Picture credit: Flickr/ United Nations Photo When I moved to Asia in 2007, I was still tied under the wheels of the Machine, back home. Everything I was doing, experiencing, and trying to translate into a piece of writing, or any other form of “artistic text”, I did so with the wish that someone, back...

Location Independence is a concept that has exploded over the past few years. With the rapid expansion of the internet, all of a sudden, there are possibilities that didn’t exist, even a decade and a half ago. Travel has long sung her siren song in the hearts of many arm chair gypsies and now many...

picture credit: Flickr/ niallkennedy I stumbled upon a list of the most popular travel sites in the world and ended up reading this post from Nomadic Matt, rated as number one: apparently, he is not “nomadic” anymore, as he has settled down in New York City. Crawling back to the other links embedded in the...

The question has been asked lots of times: What do you have in your health kit? First, let me say that we have a three pronged approach to healthcare, at home and abroad: staying well, and treating illness & emergency care. I’ll share what we carry with us for all three. Staying Well This includes...

“Yes, we can just try to do it in about ten days.” It is a strange feeling dawning on me when I realize I AM the object of the conversation. It has been said quite a few times on Vagabonding before, how the ten days holiday can be a step towards the opening of the...

This is my gift to all the lovers – and all the others, too - on this Valentine’s Day: “Culture is public because meaning is. You can’t wink (or burlesque one) without knowing what counts as winking or how, physically, to contract your eyelids, and you can’t conduct a sheep raid (or mimic one) without...

I've been spending a lot of time uncomfortable in Indonesia this month. I confess to being a bit burnt out, a bit gritchy about the things I generally have a sense of humor about (taxi drivers and touts at the top of the list). We flew to Bali for some R&R and to eat our...

I think it is never too late or too biased to try spending a few words on the travel writing subject, as this still constitutes an activity that many vagabonds fancy to help substantiate their living on the run. Since I started writing for Vagabonding one year ago, I have more and more delved into...

It was 2010 and I had been working and traveling in Asia for three years filled to the brim with excitement, discoveries and cultural experiences into the ‘Other’. Time was going slow, and it was a good sign: I learnt that when you start feeling that you have more time than you can handle, it...

A young friend of mine is posting elated pictures from Amsterdam, and two days later, from Dubai. She’s just graduated from Berklee School of Music in Boston, no slouch accomplishment, and she’s treating herself to a couple of weeks of travel. The joy in her journey is palpable in the photos she’s posting. Of course...

With the New Year upon us, thoughts naturally turn to new beginnings, the continuation of the adventure and living the next phase with intentionality and purpose. For those of us with tendencies toward the vagabond life, may I suggest three resolutions to guide your journey? From my family, on the fringe of the jungles of...

As my last Vagabonding contribution for year 2012 – and I am glad to say that it has been a great pleasure and a serious commitment, guys – I decided to comment on an interesting article I found here . The author, classifying himself as one of the “New Rich” theorized by Timothy Ferriss’ famous...

Whe n it is almost time to feel like a dork again in a cold-less, atmosphere-less Malaysian Christmas on the beach, I found some interesting ideas to help other travelers make this day a worthwhile one in terms of gifts. This list gives nine good and fun suggestions to fill up some stockings and make...

This year we’re celebrating Christmas in Borneo. Last year we were on Cape Cod, in the USA, the year before that, Guatemala, the year before that, Canada, the year before that found us in Tunisia, camped in the cold on the edge of the ocean of sand. One of the most interesting parts of our...

Usually, vagabonding starts with a separation from our previous existences made up of obligations, 9 to 5 routines and homely surroundings. After the liberation, always generally, someone storms off to a different corner of the globe, makes experiences, meets people, open his perspectives and spends his hard earned money. And always usually, when this hard...

I love sitting in the common room of a youth hostel, or on the deck of a boat sliding down a jungle river swapping stories with other travelers. I love the light in the eyes of that girl who’s just had her first real adventure and lived to tell about it. I love the excited...

“But you’re just going to leave!” Although I hated to admit it, who said that was right. At the time I’d been seasonally migrating as a guide for four years. And had no intention to confine my adventurous spirit in domestic American life, then—if ever. The catch though was he was not American; Swedish born...

Recently I have been intrigued by something travel writer Tom Coote said on his website about the quest for authenticity in travel: “ The concept of authenticity has largely been appropriated as yet another way to persuade gullible tourists to part with their hard earned cash. If you really want to get to know a...

Lonely Planet guidebooks have inevitably become the kind of extra weight I rarely want to put in my backpack anymore. Why? Because they lead a traveler to the same ol’ tired paths everybody else is going to: a kind of one way ticket for jaded travel entertainment made up of bars, guesthouses and a bunch...

Growing up in the Midwest, my Thanksgiving was the traditional spread of turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie, devoured at a relative’s home in suburban Chicago. But I grew up to be an inveterate traveler and spent the holiday in many places—one of the best was the historic, colorful Belgian city of Bruges. Several years ago...