It still feels like summer on my island—30C and sunny every day, with no sign of letting up. But it’s autumn back in North America. My favourite time of year. Fall is nostalgia distilled into the tangible caress of cool air tinted with the smell of decaying leaves. The comforting pressure of jeans against your skin. A light jacket with many pockets. And a slice of delicately spiced pumpkin pie...
I’ve got Namibia on the brain these past few days. I just finished writing photo captions for a story about a self-drive trip I did last December. It’ll be the main feature in the next issue of Outpost magazine. Driving my own Land Rover Defender all over Namibia definitely ranks up there with the best trips I’ve ever taken. I was free to explore the desert at my own pace. I was self-contained...
If you’re on my email list, you know I was planning to spend part of October trekking a remote plateau in Algeria. Well, Algeria’s one of those countries most people need a visa to enter. I’ve heard getting one in person requires a healthy dose of table pounding and beady eyed stares. Getting one from a distance is an even more impressive comedy of errors. It goes a little something like...
I’ve got several new updates for you from Murdland. This is such exciting stuff my poor head is reeling with it. Voice from Another Room: …it’s probably just the gin… Nevermind smart guy! Anyway, yeah, I’d like to tell you about a few of the things I’ve been up to. And this is probably the best place to spill it all at once. So shake up the classic cocktail of your choice… Feed...
The tiny island of Lampedusa is an Italian territory lost in the middle of the Mediterranean, just 113 short kilometers from Tunisia. It’s the main island in the Pelagic group and is governmentally attached to Sicily—though the island’s 4,500 residents will tell you they see themselves as Lampedusan first and feel little to no affinity for the rest. I have a longstanding fascination with the...
I lost one of the two most important people in my life today. I’d like to take a moment to tell you about her. Dashiell first came into my life when she was 2 weeks old. I was in my third year of university, and she was so small I could hold her in the palm of my hand. We’d always had cats when I was a child, but I really had no intention of getting a cat of my own. My girlfriend at the time was...
My Spanish road trip wound up in the vibrant seaside city of Barcelona. It’s a city of tree-lined streets, busy neighbourhoods and architecture that seems to melt and flow even as you’re watching it. I liked the place because it has a cocktail culture. Residents stop for a drink on their way home from work. And classic cocktails aren’t just on the menu—they’re actually ordered. I liked the...
My Catalonian road trip continued from Andorra down to Cap Creus and the Mediterranean. The problem became how to find meaningful, marginal places on a stretch as overrun with tourists as the Costa Brava. After a long winding drive through tiny back roads in the Pyrenees, we cruised into the sudden suburb outskirts of big box stores, traffic lights, motels and rental car window stickers. We based...
Andorra is a very strange place. It’s the 6th smallest country in Europe, hidden away in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. It’s a Principality formed in 1278—but the role of monarch falls to two joint “princes”: the Catalan Bishop of Urgell and the President of France. Its people have the 4th highest life expectancy in the world, kicking off on average at the ripe old age of 82. It’s the...
I was trying to think of something I could do to mark the occasion of my 40th birthday. Something I could offer to the readers of my blog. And then I thought about what I’d like to do for my younger self. If I could somehow dig a hole through time, poke my head through a mirror and speak into my former lives, what sort of advice would I give myself? What would it have made my life easier to know...