Bonjour, and greetings from the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia. I’m sitting at the food court of the airport writing this. my flight doesn’t leave for another twelve and a half hours, but I’m at the airport for good reason. My hotel for the night was within walking distance of the airport. I took …
Any guilt I had about leaving Tahiti earlier than I planned melted away the moment Rarotonga appeared in the window of the plane. Geology Like all Pacific islands, Rarotonga was created via vulcanism. You can think of islands on a continuum from the Big Island of Hawaii down to coral atolls. The Big Island is …
Tomorrow I’m off to Milford Sound. The place which is usually rated the #1 attraction in New Zealand. I hope I get good weather. I decided to stay in Queenstown and take a tour bus to the Sound, rather than drive. Once gas and everything was factored in, I was about the same just staying …
Instead of leaving Maui before schedule, I’m going to be staying a few days longer so I can get my SCUBA certification in. The best I could do was a class that starts on Wednesday and ends on Friday. Today (Tuesday) I’m going to drive down the Hana coast and take photos and read my …
I did my first two SCUBA dives today. It was pretty cool except for two things: 1) I can’t handle changes in pressure very well. We didn’t go down that far (about 20 feet) and my ears were killing me. They still seem a bit plugged up. 2) My face mask seemed like it was …
I’ve been extremely fortunate traveling. In over five years traveling in over 100 countries, I have never been robbed, mugged or even had anything stolen in my hotel room. Cross my fingers, I’ll be able to keep this streak going indefinitely. That being said, I try not to do anything that will get me in …
I often read advice from a lot of “travel experts” on how people should travel. After 5 years of non-stop travel I’ve realized that I break most of the conventional wisdom that people believe in when it comes to traveling. Here are 9 ways I don’t follow conventional travel wisdom. Some are things I probably …
I’m a big fan of Spotify. It is one of the few streaming media apps that I can use from anywhere in the world. They have also recently made it possible to embed playlists. I figured I should take advantage of this new feature to publish the list of travel songs I’ve collected on Spotify. …
I get asked this question so frequently, I figured I should write about it. I try to avoid talking about politics because I think there are things in the world so much more important and interesting. Also, lets face it, you can only end up pissing people off when you talk about politics. This post …