I leave Bangkok with nothing more than the name of a town and the hope that I will get there to the mountain where a temple and monastery sit uniquely in Thailand’s interior. I only know about the monastery in the mountains because a shifty British expat using a fake name, sitting outside a 7…
On my second night in Thailand, second night of Songkran, I meet up with legendary travel writer Joe Cummings. He’s the original author of Lonely Planet Thailand, and one of the most notable living nomads breathing today. Having left my ATM card and running low on cash at the bar, I follow advice Bruce Northam…
There is nothing easy about the plane from New York to my connection in Oslo. I don’t mind long plane rides, actually find the limbo of transportation liberating. When else can you read a novel cover-to-cover or spend five uninterrupted hours learning phrases in the language of your destination? But this time, I feel the…
At the start of this year I felt good about everything. I felt like I was not only sucking the marrow from life, but crunching on its bones. I was struggling less to support myself as a writer, I’d begun corresponding with editors of majors magazine who seemed interested in my work, had that new…
This is painful to write. Both figuratively and physically. According to my itinerary, I fly to Asia in a week. This untrodden part of the world has been a dream of mine for–well, like forever., and this year was the year I planned to fulfil it. But some recent health problems have thrown a wrench…
It used to be possible only in the realm of science fiction and Hollywood, but beginning today, Intrepy Tours, a Montreal-based tour company is offering travelers the opportunity to travel to the center of the earth in a specially made vehicle capable of entering a volcano, traveling through the crust, past the mantle, through the…
I believe that every guy needs a female friend in his life who says yes to statements like, “Do you want to go out on the town tonight wearing Gorilla masks?” Conventional wisdom said it was impossible. I simply wasn’t attractive enough. Common sense said it would never be. These types of things simply didn’t…
I knew there was something special about Fiji that moment I tasted its water. Not that it was more watery than other water I had had, but the fact that human beings found a way to monetize bringing water from around the world to sell for twice the price of the local water made me…
It’s never easy to leave the place you’ve chosen to call home. But if there’s a sign to look for from the universe that serves as confirmation that it’s time to go, then I’d say a neat pile of shit logs and a puddle of piss on your bedspread on your penultimate night in Antigua,…
