New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud, is full of epic mountain vistas, rolling green hillside, and azure colored lakes. New Zealand respects their land, and rare ecosystem more than any other country I've visited. Overall, New Zealand is hands down one of the most beautiful countries in the entire world. Here are...

As travelers, we often find ourselves talking to friends and strangers alike at parties, at work, wherever, about travel and how to do it right. We evangelize for travel, extolling its opportunities and benefits. We often go on at length about the magic of our favorite places, the addictive high that comes from filling up...

Every now and then long-term travel is rough. The lifestyle of never remaining in one city or continent for more than a few months requires commitment and sacrifice. Traveling alone means experiencing days and occasionally weeks without making friends and starting over in a new place can seem tedious. When this happens, travelers often feel...

In a way, simplifying your life for vagabonding is easier than it sounds. This is because travel by its very nature demands simplicity. If you don’t believe this, just go home and try stuffing everything you own into a backpack. This will never work, because no matter how meagerly you live at home, you can’t...

“What If” - two powerful words that potentially stop travelers with crippling fear. It is natural to worry about the possibilities of being stranded alone in a city where you don’t speak the language, having your passport stolen, or missing a train and spending the night on the street. However, to allow these “What If’s”...

“Last night while I lay thinking here, some WHAT IFS crawled inside my ear and pranced and partied all night long and sang their same old WHAT IF song: WHAT IF I’m dumb in school? WHAT IF they’ve closed the swimming pool? WHAT IF I get beat up? WHAT IF there’s poison in my cup?...

(Working on Trinity) As you may have guessed from the photo above, the situation with Trinity went further downhill from my last post. Here's the video I shot at the end of a very long day - when it was clear that Trinity just wasn't going to make it home. (Click image to watch video)...

(Overheated near Barstow.) Well folks - a small change in plans! I was going to do a different type of post this week and upload a video of some gorgeous canyons that I rode through in Arizona. Alas it isn't to be. First, I'm can't find an Internet connection with a decent upload rate. More...

(Camping in Siberia) Earlier this year, I rode a Ural motorcycle and sidecar through Siberia, up 1800km of ice roads and ending in the Arctic Circle. It was one hell of a journey which taught me how to survive in extreme sub-zero temperatures. More importantly, it expanded my limits and showed me what I was...

I awoke, this morning, thinking about our journey and the excitement of being home for a few months. I opened my eyes to messages of love and daily life from people around the world, fellow travelers, as well as those who never leave home and I realized, again, just how thankful I am for the...

(Riding past the Guadalupe Mountains) I was planning to write about learning to throw axes during my last trip to Toronto. About how it reminded me to get out of my head and flow in the moment. That the moment I started laughing, that's exactly what would happen and my throws became more accurate. I'll...

(Working on this article in Austin - Vintage Heart Cafe) My last couple of articles have been a bit higher-level ( How lessons I learned while traveling have helped me through family tragedy and Becoming a better person via the kindness of strangers ). Today, though, I've decided to post something much more tactical -...

(The family we met in Siberia - one of the most memorable nights of the entire trip.) Last week, I heard that a friend of mine had been in a serious motorcycle accident in Bali. A serious accident - broken ribs, fractured pelvis, collapsed lung. He wrote about the experience - about his injuries, about...

While this is my story, I'm sharing it because we all have family and those that we love. When we least expect it, tragedies happen and the skills that we hone while traveling can be invaluable in getting us through. Camping in Siberia en route to the Arctic Circle (-43C) Truth is - this year...

Just how extensively you should prepare yourself before vagabonding is a topic of much debate among travelers. Many experienced vagabonders believe that less preparation is actually better in the long run. The naturalist John Muir used to say that the best way to prepare for a trip was to “throw some tea and bread into...

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...

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...

We travel a lot, you might have noticed that. Wherever we go we meet people and we’ve always had a family habit of inviting those people to eat a meal with us, even if it’s off foldable plates on a ground tarp because we’re cycling. I love listening to people’s stories, learning about their journeys...

Last week I shared five things that life and travel are teaching me. This week, I’d like to share five more... 1. To figure it out There is nothing like having everything go to perdition on a far off continent when you don’t speak the language. In epic ways: like the stock market crashing and...

It is raining this morning, and I am sick. It’s one of those mornings where I long for a bathtub and a big fluffy bed and endless documentary television to while away a day when I’m too icky to do anything else. Instead, I’m tucked up in my little cave bed with my second cup...