12 September 2026 I have had the good fortune of sharing a number of my pool tourist explorations with all of my daughters, my siblings, father and, on one occasion, a swimmer niece. But I have had more of these shared experiences with Maia, my oldest daughter, than anyone else. She’s always game for a trip and a swim, still taking that advice that her maternal grandfather gave her before she went off to university in Vancouver, “Say yes to everything!” Maybe not the safest

5 September 2026 I had signed up for tomorrow's Berks & South Bucks County Masters meet awhile back (as I do), both to swim in the Bracknell Leisure Centre pool and to get some "racing reps" in. I entered before I figured out the travel logistics to arrive in time for the "day of event" confirmation (check-in by 9:15am) Then, a number of weeks ago, I saw the 3 bus - 1 tube - 1 train approximately three-hour journey that would have required me to leave home at 5:30am ... and

23 August 2026 My 1,001 pool quest originally started from a desire to get and stay healthy after a period of intense work and business travel while building a startup tech company between mid-2002 and 2007. After the sale of that company later in 2007, I realized I had let my work consume me ... and let my nascent masters swimming career (begun in 2001) and attention to fitness fall far too low in my priorities. It's not like my work life got a lot less intense after I sta

18 July 2026 I really, really wanted to love the new Canary Wharf Sea Lanes. Maia came up from Brighton to spend the weekend in London with us ... and the timing was pretty perfect as it was almost three years ago to the day (July 9, 2023) that we had swum together in the "OG" Sea Lanes pool down in Brighton. We booked our swim for 3pm and had absolutely perfect conditions, with fairly skies and the water chilled, but not too chilled. The location is less than a ten minute

4 July 2026 King Charles happens to be in residence this weekend at nearby Palace of Holyroodhouse, but, though he was a keen swimmer in his youth, I didn't see him at either Friday or Saturday morning's long course lane swimming times at the fantastic Royal Commonwealth Pool: Speaking of royalty, this pool was officially opened January 16, 1970 by Princess Anne and it was her first ever solo official visit. This facility also has the superlative as the only pool to ever hos

30 June 2026 As I was planning our move to London in 2023 and started swimming around the town on visits that summer, I started to learn about English lido culture and began to hear about this apparently magical, 90-meter long unheated Tooting Bec Lido in south London, London's longest lido (and, I believe, second only to Cambridge's 91-meter / 100 yard length Jesus Green Lido in terms of longest pools in England). I did make it down to the indoor, 33-meter long Tooting Leisu

23 June 2026 I had written over nine years ago about the four Olympic pools in which I'd had the pleasure of swimming, but that post was a couple of years after I had swum in that fourth Olympic pool, the Peter Daland pool at the Uytengsu Aquatics Center on the University of Southern California campus in 2015 ... and that was pool #206 on my #1001pools list! It's taken me over a decade and 600 new pools tallied before I got to add my fifth Olympic pool, but the Olympia Schwim

14-15 June 2026 There are times when you just need a swim, no matter how short, no matter how "un-special" the pool is. Monday morning, June 15th, the last day of my 28-day adventure between Canada and the USA was such a day. I was scheduled to fly back to London that evening from Toronto, but had work calls to do in the morning before flying from EWR Liberty up to YYZ Pearson in the early afternoon. I didn't have time for much - just 1,650 yards - but I wanted a swim to s

12 June 2026 Some pools are iconic for their beauty, for their unique architecture, for the history of competitions held there. But there are also pools in the world that, while possibly having something to offer in & of their inherent pool-ness, are special because of who trained there, because of the excellence produced there. The Meadowbrook Swim Club on the outskirts of Baltimore is rightly famous as the childhood and young adult training ground of Michael Phelps ... Bab

9 June 2026 This is a facility that I've wanted to visit for years ... really for decades, probably going back to my freshman year at the University of Texas when I first met Spencer Martin: J. Spencer Martin circa 1987/1988 Spencer was a year ahead of me and he took many of us first-year members of the men's swimming team under his wing. Though he and I never actually trained together - he was a breaststroker and sprint IMer, me stuck over in the distance lanes - he taught