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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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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 isn’t racing, but it’s pulsing, quick and steady. I hate it. I hate that I am afraid. And I hate that this isn’t a fear I can face head on, like my fear of heights. I can’t jump off a bridge. Because this is a fear that has no solidity,…
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Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam: Trapped in Ha Giang
This is my Solo Travel Snapshots in Vietnam Series: 1/12. 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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Dragons & Mermaids – An Adventure in Komodo National Park
Small boats bobbed around the pier, shoving to get forward, to get close enough to the pier that passengers could stumble aboard or that luggage could be tossed onto the deck. But there was no order, just who could squeeze into which sliver empty space.
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Ducking Ropes and Slippery Slopes in Piha
I've heard it said that the west coast of New Zealand on the North and South Islands alike is the "wild west." The waves are bigger, the coasts are rockier, the people are fewer. Piha, about a 45 minute drive from Auckland through the Waitakere Ranges, proved much of this to be true. The black sand beach's most prominent feature is Lion Rock, which rises out of a sea of sand and a sea of waves to tower above the beach and the town. The waves beyond crashed and smashed and thundered, tossing and frothing like a herd of wildebeests.
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Over the Edge: Reflections on Selfies, Hand Prints, and Solo Travel
About a year ago, an article popped up on my Instagram feed about the discovery of a new cave with early history cave paintings, one of which was a handprint. This is not unusual. Handprints are a common form of cave painting. What stuck with me was that the consulted archeologist, when asked about the single handprint, shrugged and said the hand-print maker was perhaps only trying to say, “I was here.” Because I'm traveling on my own, the only way I get to say “I was here” is to have a photo of me in that spot.
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Covid Catastrophe in the Czech Republic
I can't say that I didn't know any better. But we thought we were untouchable. We thought the chaos wending it's way through the world was ridiculous. There was no precedent for everything shutting down. Surely in a week or two everything would be back to normal. Do you remember when we all thought that?
