Cost: 80 euros/day

To the casual wine aficiando it may come as a surprise to learn that that most elegant of all wine regions, Champagne, lies only a hour train ride from the Paris city center. In what Hemingway described as “grace under pressure” I took this staggering news in stride, pulled myself together and boarded the Champagne Express which runs like clockwork from Paris to Epernay, the epicenter of bubbly.

Epernay looks exactly as … Read more »

Do we really need to scrupulously record our travels in this decade?  After reading this article on packing a “multimedia backpack,” I am confused: as much as the suggestions are important, do we really need to “go forth and journalize”?  Possibly yes. Most traveler types dream to earn a living by doing what they love: visiting far flung destinations, meeting different people and exploring alien cultures. It is indeed very inspiring … Read more »

Don’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

Seriously, you’ve got what it takes. It will take everything you have, but you’ve got it. Don’t be afraid to dream. Big.

I think we all feel … Read more »

“What do I bring?” is a vexing question that most first-time expats face. You don’t want to bring something and carry it when you could just buy it on the ground. On the flip side, you don’t want to be stuck without an item you really need.

Nick and Tim from The Elevator Life, a video blog for young Western expat entrepreneurs in China, made this video:

Some of … Read more »

“Now I live here, another island, that doesn’t seem like one, but who decides? My blood was full of them; my brain bred islands. But that archipelago has petered out. I’m old. I’m bored, too, drinking my real tea, surrounded by uninteresting lumber. The knife there on the shelf — it reeked of meaning, like a crucifix. It lived. How many years did I beg it, implore it, not to break? I knew each nick … Read more »

So you’ve made the decision to go on an extended, round the world trip.  You fought through the naysayers and are making your dream come true.

Now what?

Often people get stuck immediately after making that decision.  It all seems so daunting at first.  You have so many questions. Where should you begin when planning your RTW trip?

How am I going to afford this? How do I figure out how much this … Read more »

Although it has been written extensively about at Vagabonding before, now is my turn to bash on the post-travel blues, even if technically I am still travelling. It did not take more than three days into Europe – its Eastern part, possibly the most interesting and culturally diverse – to get “the blues” kicking in. I am almost back “home”, and I already feel like a real tourist pushed onto the umpteenth open … Read more »

Who doesn’t like getting a postcard in the mail? With the overwhelming evolution of technology, the act of putting pen to paper almost seems old-fashion. Words have the same definition whether typed or scrolled by hand. But handwriting can reveal clues about an individuals personality where digital text lacks that touch.

  Years ago I discovered a … Read more »

There’s a great quote by the writer Mark Twain that goes:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Gavin Aung Than, a freelance illustrator in Melbourne, Australia memorably brought those words to life in this web comic on Zen Pencils: … Read more »

“On the highway to Toledo [Spain] we passed several tour buses full of what looked like Americans, digital cameras already in hand, and as we drew past them I expressed infinite disdain, which I could easily do with my eyebrows, for every tourist whose gaze I met. My look accused them of supporting the war, of treating people and the relations between people like things, of being the lemmings of a murderous and spectacular empire, … Read more »