A good backpack can make or break a trip. Drenching rain, language barriers, delayed flights -- you can weather all with humor and go-get-'em attitude. But a good backpack is the foundation upon which your trip rests. It holds your entire life in one place. It protects it. Sometimes you wear it so often it...

“No journey is too great, if you find what you seek” - Anonymous When I was little, I met counselors from all over the world at sleep-away camp. If you told me the ten year old who acquired a koala singlet from her counselor, would later marry an Australian and live down under; I would...

The pile in the back of the closet Petrified, excited, invigorated, exhilarated, daunted...I felt them all in the weeks leading up to my first round the world journey. So many emotions, so little time. All the planning for this idea of taking a hiatus from the everyday was thrilling, yet frightening. From visa applications to...

Whenever anyone asks me why I still travel on a shoestring at the ripe old age of 38, I usually tell them about the time I learned how to play the bagpipes in Havana. Granted, I could probably relate a more typical story about the joys of budget travel - some tidy parable of money...

Last weekend I was in NYC, meeting with Rolf, among other things. It was mentioned, in passing, to a girl I met over dinner one evening and she got so excited: "I've read his book!! It literally changed my life!" She gushed. Her enthusiasm for travel was palpable, and she agreed to let me film...

I am writing from my sleeping bag in the Lima airport, getting ready to go to “bed” for the night on the food court floor. Today starts my two week trip to Peru, and I have an early flight to Cusco in the morning. In some ways I feel prepared (for instance right now I...

I’m a big advocate of getting off the beaten path, but I would agree that there’s nothing wrong with the attractions of the “tourist trail.” These standard attractions—from Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat right on down to small-town museums and curiosities—are part of what inspires people to travel in the first place. So why do...

Southeast Asia is has long been a standard on the backpacking circuit and you’ll be hard pressed to find a country that doesn’t have it’s share of well worn boot tracks between hostels and suggested highlights. Laos is no exception. It is, perhaps, less traversed than Thailand and Vietnam, which sandwich it’s long narrow countryside...

I sat on the porch in the Australian late afternoon sun, shadows stretching long across the grass, cockatoos screaming through the bush canopy, sipping my tea, knitting. My mind wandered as the guys discussed the merits of following our instinct and road tripping right straight up through the red heart of Australia instead of the...

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a first-timer, a travel newbie; everyone has a first time and there is a sweetness in that first trip that you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to recapture. The lessons you learn and the experiences you have will shape your life and your adventures to come and...

Most people will never understand the thrill of being on a stage because, actually, they have never been. That complex array of mixed emotions, gut feeling and embarrassment which sometimes spawns some of the World’s greatest awesomeness may be related to travel in many ways. As I previously wrote , by bringing an instrument on...

Last week, Lindsey Rue’s post on Vagabonding inspired me to reconsider slowing down to enjoy the music from another perspective: the musician’s. I have been a punk rock guitarist for the best part of my twenties, and I have started to love travelling because of the long, inspiring van drives linking venue A to venue...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_yTphvyiPU&ob=av2e When you look over your travel photos, do you linger more on the people shots more than the location pictures? I know I do. It's an experience that's happened to me over and over again. I go to a place excited to see famous landmarks. Yet after the trip, it's the new friends and...

Seems like the ideal setup: you're about to visit a country that one of your friends has already been to. Naturally, you ask your pal for advice on where to go and what to do. What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out. The Tnooz tech travel blog had an article called Why the...

Hostels are a mainstay of the budget travel circuit. Share a dorm room with strangers, shave off a big percentage of your accommodation costs. They do come with some drawbacks however, as this article from The Sydney Morning Herald describes: The problem with staying in hostels . Although for me, the "problem" the author writes...

Pop quiz, hotshot: what are the best travel tips you can share? I'm more comfortable writing stories about other travelers. This time, I was on the other side. Jessica Spiegel, a fellow vagablogger, put me in the hot seat in Budget Traveler Interview: Marcus Sortijas . The piece was displayed on the website CheapTicketLinks ,...

Many Vagablogging readers are familiar with Matt Kepnes, or Nomadic Matt . Kepnes’s website is packed full of information on travel deals, travel tips, travel guides, and loads of interesting travel tales suited to any genre. Now Kepnes has taken the next step and has published his own Ebook. Kepnes’s book is a smooth read....

The New York Times travel section is recently dedicated to covering the Far East: 37 Asian Odysseys . Although the media is dominated by coverage of Japan's natural and nuclear disaster, the rest of the continent is humming along as usual. With booming economies and traditional cultures, Asia has long had a special place in...

"Travel is an education" is something many vagabonders would agree with. Who hasn't come back from a trip filled with new knowledge, new friends, and great stories to tell? The personal finance website Mint.com dedicated a blog post to the venerable gap year: The Gap Year: why taking time off to travel is good The...

Having been on the road a fair bit lately, I naturally find myself in the company of other travelers. Conversation invariably turns toward where we’ve been, where we are going, and a highlights list of some of our most dazzling and death defying experiences on the road. Hoping to bump an earlier flight out of...