My Travels

I firmly believe that only through direct experience I can teach my students about the reality of the business environments present around the world.  That is why I spend at least four months out of the year traveling to the four corners of the world.  I used to spend a lot of my free time teaching at Santa Barbara, CA, and then, all of a sudden, I started to realize that I needed to expand my horizons as opposed to relying on the experience which I had already accrued.  At that point, I decided that I would be spending a third of my year to witness first-hand the living conditions of the populations of different nations and geographic areas.  I always go back to the States at least once a year to catch up on the more recent cultural trends.  Nonetheless, I also visit a new nation, or even more than one, in the remaining time that I have at my disposal.  Work-related trips and self-generated journeys have taken me to Australia, Asia, Central and Latin America, and, more recently, to Africa.  My trips are meant to give me more than just a superficial understanding of the socio-economic conditions of the place where I happen to be:  I give myself enough time to mingle with the local population and to check on the main productive activities by going to the production sites on my own, no matter how remote they might be.  Besides the whole of Europe and of the US -- the two places which I consider my home bases and which I have covered extensively over a number of years -- I have visited most of Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, Aruba, Canada, China, Taiwan, India, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Australia, Mauritius.  

Sometimes I travel just to capture the joy of a well-performed opera or ballet even if it means catching a plane.  At least once a year I try to spend a whole week in NYC to see the MET and NYCB performances or in Berlin for the wonderful opera and symphonic concerts available in that city.  The world of opera, ballet, symphonic and chamber music has always had an unusual allure on me and I have always responded to that hypnotic call whether it has meant going to La Scala in Milan, or the Maggio Fiorentino in Florence, the San Carlo in Naples and the more obvious Teatro Costanzi in Rome.