#3 bad day in bangladesh ::
When you travel a lot you’re often asked the same two questions: What’s your favorite country? and, What’s the worst place you’ve ever been? I always refuse to answer the first question because I don’t...
View Article#4 marathon travel training ::
It was in the middle of the night in Benin in 2001 when I cooked up the idea to run a marathon in Amsterdam. I was living on a ship in Africa, and bad relationship induced insomnia had me tossing and...
View Article#5 celebrating sevens ::
A few of my friends and I have an obsession with the number seven. There isn’t any remarkable numerological reason, but when 07/07/07 rolled around, we were determined to make it special. Obsessed with...
View Article#6 good morning vietnam ::
Friends don’t let friends take drugs in a mini-van. While real drugs have never been one of my travel vices, many of my travel mis-adventures have been fueled by a little blue pill: the...
View Article#7 souvenir scars & doctors on motos::
I’ve been hanging out in Manila and beyond recently, so it’s fitting that our next travel story, and a fairly recent one at that, comes from the Phlippines. The telling of this story often starts after...
View Article#8 latvia beyond expectations ::
In my years of travel thus far, something I’ve come to accept about myself is that I don’t like to set expectations for new places I’m going. One silly way I do this is by doing very little to no...
View Article#9 dancing the airport tango ::
In Argentina I discovered the Tango. Its quickstep and seduction, the passionate exchange of push and pull and its confident footwork. Unfortunately, the only tango I did in Argentina was in the...
View Article#10 farking in vietnam
I took a run early this morning through the windy streets of Hanoi’s old quarter and made my way north to the city’s wide boulevards lined with government buildings. As I neared the Ho Chi Minh...
View Article#11: heatstoke, half marathons & hills worth dying on
After a lot of travel injuries and an extended running hiatus, recently I’ve gotten back on my feet and have finished 1/2 marathons in Cuba, Cambodia and Bangkok. “How (and why) do you run races in the...
View Article#12: Alpine Driving School
Twenty. That’s how old I was in the winter of 1994 when I returned to Europe on my very first international mileage reward trip. While I was smart enough to figure out how to wrangle an award ticket...
View Article#13: Lessons from a Barcelona parking garage
Remember when I nearly died learning to drive a standard shift car while backpacking around the Alps? That trip made me a little wiser, but maybe not wise enough. Rather than thanking my lucky stars...
View ArticleBig Mountain. Small Steps.
To kick off the small story month, I figure it would be appropriate to share a small adventure I had over Christmas up Mt. Kilimanjaro. When I left Cambodia in December, I made a small pitstop in...
View ArticleThe Moral of the Mountain
I promise I won’t tell a story about Kilimanjaro every day for the rest of this small month, but since it was such a big experience I hope you’ll indulge me at least a few more. I fear I may have...
View ArticleThe Invisible Journey
As our flight drew near to Kilimanjaro’s JRO airport for landing, I was glued to the window of 27A, camera in hand, waiting to get the first sight and first shot of the mountain we’d traveled so far to...
View ArticleValley Views
All my small stories this week have been about my quest to reach the top of Kilimanjaro, but today’s lesson comes from a much less exciting and more mysterious place: the valley. Perhaps it is my...
View ArticleTo the Summit and Beyond
We laid in the tent half sleeping, half scared to death. Outside it was thundering and inside my heart was beating nearly as loudly. It was summit night. Our instructions were to eat dinner and try to...
View ArticlePack Light but Carry Your Sense of Humor
If you’ve ever moved overseas you know that one thing more stressful than transoceanic economy class flying is transoceanic economy class relocating. This is equivalent to taking your entire life and...
View ArticleShips, Ships, Ships & Weathering the Storm
Long ago I spent five years living on a ship. It was a pretty amazing ship, full of fabulous people all committed to helping people as it sailed around Africa. I was reminiscing about life on this ship...
View Article#17 Missing in Malaga: How to Lose a Landrover
Remember when I lost my rental car in Barcelona? Well, there must be something about the air in Spain that makes me lose my sense of direction. I find myself in whirlwinds a lot (probably because I...
View Article#18 Rainy Day Wave Riding in Cambodia
It’s wet outside where I am wandering today, and the weather has me reminiscing about rainy days in Cambodia. Since it helps to laugh when the sky is grey, here’s an embarrassing tale about mixing...
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