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Lisa Alpine’s book Exotic Life: Laughing Rivers, Dancing Drums, and Tangled Hearts is a sprawling anthology of 19 travel tales. Alpine is an inspiration to women travelers everywhere. She fearlessly wanders through one obscure destination after the other, leaving her complete trust in the experience. She answers that timeless question – Can solo women travelers really go there? … Read more »
“The heroic is no longer compelling. There are few places under the sun that cannot be found with the help of global positioning technology. Almost anyone can get to the top of a remote glacier and send a photo home via satellite phone. Travel, and travel literature, used to be about being the first person to do or see something; it is increasingly about being the last to chronicle a shrinking wilderness or witness a … Read more »
Round the world trips have retained their catchy moniker over the years, even though many people on RTW trips don’t actually go around the world in one continuous loop (especially if they cleverly booked a multi-stop ticket that doesn’t require movement in only one direction). This can make planning an itinerary easier, as you can travel to exactly the destinations you want in the order you want.
And if the idea of taking little “breaks” … Read more »
We all have them, whether it’s the extra time we could have spent in a destination, or bringing far too much gear on our travels. Many times, travel regrets don’t stick with us for very long after we return home. When they do, they can be a lesson for future trips.
One of my biggest travel regrets took place in Peru. I was in a … Read more »
Blazing-fast Internet has become commonplace in Asia. Japan and South Korea frequently rank as the most wired countries in the world. Singapore is looking to boost its broadband infrastructure too, according to this NY Times article: Singapore gets wired for speed.
John, an Australian expat friend of mine, just moved into a new apartment near Tokyo. When John got Internet installed, he settled for a 200 megabit per second connection. There was a waiting … Read more »
The technology explosion of the last ten years has made the dramatic growth of vagabonding possible.
For as long as we have roamed the earth, there have always been those who view the open road a little more wistfully. Great adventurers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and James Cook needed the coffers of kings in order to explore the world. Expeditions often required dozens of hired … Read more »
If you believe what you read here on the Interwebs, the path to travel salvation is through a Wi-Fi connection. The Ultimate Setup is to be location independent, a digital nomad, with the freedom to go anywhere you want, at any time, while the PayPal payments roll in. Your laptop will set you free.
But what happened to being an analog nomad? An analog nomad is location dependent. You go where the work is.
Take … Read more »
This self-printed slim volume is a series of twenty-two short vignette-y articles written by Mr. Leonard, a British visitor to San Luis Obispo, California for several months at the end of 2009. The stories are interspersed with photos — including one of the disgusting “Chewinggum Alley”, which I know from experience actually makes you dry-heave — and the sort of aggressively witty … Read more »
One thing you might notice rather quickly after arriving in Korea is the bounty of ginseng available seemingly everywhere. Dried ginseng leaves have found their way into many popular teas across North America and experienced quite a boom. In this form the effects of ginseng are considerably milder, and it is certainly a much watered-down experience of the … Read more »
“We’ve forgotten the benefit of surface travel: It forces you to understand, deep in your bones, the distance you’ve covered; and it gradually eases you into a new context that exists not only outside your body, but inside your head.” –Seth Stevenson, Grounded (2010)