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Travel & Photography

A Year of Humans Being Human While Traveling

And the ongoing plight of the unhoused

JoAnn Ryan
Globetrotters
Published in
8 min readDec 16, 2024

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Lexingston Market, Baltimore Maryland
Lexington Market, Baltimore, Maryland, love how the shadows of people reflect in the shiny clean floor — All photos by

The sidewalk is alive with movement and chatter. So many students. Walking alone but with purpose or with a companion or two—talking, laughing and collaborating excitedly with words and hands to keep warm. Between Harvard, MIT and Boston University, just about everyone has something seemingly important to think about, talk about and do.

Aside from the woman sitting alone on the bench along Commonwealth Avenue. Her grimy, tattered hair droops around despairing glassy orbs. She is wearing yesterday’s clothes and flip-flop type shoes inappropriate for the month of December.

I myself have set out to find cannoli to sample, chocolate babkas to savor, gooey mom-and-pop pizza to make the taste buds dance the happy dance on my tongue. Places to see I’ve only read about in books or glimpsed in movies. Boston Common. Cheers. The site of the Boston Tea Party. Historic train stations. Christmas Markets. Libraries. Churches. Cemeteries. A famous pond.

Walden Pond just outside of Boston

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Globetrotters
Globetrotters

Published in Globetrotters

We are a group of ordinary yet extraordinary travel lovers sharing our experiences of exploring the world with the world.

JoAnn Ryan
JoAnn Ryan

Written by JoAnn Ryan

A complete mess but always striving to do better. Writer, editor and publisher of stories about travel, photography and messy life.

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