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“Writing travel pieces from your own backyard is difficult. For a start it’s a masquerade. You can’t look through fresh eyes and nothing much comes as a surprise. I display far more prejudice and a far shorter temper toward the folk over the garden wall than the ones I encounter over the ocean.” –A.A. Gill, AA Gill is Away (2003)
One of the most common questions any vagabonder has to answer is “what route will I take?” The number of requests for feedback on a person’s RTW itinerary on the BootsnAll travel message boards is staggering, especially after so many years of relatively similar questions being answered already. But if a RTW trip is something you don’t plan to do more than once in your life, it’s important to put some thought into the … Read more »
The North Coast of the Dominican Republic is known for adventure travel and wide expanses of undeveloped beaches. It’s also known as La Costa Ámbar, or the Amber Coast. That doesn’t mean the beach sand or the picturesque sunsets are more amber-colored than other Caribbean islands. This area is a large source of the world’s amber, second only to the Baltic region.
Dominican amber can … Read more »
Traveling alone can be a rush. You don’t have that cocoon of familiarity if you travel with friends, which can insulate you from the experience. You’re free to come and go as you please. Want to spend the whole day sightseeing? Want to spend the whole day at a coffee shop reading a book? You can! There’s no one to argue with you.
That being said, traveling alone can be . . . lonely. Luckily, … Read more »
This past week, the 34th session of the World Heritage Committee met in Brasília, Brazil to discuss the additions and changes to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
A total of 21 new sites have been inscribed, including 15 cultural and 5 natural properties. Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Tajikistan are the newest members of the list of UNESCO countries. Some cultural highlights are;
Australian Convict Sites … Read more »
Here’s a question for the serial vagabonds out there, or at least folks who’ve made two or more trips abroad: What draws you back to the road?
I’m curious about the actual, specific behaviors that motivate you to buy yet another plane ticket. Call them activities, pursuits, hobbies, favorite pastimes, things to do, whatever. Please be truthful, even if you have to be anonymous.
Some examples: Eating local … Read more »
Ko Phangan, Thailand
In one of the final pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the main character is speaking to a group of boys and encouraging them to harness the present moment in a way that will guide them in the future. He says, “And whether you … Read more »
Want to run away and live in a sustainable treehouse community? Go to Finca Bellavista in Costa Rica.
You can build your own stilthouse or other “arboreal dwelling”, as long as it abides by the community guidelines, which include such things as small square-footage structures, getting rid of waste through a compact biodigestor, and being attached to the community SkyTrail zipline pathways. It’s located six miles from the Golfo Dulce coast as the … Read more »
On August 29th 2005, almost 5 years ago, hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of North America. It’s hard to believe that so much time has gone by, as the people of the area are still recovering from the disaster.
In 2007 I took a sprawling North American road trip that landed me in New Orleans, a city very dear to me, for a period of several weeks to volunteer with the recovery effort. … Read more »
“If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest — in all its ardor and paradoxes — than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside of the constraints of work and of the struggle for survival. Yet rarely are they considered to present philosophical problems — that is, issues requiring thought beyond the … Read more »