What I noticed first were the hands. Heavy, no-nonsense, working hands. Hands that lift and carry and squeeze. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little and even flirting with political incorrectness, but it’s what I remember. As we moved…
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What are you craving? Mountains? No problem. Ocean? Atlantic or Mediterranean? Take your pick. Or are you more of a city person? Start with Paris, or maybe quieter Lyon. Like to drink straight from the grape? Then head to Champagne…
From afar Vang Vieng looked like any number of small towns in Laos. Dramatic limestone cliffs framed the sunset as we dropped into the karst canyon from the north. We took a mini bus into town from the main…
We entered Punjab via Amritsar near the Pakistani border, heading south from mountainous Himachal Pradesh. We’d just spent almost a month exploring areas near Ladakh in the Jammu and Kashmir state and ten days meditating in a vipassana. By now we thought we had…
Picture two round, sweaty, shirtless men, partly bald with smug (if not evil) grins plastered onto their cartoonish faces. Excuse me, stupid, cartoonish faces. They’ve come to roll down their car window, smile at us and savor in our frustration.…
Some would say that entering China is like stepping back in time. Others would say it’s like stepping into the future. Whatever it is, it’s captivating, confusing, incredible and sometimes overwhelming. It’s a place of superlatives. You love it…
There’s nothing quite like that moment. It’s early in the morning and you’re sore from the previous day’s hike. You unzip your tent, a rush of fresh air hits you and you see a view that makes you forget…
There are some faces that are impossible to forget. You cross paths with a stranger from a different world for a split second and sometimes they never leave you, burned into your memory. Today I’m thinking about that woman…
“This ain’t Manhattan.” “Yea, they’re not gonna stop.” The words felt harsh and the faces looked unwelcoming. I was in the middle of trying to wave down a cab in a neighborhood out by JFK airport. “What should I…
The Silk Road: where Russia, the Middle East, China, Turkey and Eastern Europe collide in the most beautiful way. Travelling through China to Kyrgyzstan I saw faces that blended ethnicities in ways I’d never seen. Where else can you find Chinese…
I couldn’t tell if my sleeping bag was wet or just damp, but I was too tired to care. My whole body ached. When I lay down flat each vertebrae in my back cracked, giving way and settling me…
The saying goes that New York isn’t a city, it’s a world, and I’d have to agree. Everyone belongs. You can’t be too weird, too foreign, too loud, too poor or too friendly. Eccentric? Mundane? There’s a neighborhood for you.…
As I explored Denmark’s capital by bike, I realized I was using the word “cool” with obnoxious frequency and couldn’t help but cringe at my lack of adjectives. But if there’s any city that merits such profuse usage, it’s…
Maastricht is a small Dutch city of 120,000+ residents wedged between Germany and Belgium. It bears the architecture and atmosphere of both a small Belgian village and an elaborate Dutch city, with a twist of modernity. Built around the Meuse river…
The input is constant: the smell of burning flesh; the smorgasbord of curries (heaven for your taste buds and hell for your stomach); buzzing street markets; starving street puppies; overpacked buses; and narrow mountain passes. After nearly four months,…