Bisbee, AZ: Great for Quirky Boomers, Less So for Toddlers
If your idea of a mountain hike involves pushing a stroller up and down hills, Bisbee is for you. Continue reading Bisbee, AZ: Great for Quirky Boomers, Less So for Toddlers
Category: On Travel & Writing
A Long Way Back: Stories of Travelling Home is Now a Real (e-)Book
A LONG WHILE BACK, I said I was going to publish a book based on a four-month trip I took in late 2013. I finally did. You can buy it for Kindle here. The book is a simple one, roughly two dozen chapters of two millennials’ travels from South Korea to North America. It’s a collection of travel stories for people who genuinely like those sorts of things—misadventures, characters abroad, a … Continue reading A Long Way Back: Stories of Travelling Home is Now a Real (e-)Book
If You’re a Liberal-Minded Westerner in a Poor Country, Maybe You Should Pay More
ABOUT A MONTH AGO, V and I hailed a taxi to Arequipa’s central bus terminal. We knew how much it should cost—eight Peruvian soles in total, less than $3. When the driver quoted us 10 soles, we brought him down to eight. That was the objectively fair price, we reasoned; after years of being overcharged abroad simply because we’re white, we’d gotten used to haggling, as all travellers do. It’s … Continue reading If You’re a Liberal-Minded Westerner in a Poor Country, Maybe You Should Pay More
I’m Writing a Book
BASED ON A FEW REQUESTS and the desire to spend these next few months quasi-usefully, I’ve decided to write and self-publish a travel book based on this four-month round-the-world trip. It won’t be just these blog posts — they’re frankly too lazy and short independently — but will instead be an expansion and detailed account of what it means to be an aimless twentysomething traveller … Continue reading I’m Writing a Book
In Defence of Malaysia: Don’t Let MH370 Be Your Last Impression
MALAYSIA’S BEEN BESMIRCHED in the media lately, and for pretty unfortunate reasons. First the shocking vanish itself of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370; then the rumours about Iranian terrorists, stolen passports, hijacked planes, suicide missions and missing black boxes. Maybe they found some rubble in the Indian Ocean; maybe they didn’t. Maybe it’s on land; probably it isn’t. Then, weeks later, adding political distress to emotional grief, a group of … Continue reading In Defence of Malaysia: Don’t Let MH370 Be Your Last Impression
How I Spent $7,634 to Travel the World in Four Months
FINALLY GOT AROUND to calculating my trip costs this weekend. I may have discovered a secret fetish for spreadsheets. A quick glance at the chart below tells the whole story: the later the month, the more expensive the country I travelled. As such, even though the total amount spent per month doesn’t change drastically. (With the exception of when I had to hop an emergency plane back … Continue reading How I Spent $7,634 to Travel the World in Four Months
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is Travel Propaganda at Its Worst
IT ISN’T RIGHT TO SAY Ben Stiller has created a love letter to ambitious travellers everywhere with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, though he obviously tried very hard to do that. The nearly-two-hour-long kaleidoscope of Central Asian and Arctic Island postcards seems hand-stitched for a modern travel community whose members’ ambitions soar miles over how much time they’re allowed off work, and indeed has … Continue reading The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is Travel Propaganda at Its Worst
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Traveller
I HUGGED V GOODBYE under the scolding gaze of an unpleasant pear of a woman in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. The Pear had advised her, after she had arrived three hours early and been forced to empty her entire bag and comply with a full-body search for two of those hours, that her flight was “boarding in 20 minutes, so you’d better hurry. No … Continue reading The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Traveller
On Travel Beards
I DECIDED LONG BEFORE this journey began that I would not shave until this trip is finished. It was a silly and useless oath, but something to hold onto and a barometer of progress beyond simply maintaining this blog and tracking how much money I bleed. Each day I do not cut my facial hair is one more day I can claim to have lived … Continue reading On Travel Beards
We Interrupt This Blog With a Little Canada…
THERE ARE MANY REASONS why I am sheepishly scooting back to Canada this week. Not to get into fine details, they have to do with the impending expiry of my health care, credit card, driver’s license and, well, passport. Yep. Anyway, dear Toronto: Surprise! It’s a convenient time, since this is the halfway mark of my trip; winter is coming fast in Europe, and I … Continue reading We Interrupt This Blog With a Little Canada…
A Long Way Back 