d.i.y. travel

And Then You Realize Why

November 23, 2013 Colombia
Colombia - Cartagena to Medellin Magic

This cab I’m in sounds like it’s about three putt-putts away from breaking down in the outskirts of Cartagena. It’s dark, I’m by myself, and I have all my luggage with me. I’m freaking out. The driver assures me we’ll make it to my destination as even the slowest buses zoom by us, leaving us […]

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The Rough Road to Santa Marta, Colombia

October 9, 2013 backpacking

Bananas. That’s all I see for miles as we drive though some unknown location in Northern Colombia as day begins to gain strength over night. Bananas. That’s how I feel after about a dozen hours cramped up in a night bus with the air conditioning inexplicably blasting on us while we shiver. One member of […]

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Wanderful Words No. 30: Adventure as a Destiny

August 24, 2013 Colombia
Adventurer by Fate

“And how did you get around the country?” my coworker asks me after I’d filled him in on most of my basic Colombia trip details. “Entirely by bus,” I respond, waiting for him to grimace in response. He is a seasoned traveler who tends to seek out a more luxury travel experience. Although he hasn’t […]

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Escape from Cat Ba

May 28, 2013 d.i.y. travel
SE Asia 677

I woke up before dawn, unaware that the day would bring definitive moments to my life as a solo traveler. A few of us had decided to leave Cat Ba early to spend a little more time in Hanoi and I had opted to do the journey on my own. I took a walk along […]

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How to Make the Most of Two Days in Sihanoukville, Cambodia

April 20, 2013 Cambodia
SE Asia 248

1. Arrive in Sihanoukville during a tropical rainstorm.  Ride it out in your guesthouse’s cafe. When the storm passes, take a walk to the beach and immediately see that your guidebook wasn’t fully honest when describing the scene in Sihanoukville. Beaches that were described as “sandy” and “happening” for lack of better euphemistic words should […]

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The Raw, Consuming Beauty of Namibia

January 10, 2013 d.i.y. travel
Desert scenery in Namibia

Namibia is not a place to take a vacation. It’s a place to delve into beauty, undoubtedly—an alien beauty arising from dust and sand. It’s a place to have the boundaries of your mind expanded by nature’s lack of boundaries; by the great absence of anything or by the presence of something in the most […]

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To Know Emptiness: Stories of Driving Around Namibia

November 25, 2012 d.i.y. travel
Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn in Namibia

One time while I was traveling, I felt like I was exploring a potential future. It wasn’t in some angular futuristic metropolis of Eastern Asia, it was in Varanasi, India, one of the world’s oldest cities. I remember the crowdedness, sitting in cars while drivers tried to move through masses of humanity, the buildings stacked […]

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Into the Great Wide Open Spaces of Namibia: An Introduction

September 3, 2012 d.i.y. travel
Namibia - Approaching Windhoek

One day your mother calls you to say that she’s been accepted into the Peace Corps. And she’s being placed in Namibia. As soon as she tells you, she correctly guesses that you’re already planning your visit. You share the news with your friends. Many of them are puzzled. “Um, where’s Namibia?” they ask. You […]

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