Over my years on the road, several times I have found myself circling back to the Land of the Long White Cloud (a common nickname and translation for Aotearoa, the Maori name for the country). New Zealand is a country best known to some as Middle Earth (yet another fun fact and a nickname given …
There’s nothing more that I love than some good trivia and those fascinating tidbits that make every country I’ve visited truly unique. And so, my arrival in the Czech Republic means not only a new country for me, but a new installment of “8 Facts,” where I share the most interesting things that have happened …
Hawaii is a U.S state that conjures up so many different images for people. It’s a vacation destination filled with luaus, leis, and beaches. It’s a fascinating set of islands with active volcanoes, unparalleled biodiversity, lush tropical rainforests, and eight national parks. During my many years of traveling the world, Hawaii a place I’ve always …
Canada is one of my favorite countries and a place I have extensively explored during my more than a decade of world travels. Many of my trips have focused on visiting and recording every single one of Canada’s 20 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but I’ve also dedicated many trips to visiting every province and every …
After a surprisingly pleasant five-hour ferry ride from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, I arrived on the shores of Newfoundland. Labrador and Newfoundland is one of Canada’s four Atlantic provinces, and it drips with beauty largely thanks to its location on the Atlantic Ocean. This is an interesting place with an interesting history. Here are some …
The Canary Islands are a unique part of Spain. Geographically part of Africa and politically part of Europe, this small island chain is unlike anywhere where else in Spain or the EU. In addition to being different from the rest of Spain, the islands are all different from each other as well—sometimes having radically different …
My travels to Las Vegas over the years have usually been for a conference—something the city is well equipped to handle given its infrastructure. Most recently, at Blog World Expo I spoke on the subject of “Travel Porn,” and it got me thinking that it was high time we cover some “fact porn” about one …
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 …
When I began traveling non-stop in 2007, it took me years to finally visit South America. There was no particular reason why it took me so long, I just never got around to it. However when I landed in Quito, Ecuador for my first trip to the Galapagos Islands, it marked the beginning of more exploration …