, the program I have produced for seven years. These daily, two-minute "audio postcards" are heard each weekday on many public radio stations across the United States and on Armed Forces Radio stations around the world.
A few words about myself.
Pittsburgh-raised and a longtime resident, I am already familiar with how many wonderful places there are to visit within a few hours'drive. I also have traveled extensively around the world, shared my experiences with audiences from Tacoma to Tokyo and been changed by their feedback.
I am assisted in my new duties by talented PG staffers: Jim Heinrich and the features copy desk; news assistant Becky Sodergren; as well as the paper's art and photography departments. PG staff writers also will contribute their travel insights, especially Bruce Keidan, who as the paper's new correspondent-at-large will be filing frequent travel dispatches from domestic and foreign destinations.
Travel is a passion for many people, a topic, like sports and politics, that occupies an inordinately large portion of their attention and conversation.
It is our intention to make the Sunday travel section more interesting, informative, and interactive. More than a place to check out cheap air fares, it should be a compendium of travel dreams, a resource of travel insights and an advocate for traveler rights and comforts. Each Sunday in this space, I will address topical travel issues.
In addition, we would like your input. We want to hear about special trips you may take, travel problems you may have encountered, and travel ideas and intelligence you'd like to share with fellow readers. Please send us letters, e-mail, voice-mail and online questions. We also will be establishing a presence during the week and a PG Phonelink to answer basic travel questions.
In selecting stories, I will be operating under many premises but one primary belief.
Although we travel for many reasons and in many conveyances, the best trips are always an education. Travel removes us from the familiar, creates new connections and perspectives and opens our minds to unexpected revelations. Trips may introduce us to new places, faces and ways of life, but they also tend to teach us something about ourselves.
Not all good trips, however, involve journeys to far-off lands. With the proper frame of mind, a walk around the block can offer as much insight as a hike in the Himalayas. To come to know any place well, in all of its various seasons and disguises, is to travel deeply.
As the Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tsu observed 3,000 years ago, "to be great is to go forward, to go forward is to travel far, to travel far is to return home."
I hope you will look forward to enjoying your Sunday travels and to returning again and again.

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