Travel author Mike Harris hard at work in the great outdoors.
In my career as a journalist and at times also as a tourist, I have been blessed to visit some remarkable places. As a business journalist, I visited Hong Kong when it was still a British Crown Colony (even the cabby drivers were asking me for stock tips), and Italy’s boot to see if the economic climate there was ready for U.S. business investment (it wasn’t).
As a young tourist, I twice flew Trans World Airways to Europe (the good old, bad old days of TWA when stewardesses handed out free samples of Marlboros and served booze to anyone who even looked like they might be of age – I wasn’t but looked it), visiting Greece, Italy, Austria, West Germany (way before the re-unification), Switzerland, and France. I remember the first time I visited Great Britain I crossed the English Channel on a ferry boat at night, in rough seas, and it was cold and raining. The bottle of scotch my new-found friend had on him eased the chill.
When I was 22, I saw the Vatican. I remember there weren’t many lines of waiting tourists that summer of 1969 – late June, I think – and when I stepped into St. Peter’s Basilica I almost fainted at its enormity and beauty. I have never seen anything man made that matches its beauty, especially the huge bronze canopy over the altar, supported by four massive upwardly curving marble pillars, each more than 60 feet high. They appeared an almost translucent green to me. My first visit to Rome opened my eyes to art, history, and food. The wine wasn’t bad, either. I returned to my home in Los Angeles and knew I had to see more of the world around me.
My early travels also took me to Canada and Baja and opened my mind to what I wanted to do professionally in my life – write and report. I got hooked on being a journalist.
I have enjoyed my journeys and met many very interesting people. I also came to realize that the focus of my passion was on my own California, and the great American West. I love the rich, wonderful, yet at times shameful history of the land’s settlement and development. That’s why now I am focusing my writing, photography, and adventures here in my own backyard.
In 2015 I wrote my first travel guide, Olvera Street: Discover the Soul of Los Angeles, sharing some of my own experiences and reflections about Olvera Street and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and I tell my friends I remember as a boy playing on the Harbor Freeway before there was a Harbor Freeway. I used to ride my bicycle up and down the dirt mounds that construction crews were piling up daily to become the elevated base of the freeway.
One of my purposes in creating Mike Harris’ Travel Guides, as well as my travel reports and the Mike Harris Travel Guides Website, is to share not only my passions but my concerns. Much of the Los Angeles I remember, not only as a boy but as an adult, is gone. Lost. If we lose sight of where we’ve been, I believe it negatively impacts where we are going. That’s why I wrote my first travel guide about Olvera Street. We almost lost that very important physical part of the city’s history. If it hadn’t been for Christine Sterling, and some very powerful people working together in the late 1920s and early 1930s, we wouldn’t have it now.
I have much more I want to write about for you in the weeks and months ahead, including places to go, things to see, and people to meet. I hope you’ll join me.
Best Wishes, Mike Harris