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Colors of Colorado: Photos from a September Road Trip
Autumn photos from a van trip through Buena Vista, Crested Butte, Ouray, Silverton, and Mesa Verde National Park
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1 Year of Travel Selfies: July & August
I've looped! I booked a flight home for the end of August, meaning that my travel duration has been finalized at fourteen months, or 428 days. That's a lot of selfies! The finish line nears, but some of the best has been saved for last.
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On the Hunt for Big-Nosed Monkeys in Bako National Park
A village on the water teeters on stilts across the way. Soon, the scenery turns to mangrove trees growing right out of the brackish water. We speed along the coast of the peninsula that houses Bako National Park, the water spraying around us.
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Kuching: The White Rajas of Sarawak and a Floating Mosque
My first thought, as my Grab car speeds through the night, is that Kuching is a sharp city. Sharp, clean lines. Paved roads and sidewalks. Even washed in night, it looks clean. The lighting is like what I see at home: bright and white or blue or red. Crisp. It doesn’t flash, like cheap attention grabbers.
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Amazing Angkor Wat and the Churning of the Sea of Milk
July 20-23, 2024 The morning after I arrive in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I wake at 3:55am. I am doing a touristy thing. I am going to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. I don’t really care about the sunrise. In fact, I expect there to be no real sunrise. It’s rainy season and also, it seems like every time I get…
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My Love for Laos Restored by Looms and Rice
A month ago, I read about Living Land Farm in a Lonely Planet Guidebook and immediately clocked it as something I wanted to do. I’d been looking forward to it for several weeks and it lived up to my expectations. At Living Land Farm I learned how to... Grow, harvest, and prepare RICE.
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Laid-Back Laos Loses My Vote
Backpackers love Laos. Usually, when I ask them why, they say things like "it's less touristic." Another version of the same thing that I've heard it "it's more authentic." I understand the push for authenticity, to see how people really live.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Sometimes You’re the Enemy
When I first walked through the turnstile into the courtyard, I wondered if it was a spoils of war museum. The courtyard was lined with US war machinery. US Airforce planes, a chinook helicopter, rows of tanks. A group of ladies in red and yellow Vietnam flag t-shirts lined up in front of several, smiling and posing.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Street Food in Nha Trang
The smoke draws me first. And the crowds. Only after I get closer do I realize this is exactly the little restaurant I am seeking; the big red 51s on the plastic banner above the shop give it away.
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1 Year of Travel Selfies: May & June
May and June were busy and exciting--something new all the time! I explored Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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Death by Starfruit & Other Things I Never Considered
June 22 I’m laying in my hostel dorm bed. I’m on the bottom bunk. My shower towel is draped over the bar by my face like a curtain closing me off from the rest of the room. This is good, because I feel like I’m unraveling. I feel like I can’t relax my limbs. My neck is tight. My heart…
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Not Sweating the Small Stuff in Cat Ba
My first night on Cat Ba Island, I climb the steep hill out of town, walking on the road until I come to a turnoff. I am looking for the sunset spot I'd read about: Cannon Fort.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Morning Castle Hike
I walk the streets of Dong Van town, guessing on the path to take to reach the ruins of a French fortress I'd read about the day before.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Bonds Made on Winding Roads
The countryside we ride through begins to blow my mind. First, as we zoom along the road out of the city of Ha Giang, I think the mountains look like shark teeth.
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Trapped in Ha Giang
I didn’t know anything about Ha Giang until I met my first crew of SE Asia backpackers in Bali. And then my next crew in Flores and the next crew in East Java. Everywhere I went, everywhere I ran into backpackers, there the words were again: “Ha Giang Loop.”
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A Sloppy, Sweaty Trek in Sapa, Vietnam
The drive into Sapa was a cavalcade of buses. And, despite the many switchbacks, they were vying to be first, passing in the shortest of lanes so that often the bus being passed and the vehicle coming from the other direction had to slam on the brakes so the impatient driver could shoot through the gap.
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High Heat and Home Visits in Hanoi, Vietnam
In Hanoi, I walked. And I sweated. Walking at all meant wiping my upper lip, wiping my forehead, feeling water prickle at my hairline, feeling sweat stick my shirt to my back, running down my neck and into the collar of my shirt.
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Good Morning Elephants!
The hum of bugs and the roar of water is interrupted by a bellow from the thick jungled hills. I lower my book onto my lap, raising my gaze from the wild-wood balcony to the green hill beyond. I can hardly believe what I know to be true. It’s the call of an elephant.
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