Photos by authorMorgan Leahy discusses the value of creating a home and staying in one place while her husband serves in the Navy.When I got home from work today, my husband Justin told me he would be away all the following week at a training course in New Mexico. That means next week I will be home alone.

In an effort to connect with a generation of over-sharing, check-in obsessed millennials, Planned Parenthood has released their latest safe-sex initiative: GPS condoms.55,000 BARCODED CONDOMS were released by Planned Parenthood in Western Washington this February as a part of National Condom Week. Not to be excluded from the latest barcode check-in trend, the organization jumped on the trendy bandwagon to encourage young people to be proud to suit up and to remove the stigma that condoms make sex less sexy.

If you’re vegetarian, you may want to skip this essay…I am not a licensed dietician nor am I recommending the last fad diet. While reindeer have been such a strong symbol of the Sámi for hundreds of years and remain an integral base of their diet, it is by no means the sole defining symbol of this richly complex indigenous group of people who I have been fortunate enough to spend some time with.

While Arctic camping in Svalbard, Cody and Kitt Doucette find a humbling and violent terrain.My brother pausing for a breath while digging out a tent.I’M NOT A SUPERSTITIOUS person, but something about the arctic makes me believe in magic.It seems close to something that I can’t understand, the last stop before a bridge that I can’t see to a place I can’t go.

Daniel Carruthers comes in 7th at the 1,200-kilometer Mongolia Bike Challenge.LONG-DISTANCE MOUNTAIN BIKE races are steadily increasing in popularity as mountain and cyclo-cross riders seek out harder and tougher endurance races on rarely ridden trails. This past August’s nine-day, 1,200-kilometer Mongolia Bike Challenge definitely met those requirements.

Travel writing can be a powerful political act, as explored by LP writer Robert Reid and affirmed by our own Tim Patterson.IN 2006, THE great travel writer Robert Kaplan gave a seminal speech at the Columbia School of Journalism.Kaplan argued that mainstream journalism suffers from an obsession with soundbites, and that journalists should take time to steep themselves in the sort of local knowledge that only first-hand experience can provide.