The goal of many vagabonders is to blend in with the locals so well that they become invisible. Although the color of our skin sometimes makes that impossible, it's still fun to try. The Life magazine website had a great slideshow called How New Yorkers Can Spot a Tourist . Some of the points are...

Bogotá, Colombia A little self-disclosure: I’m suspicious of people who like to party all the time, and I tend not to travel with those who think the apex of a journey involves getting drunk off your rocker in Cancun or even in some Siberian tavern filled with Russian coal miners. If you put me at...

I uploaded a bunch of recent travel photos to Flickr yesterday, but didn't have the time to type in titles. And until I do, the effect will remain horrible: "DSC_0528" adds nothing to what the photo is trying to convey. Giving titles or captions to your photos allows you to add another layer of interpretation...

Weyto, Ethiopia The waiting, sings Tom Petty, is the hardest part. It is also part of travel. The picture above was taken on the outskirts of Weyto, Ethiopia. The two travelers and I (they were from Israel and Denmark) had just hitched a ride in a Land Cruiser belonging to a condom distributor (it was...

For many of us, travel isn't so much about the destination as it is about the journey. In that spirit, take a look at these 35 breathtaking examples of road photography . Nature is a recurring theme in the photos, with paths snaking away into splendid isolation. "It's great you're traveling by yourself," an American...

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 are absorbed in the most important...

In case you need any more motivation to figure out how to work remotely, here's one more: 50 photos to inspire life as a digital nomad . Of course, having the dream is the easy part. Wishing for something isn't the same as working to get it. If only we had a road map, so...

After 12 days of traveling, I am back home from exploring Thailand. While the surety and comfort of staying in luxury rooms and participating in organized tours isn't the typical life of a vagabonder, one of the best parts of the trip wasn't on the itinerary. Late one morning after rising with the dawn and...

Deir ez-Zur, Syria Children have been a source of many of my favorite travel experiences. They even inspired me to write about them as a reason to travel . But there have been other times, such as when a kid shot me, at point blank range, in the back of the head with a pellet...

As China and America's relationship draws them ever closer together, it was inevitable that some influences would cross borders. UPI had a great photo essay dedicated to this topic: American brands in China . How do you feel when you encounter American brands abroad? My reactions have varied. In Europe, I shunned Starbucks like the...

Mt. LeConte, Great Smoky Mountains National Park "There is little favorable to be said about poverty," wrote Nelson Mandela in his book Long Walk to Freedom , "but it was often an incubator of true friendship." I first read this line (and book) a decade ago, and I remember it sometimes in my moments of...

Damascus, Syria I had seen the ads for television extras in Bangkok hostels, and I had spoken with travelers about their Bollywood background roles in Mumbai. But I had never made an effort to pursue this myself. But last Monday at 9:00 a.m., while stepping out of the hostel to buy a bottle of water...

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...

Damascus, Syria Yes, it is the last in my five-part series on the senses, and this post will address the fact that we vagabonders smell. We do sometimes have an odor about us, especially after a long day in the tropical or desert heat, but what often stands out more are the other things we...

East Jerusalem It was one of those blow-in-the-solarplexis travel moments. I had just been robbed, and among the loss were interviews and notes from Tibet, a camera, and more than $1300 in cash. This happened in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2004, and I remember keenly the anguish I felt, almost as if someone had ripped a...

Bangkok, Thailand Most of us have tongues, and we keep them for the duration of our lives. There are exceptions to this, unfortunately, including the 300 individuals in Cairo who had their tongues cut out by Sultan Baybars al-Jashankir about 700 years ago (he didn't like their political humor). But the average reader of this...

Cairo, Egypt Most of us travel with eyes capable of absorbing the scenes around us. Part of why we travel is to see. We travel to see the incredible landscape of the planet -- the sunrise at Mount Everest, perhaps, which leaves you in awe, or, lower to the ground, the simple peacock standing in...

Cairo, Egypt The train rattling down the track as you lay awake in a sleeper car; the call to prayer sounding from a mosque as tropical birds outside your window also welcome the dawn; your name, so uneventfully and mono-syllabically said back home, suddenly turned into a two-syllable masterpiece by a cheerful lady at Lake...

Ko Phangan, Thailand Seldom is there just one reason why a person travels, a point Colin Thubron eloquently makes in the opening pages of his Shadow of the Silk Road : Sometimes a journey arises out of hope and instinct, the heady conviction, as your finger travels along the map: Yes, here and here…and here....

Bangkok, Thailand It is 8:00 p.m. in Cairo and I've just crawled out of bed to tend to this blog. I have a fever and am feeling pretty darn miserable. My creativity feels stunted and, given that all I want to do right now is lay back down with the blanket pulled over me, I...