This article is the fifth in a series of posts explaining how to bring your music on the road and get to travel with it. Read the series’ introduction , Post#1 , Post # 2 , Post #3 , Post #4 , Post #5 and Post #6 . After a few posts explaining and suggesting...

(CP> I'm preparing for my next trip overseas, so this month I decided to share a trip I took in 2010, as part of the Mongol Rally . If you're looking for an irreverent race that is challenging, yet incredibly fun, check it out.) Cost/day: ~$40/day (food / gas) What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen...

(Border, SD) "Wait - you're moving where?" CP: "South Dakota" "Why would you ever move there?" CP: "Well..." Cost/day: ~$30/day (food / gas / fun) What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately? When I turned off the Interstate and into Rapid City, I saw (and promptly ignored) a speed limit sign stating 25 mph. Seconds...

On the left, just inside the main door of the Lund Cathedral is a wooden astronomical clock built around 1424. Tangled within a euphoric stare five years earlier, I’d marveled at the intricate details, inhaled the aged wood, and relished the silence which filled the air. The experience rooted such a vivid impression that I’d...

Cost/day: $55/day Admittedly - I'm cheating a bit. I'm off the road for 2-3 months, so this was a day trip from Philly. If you stay longer, careful planning (couch-surfing, travel deals) will keep your lodging costs reasonable. As for fun - well, you just need to look around for it. What’s the strangest thing...

Last week I talked about road trips; but another more eco-friendly way, with a hint of old-fashioned charm, is to travel by train. Check out more reasons. The World Train Travel Guide provides a break down, by continent, and has up-to-date news and deals. If you’re interested in exploring the U.S.A., the direct Amtrak site...

Cost/day: $0.8/day Guyana isn’t really that cheap. However, if you’re creative and have some skills, anything is possible. I worked at Dadanawa Cattle Ranch for two and a half months in exchange for food and board. Most of my money went towards toiletries, insect repellant and beer. Being frugal was easy because the nearest town...

A decade ago gas was 98 cents a gallon. I took a three month sabbatical from my job, rolled down the windows, cranked up the song “ Life is a Highwa y” and with my dog riding shot gun, hit the open road. “Do it while your young.” people kept saying me. I skipped stones...

Many moons ago I was flown to the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica to evaluate a business plan for horse tours on a 2,024 hectare family owned ranch. It has mangroves, jungle, two river estuaries and 3.5 km of undeveloped shoreline. The family was in the beginning stages of protecting a good chunk of that...

Before you decide to get a tattoo from one of the many long haired, rasta-looking Thai men in the foreigner-inking business during a holiday in Thailand, think twice. There are enormous differences between the design you are going to get, and the rigid ink lines we can sometime spot etching a Thai person’s skin, spurting...

Here's an exciting film for vagabonders: it's about 7 billion people, 24 hours, and one planet. Check out the trailer: https://vimeo.com/26378195 From the official description: ONE DAY ON EARTH creates a picture of humanity by recording a 24-hour period throughout every country in the world. We explore a greater diversity of perspectives than ever seen...

Cairo, Egypt “Spirit,” wrote the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber , “is not in the I but between I and you.” He wrote this in a 1923 essay translated into English as I and Thou . Here’s another line from the essay: “Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into...

Cairo, Egypt Part of the totality of a place is its politics, and in long-term travel you'll likely pass through a variety of political landscapes that affect the lives of the people who call a place home. The Egyptian man above, for example, challenged the legitimacy of his President's 30-year-old rule and on February 2...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a slideshow is worth a novel. Nomadz.nu, a partnership of two Belgian women, created this excellent presentation: Don't be rich, live rich - one year on the road - the good and the bad . This would work well as an "orientation" film for new vagabonders...

Bethlehem, Palestine On Sunday, CBS's 60 Minutes aired film footage of San Francisco in 1906 . The footage, taken by a camera attached to a cable car going down Market Street, is less than 12 minutes long, and it is mesmerizing in a way a still photo cannot be. We see bodies moving, faces moving,...

Ba Chuc, Vietnam Ba Chuc , a Vietnamese community in the Mekong Delta, sits just across the border from Cambodia. In April 1978, Khmer Rouge soldiers entered the village from Cambodia and massacred 3,157 men, women, and children—almost the entire population. Today the skulls of the victims are on display in an outdoor memorial. Statistics,...

Lahore, Pakistan Anyone who travels will commit a cultural error from time to time. But generally speaking, if you want to err in such a way that a national uproar will ensue, it helps to be famous. Take the case of Princess Diana’s 1991 visit to Lahore, Pakistan. Lahore, the Pakistani cultural capital, is home...

Chiang Khong, Thailand It was seven years ago this week that a Honda dealership in Mae Sai , the northernmost town in Thailand, begrudgingly rented me a motorbike for the day. “We don’t want to do this,” the woman at the counter said, since it wasn’t profitable for them, but she also said that thanks...

Hat Yai, Thailand Hat Yai is known as southern Thailand's transportation hub and sex capital. But too few know it has the West Side Saloon , where bartenders and waitstaff are dressed in cowboy gear, serving jovial customers -- mostly Malaysians who've hopped across the border for a short holiday -- as a band plays...

Kanchanaburi, Thailand The photo above, which shows a gravestone belonging to one of the nearly 7,000 Allied POWs buried at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery in Thailand, illustrates the difficulty we have in making sense of tragedy. Last week two talented photojournalists, Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington , were killed in the Libyan city of Misrata....