What Dreams May Come – Those personal favorite moments that explicitly remind you why you went traveling in the first place.

  • Nature’s Last Stand: It’s Only A Matter of Príncipe! January 8, 2024
      After a 10 day long roadtrip across the coast along the Gulf of Guinea and a day to recover in Accra, we flew out on an afternoon 4:10pm TP1527 TAP Portugal flight from Accra to TMS airport in São Tomé, one of the least visited countries in the world.     But not before checking out all 3 ...
  • “La-go”s to Nigeria! December 29, 2023
      We shall not be deterred by obscure visa rules! Despite numerous people having signed up and then become demoralized by the concerns over safety as a tourist in Nigeria, the 3 of us remaining — Letti, Sandy, and myself — decided to forge ahead to make it here anyway. If it weren’t so hard to ...
  • Tender-ife November 27, 2023
        The original plan was supposed to be Libya in November. But due to world events and the difficulty of obtaining visas in time, I didn’t want to try to push my luck that I had enjoyed 16 times over with Syria the month prior. So I moved Libya in April and had to come up ...
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FML. – Moments where I /someone/something failed at life and it was pretty funny.

  • Please Notice Me, Saipan! February 26, 2024
      From Palau, and having snuck in 4 hours of sleep from 8pm-midnight, we boarded the 2:05am United Airlines Flight #158 to Guam, landing at 5:10am underslept and miserable.     Since Guam is a U.S. territory, transiting in Guam work as if you were entering the U.S. Therefore, you have to endure the through the whole visa/global entry/customs/etc. ...
  • More Than Blood, “Badagry,” or Your College Degree… December 30, 2023
      With 2 full days in Lagos behind us, the 3 of us began our West Africa roadtrip westwards with a 2 hour and 45 minute’s drive from Lagos to Badagry. About half an hour into the drive, Sapphire Residences texted me on What’s App saying they just found I had left behind a bunch of important ...
  • La Gran Canaria In The Coalmine November 29, 2023
      The plan was to get up at 8:30am, pick up our rental car parked on the street to drive to the airport by 9:15am, and board our 10:45am flight from Tenerife North Airport to La Palmas, Gran Canaria. However, in true adventure monsoon fashion everything went wrong at the same time…and somehow getting resolved just as ...
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This Is A Crisis. – Moments where I/someone/something failed at life and it wasn’t really that funny (at least at the time).

  • Onboard the Choo-Chuuk Plane March 3, 2024
      Here we go! I finally get to experience the United Airlines famed Pacific island hopper in the other direction after taking a part of it 4 years ago. Probably the most burning question is where to sit: If you’re flying from GUM to HNL (eastwards), sit on the right side for all the legs and then switch ...
  • The Pacific Island Hopper: UA 133/155 March 3, 2024
      Here we go! I finally get to experience the United Airlines famed Pacific island hopper in the other direction after taking a part of it 4 years ago. Probably the most burning question is where to sit: If you’re flying from GUM to HNL (eastwards), sit on the right side for all the legs and then switch ...
  • Feelin’ Like A “Malabo”ratory Experiment January 13, 2024
      Our marathon tour and last foray across West Africa ends in Malabo on the island of Bioko, the capital city of Equatorial Guinea. From Douala, we boarded a ET913 flight at 12:35pm, landing in Malabo at SSG airport after only 20 minutes in the air at 1:20pm in the afternoon.     We were able to obtain our e-visas ...
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“No Serendipity, No Story!” (WTF Moments) – The most wonderful moments in travel are the coincidences we discover with other people.

  • Can’t Stop Yappin’ About Yap Day March 2, 2024
        With Guam behind us, we flew on our midnight United Airlines flight 185 out to Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia, landing at around 1:30am in the morning.     Yap is one of the 4 states of Micronesia and the land of stone money (more on that later), the original cryptocurrency.     At the airport there’s only two ...
  • Feelin’ Like A “Malabo”ratory Experiment January 13, 2024
      Our marathon tour and last foray across West Africa ends in Malabo on the island of Bioko, the capital city of Equatorial Guinea. From Douala, we boarded a ET913 flight at 12:35pm, landing in Malabo at SSG airport after only 20 minutes in the air at 1:20pm in the afternoon.     We were able to obtain our e-visas ...
  • More Than Blood, “Badagry,” or Your College Degree… December 30, 2023
      With 2 full days in Lagos behind us, the 3 of us began our West Africa roadtrip westwards with a 2 hour and 45 minute’s drive from Lagos to Badagry. About half an hour into the drive, Sapphire Residences texted me on What’s App saying they just found I had left behind a bunch of important ...
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Way Way Off The Beaten Path – Totally out of the box travel experiences; you won’t find these experiences in any guidebooks.

  • Conjuring Some Majuro-ic March 3, 2024
      After we took off from Pohnpei, we continued on United Airlines’ island hopper Flight 133, which flies on Sundays and Wednesdays. Pro-tip: if you fly on the Wednesday schedule, you’ll be lucky to add on a stop in Kosrae, another island of the Micronesia island hopping airport chain:     After that it’s Micronesia’s last stop at Kwajalein, home to ...
  • The Pohnpei That Survived The Volcano March 3, 2024
    After new passengers from Chuuk boarded, I finally got my chance to pee as they close the bathrooms during landing for cleaning. Delayed gratification.  We then forged ahead to Pohnpei, taking off at 12:10pm. I recommend sitting on the right side when landing if heading east from TKK to PNI.     Not to be confused with Pompeii of Italy, ...
  • Onboard the Choo-Chuuk Plane March 3, 2024
      Here we go! I finally get to experience the United Airlines famed Pacific island hopper in the other direction after taking a part of it 4 years ago. Probably the most burning question is where to sit: If you’re flying from GUM to HNL (eastwards), sit on the right side for all the legs and then switch ...
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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, 2023
      We’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, 2020
    TLDR 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, 2018
      It’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 ...
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