The moon shone, a white orb in the sky above the parking garage rooftop in Asheville. Nelson and I sat in empty parking spaces, our adventure vehicles parked haphazardly across spaces in front of us, cherry tobacco smoke pouring from the corncob pipes were were smoking. It was Monday night in North Carolina, the kind of night […]
Montañita, September 1, 2016 I woke up around 5 PM, my entire body feeling like I had been beaten with a club. I had spent the last few hours sleeping on and off, in between waking and throwing all the covers off because of my high fever, then waking up again freezing to try and […]
The cab raced through the darkened streets, pausing only now and again to roll one way or the other to avoid a pot hole or swing around a traffic circle. It was 2 AM, and almost every storefront lining the street was dark, their metaled and graffitied doors closed until the next morning. All of […]
Cape Town 2012 There’s a certain spot in Cape Town where the road suddenly dips and there she is— the Mother City spread like a carpet to the sea, Table Mountain looming in darkness and the city aglitter. In October 2012, I crested that hill for the first time, windows down and the summer breeze […]
For the last 333 days, I’ve been hunkered down in Baltimore, USA, after falling into a full-time job by accident. I wasn’t looking for anything permanent, just something temporary to make some money while I was in town last year for my sister’s wedding. “We have an opening at Under Armour for an Interactive Designer, […]
One of the biggest challenges on any trip when there’s equipment involved is “how do I get it there?” Exactly one year ago, before starting my cycling trip across Europe, I was asking myself the same question. I assumed at first I would just ship my bike from the US to Portugal, pick it up […]
I could barely keep my eyes open as I wandered down the long corridor through the airport in Lisbon. Would my bike be waiting for me at the baggage claim? I had been traveling for 35 hours, and before that, had been up late the night before having a minor panic attack thinking about the […]
For Thanksgiving this year, I’m doing something a little different. I’m heading to Dolly Sods, West Virginia, USA for a cold weather backpacking trip with one of my friends. Dolly Sods has one of the most varied temperature ranges on the east coast due to its range of elevation and geographical location, and I wouldn’t […]
1. Backpack. My pack of choice is this Osprey Aura 50. Osprey packs fit me well and last virtually forever (I’ve beat my daypack to hell for the past 10 years, and it’s still trucking). Mine is a 50 liter, because I’m not a big human. For a tall guy, a 60 liter could be […]
Kaolack, Senegal 2012 I pulled strands of dusty hair out of my eyes, squinting into the sun, my arm hanging out the open window of the sept plus in rural Senegal. The sept plus, French for ‘seven more’, a dilapidated station wagon in which seven people and all their luggage were stuffed, was headed towards […]
