I have a serious question this week. It centers around our motivations for travel. I’ve been asking this question a lot lately and am really intently listening for answers. Why do you travel? No really, not the surface, “I need a break, I wanna see something different,” answers. WHY do you travel? What does it...

Cost/day: $50 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? After haggling over a hat with a friendly saleswoman, I stumbled upon an alley where old women sat in plastic chairs, clutching their purses and negotiating currency exchange with passing foreigners. Black market? Perhaps, but I don't think even the police could rouse these women from...

Cost/day : $30 (includes camping permit and food hiked in) What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? The fact that people are living out here for years at a time is pretty strange/amazing. Kalalau has permanent residents, even a "mayor," hidden throughout the valley. These people grow just about everything they need to live on,...

Cost/day: $45/day-room, $10 per class, average $10 per meal What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? The coconuts here!! The coconuts here are magic coconuts. I am staying at the Sanctuary Resort on Koh Phangan and, here, the coconut water inside of them is green. It comes with spirulina and all kinds of grasses already...

As a fan of great museums, England, and historical stuff in general, I’m excited about a brand new museum that has just opened this week. Located in the historic dockyard of Portsmouth on England’s picturesque south coast, the Mary Rose Museum houses the sixteenth-century hulk of the HMS Mary Rose, the pride of Henry VIII’s...

Cost/day: $65/day What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? The strangest thing had to be the view looking down at the tree tops when doing a superman over them. The superman zip lines were over a mile long through the mountains and they provided a uniquely strange – but amazing – experience. Describe a typical...

Cost/day: $20 What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? We were on a seven hour train ride from Banyuwangi to Surabaya, and just about every imaginable Indonesian product was being hawked on this train. Fried rice, hot soup, live music, live animals...I was thisclose to buying a bird with a 6 inch beak protruding from...

What would you do if you were not afraid? That is the question I asked myself a few years ago when my husband and children wanted to ride their bicycles from Alaska to Argentina. And when I got really honest with myself, I had to admit that, if I wasn’t afraid, I would go with...

There seems to be an interesting trend starting in the theatre world, one which has history lovers and travel addicts like me very, very intrigued. Theatrical companies are facing declining audiences as many now flock to the more realistic experiences of the modern digitally-enhanced blockbuster, and they have been forced to get creative in their...

If you want to achieve your dream, you will need to stop making excuses and start marching. Excuses are your worst enemy. It's easy to sit around, blaming others or your circumstances. It's easy to wallow in that pity party, thinking that "they" are preventing you from living your dream life. But really - will...

Picture credit: Flickr/ ubuntunewsru When I get to know that such horrors still happen despite all of the effort we make to keep this world a fairer place, I feel very sad inside. However, there is really no one to blame. And I want to be as far as I can from using this space...

Cost/day: About $80 per day (hostel, portion of car rental, food/drinks). What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? There are animals roaming free everywhere. Sheep hopping from rock to rock, horses walking out in front of your car, birds dive-bombing you when you’re walking. Of course, the entire landscape of Iceland is strange and other-worldly....

I did not have a “normal” childhood. I was born to parents who lived in an 11x22 ft. log cabin on the back side of a lake with no road, electricity or running water. My first meat, through a baby food grinder was black bear. My earliest memories are of trapping turtles with my Dad...

There are many wonderful aspects of being a long term perpetual traveler. There are dozens of names for them – digital nomad , lifestyle design , location independent , world wanderer - but they are all basically names for the same thing: a person who travels the world with no plans to ever settle down...

There is a common trait among us travelers regarding the seasons: With the onset of spring, thoughts turn to traveling. It’s in our DNA. This can pose a conundrum for us, since another trait of the inveterate traveler is difficulty with deciding where to go next with limited resources (and they are always limited).This can...

“You’re so brave,” a friend said. “How do you overcome fear?” We, as humans, have this tendency to build up the unknown into some kind of great big monster out to slay us. We look ahead into the vast expanse of indefinite spread out before us and see it as something too big, too immense...

Ten years ago this month, when I was touring around the United States promoting my then-recently released book Vagabonding , I handed out stickers that featured the letters "VGB" in a little white oval (not unlike the international license plate "country code" sticker one might see on cars in Europe). The purpose of the sticker,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2il712ZRKvA Hey guys, after writing over 200 blog posts in 5 years, I'll be leaving vagablogging. It's been an awesome ride. I still remember getting excited at seeing the "Call to Writers" back in 2008 and applying. Totally thought my "Marcus Goes Global" blog wouldn't qualify me, so I was pleasantly surprised to get the...

Cost/day: $50-70 a day What's the strangest thing you've seen lately? The collective depression of San Francisco’s denizens after their beloved 49’ers lost a thrilling Superbowl against the Baltimore Raven’s was a strange and unfortunate phenomenon to witness. Red-clad, boozed and bleary eyed folk sat in the few bars that bothered to stay open, mumbling...

As I have been warmly received by many Couchsurfers in many countries during my past overland trip from Asia to Europe, I decided to re-list myself as “maybe available” on the website. I do not want to start arguing how the site has turned corporate and blah blah blah – and how its alternative, BeWelcome,...