What Dreams May Come – Those personal favorite moments that explicitly remind you why you went traveling in the first place.
- The Coolest Hotel in Lapland (Literally) February 7, 2026After sneaking in some sugar donuts just in time before Kahvila Lohihovi Oy closed at 5pm, we continued our 2 hour drive south from Ylläs to the Arctic SnowHotel & Glass Igloos, about 30 minutes north of Rovaniemi on the shores of Lake Lehtojärvi. Finland’s Arctic SnowHotel is one of the largest snow and ice hotels ...
- Niger At Last: A Second Chance December 10, 202511 months ago, I sat on the tarmac in Niger’s International Airport at Niamey, watching my trip evaporate due to visa complications. The Niger Embassy in Washington D.C. had stopped issuing visas to Americans entirely. But I don’t give up. In late October 2025, I reconnected with Culture Road’s founder, Rik Brinks and their local contact Yaou ...
- Yemen Day 3: Where Reality Surpasses Dreams at Haid al-Jazil-lion Miles Away From Reality December 4, 2025Haid Al-Jazil As the afternoon began to wane, we continued onto our accommodation for the night at the Haid Al-Jazil Resort Hotel, named after what it overlooks and its location perching dramatically on a cliff overlooking the Wadi Do’an. You’ll find remarkably good tourist infrastructure here, Hadhramaut-style. We settled into basic but clean rooms, each sporting the single ...
FML. – Moments where I /someone/something failed at life and it was pretty funny.
- Niger At Last: A Second Chance December 10, 202511 months ago, I sat on the tarmac in Niger’s International Airport at Niamey, watching my trip evaporate due to visa complications. The Niger Embassy in Washington D.C. had stopped issuing visas to Americans entirely. But I don’t give up. In late October 2025, I reconnected with Culture Road’s founder, Rik Brinks and their local contact Yaou ...
- Gijón and Carry On to Ávila-ista Baby! July 20, 2025Leaving Gijón behind, we continued our journey south, weaving through the lush green hills of Asturias and the wide plains of León, before arriving in the storied, walled city of Ávila. The Journey South Our route today carried us past ancient churches, mountain towns, and sun-soaked plazas—each stop unfolding a different layer of Spain’s history and charm. Iglesia ...
- How to Be Pamp-Blown-Away in One Day — and Survive a Bull Run July 14, 2025We arrived just in time for the final stretch of the San Fermin Festival aka the Running of the Bulls, and we’re therefore diving headfirst into the vibrant chaos of Pamplona during this festival — To get here, I redeemed 90k miles for Business Class on LOT Airlines beginning at JFK airport to board its nightly ...
This Is A Crisis. – Moments where I/someone/something failed at life and it wasn’t really that funny (at least at the time).
- Yemen Day 2/3: Waking Up to A Military Takeover | Shibam Diggity – Where Are Skyscrapers Born? Here, in The Manhattan of the Desert December 4, 2025Day 2 was supposed to start with a morning drive to Al-Mukalla, the seaport and capital city district of Hadramawt. But that plan aged poorly, because we woke up to this instead: Just like my morning of our last day in Kabul in 2019, we woke up to deep groaning rumbles that resembled the thuds of ...
- How to Be Pamp-Blown-Away in One Day — and Survive a Bull Run July 14, 2025We arrived just in time for the final stretch of the San Fermin Festival aka the Running of the Bulls, and we’re therefore diving headfirst into the vibrant chaos of Pamplona during this festival — To get here, I redeemed 90k miles for Business Class on LOT Airlines beginning at JFK airport to board its nightly ...
- Kinshasa My Worries Goodbye! January 9, 2025To get in, you first need a VISA: Download and fill out the visa form: DRC Visa Application Attach required documents One passport-style photograph (2″x2″) taken within last 6 months. Invitation letter from your host OR hotel reservation A printed copy of yellow fever vaccination card. Copy of flight itinerary A copy of the front page of your Passport (bio page only) A valid, ...
“No Serendipity, No Story!” (WTF Moments) – The most wonderful moments in travel are the coincidences we discover with other people.
- For Richer, For Polar February 9, 2026I just woke up to this Arctic sunrise before everyone else in the Airbnb. I took the time to make some scrambled eggs for breakfast, brewed the coffee, and leisurely sat down to write this blog post as I waited for the rest of the group to come to life. What a perfect morning. Once everyone ...
- Yemen Day 4: Mukalla Drive December 5, 2025Al-Mukalla Pulling ourselves away from a desert mirage paradise at Haid Al-Jazil, we swapped our armed guard at another checkpoint during the 2 hour drive to Mukalla. You point that thing away from me! After a long wait at one of the checkpoints, we passed a few makeshift roadblocks (not an accident): As we began to feel the humidity ...
- St. John’s: The Eastern Edge of Everything Everywhere All At Once September 9, 2025Months ago I decided to gift myself a week off after Labor Day…simply because I could. After a year as wild as this past one, I craved actual and intentional self-prioritization to restore some balance. Finding fares under $200, I booked a morning departure: a 1.5-hour United flight (UA 8207) from Newark to Halifax (10:25am to ...
Way Way Off The Beaten Path – Totally out of the box travel experiences; you won’t find these experiences in any guidebooks.
- All Aboard the Santa Claus Express! February 10, 2026I woke up to an Arctic sunrise again, this time to send Mel off on her early flight back at 7:30am; she had to return a day before the rest of us. After she left in an Uber to the airport, I cooked the last of what was left in the fridge at the Airbnb ...
- For Richer, For Polar February 9, 2026I just woke up to this Arctic sunrise before everyone else in the Airbnb. I took the time to make some scrambled eggs for breakfast, brewed the coffee, and leisurely sat down to write this blog post as I waited for the rest of the group to come to life. What a perfect morning. Once everyone ...
- Ylläs Hear Me Out February 6, 2026Day 1: JFK → Paris → Helsinki For a limited-time promotion offering 20% points back on mileage transfers, Mel and I moved 48,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points each into Air France Flying Blue for two business class seats on their NYC to Paris route. Air France recently debuted their new hard product on this route, and ...
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Around The World. . . . – Some stories simply can’t be categorized.
- The Sweet Is Never As Sweet Without The Massawa May 22, 2023We’re skipping ahead from Somaliland to Massawa today, but if you want to read about how we got into Asmara yesterday from Somaliland: read here. After arriving a day later than planned in Asmara from Somaliland and Addis Ababa we quickly had lunch in the capital and immediately drove out in the afternoon for a 120km journey to ...
- Love In The Time Of COVID-19: The Flu Shot September 15, 2020TLDR PSA (look how serious I am); Get the flu shot. While getting the shot may not entirely prevent you from catching flu, it’ll still dramatically decrease your chances of accidentally infecting or killing others (like grandma), or ironically dying from flu yourself. Before COVID-19, patients with flu symptoms would overwhelm ERs every year, all infecting one ...
- Knock-Knock-Nakh-chivan On Heaven’s Door: 2 Days In Nakhchivan August 29, 2018It’s time to shift monsooning back into higher gears — today we’re visiting Nakhchivan! A landlocked exclave separated from Azerbaijan by Armenia (or as some say, physically located within Armenia), but an otherwise autonomous region under the control of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Nakhchivan is similar to exclaves like Alaska (thanks Alan Sedgwick!) and on a level less ...