You see it every day on Instagram, a news article, or Facebook… Someone traveling the world—posing at impossibly perfect beaches on an island you never heard of, so beautiful, you’ve only seen them in movies, or meandering ancient temples in Indonesia and Cambodia… And time and time again you think, “damn, they are so lucky.” …
If there is one park I’ve visited which I would call a ‘hidden gem’, it would have to be Gwaii Haanas National Park. Few people are even aware of its existence, let alone the fact that it is one of the most stunning parks in North America. Getting to Gwaii Haanas isn’t easy. First, you …
I’ve been working with my manager the last several months on a major deal with a large publishing outlet. After weeks of contract negotiations I’m happy to announce that starting today I am the new traveling correspondent for Newsweek Magazine! This deal is a dream come true for me and the fulfillment of years of …
In August of 2012 I attended the Book Passage Travel Writing Conference and had the pleasure to meet Jeff Greenwald. He was introduced to me as being the world’s first travel blogger. Needless to say I was intrigued by this claim. As it turns out, he does indeed have a pretty solid claim on being …
One of the questions I get asked all the time is what gear I used while traveling. Now with 2.5 years of travel under my belt, I think I can address what worked and what didn’t. While I didn’t carry a lot, when you don’t have much, every item has exaggerated importance. I can only …
Prior to the communist takeover in Laos, Luang Prabang was the royal capital of the country. These days, it’s a sleepy town (well, all of Laos is pretty sleepy) on the Mekong River that has become a popular attraction on the tourist and backpacker circuit in Southeast Asia precisely because of that sleepy charm and …
I am going to caveat this whole post to say first, that any list of the best and worst things in the world is highly subjective, and second, that most of the “worst” sites fall into “disappointing” rather than downright bad. There is something of value in each site, otherwise it wouldn’t have gained the …
Ladies, gentlemen and Kiwis of all ages, it’s time to dust off our categorization of the Seven Wonders of World series, inspired by the New 7 Wonders contest years back, and take a close look at all that New Zealand offers! It’s no secret we find it a fascinating country (enough that we profiled it …
I loved visiting Quebec. Montreal and Quebec City were lovely cities, and they were full of charm. But, they were cities. They had a lot of history evident, but life had moved on. Most parts of the cities were as modern as any other city, and you had to go into the “Old Town” if …